Thanks for answering, but I'm afraid you're going to do some explaining. I think backlit screens are the ones who have LEDs or something else behind, providing light and limiting the visibility angle, like some of today's LCDs. Non-backlit screens are probably the kind found on digital clocks and watches. Question is, were non-backlit LCDs ever used on laptops? And more specifically, on 386 laptops? This one is from 1992 apparently. LCD bias supply - I have no idea what that is. It has analog dials for controlling brightness and contrast. They work but I remember that when toying with any of them, it doesn't affect the variations in brightness (the laptop is now in the hands of that reluctant repairman). If you dismantle the laptop, the screen comes off as a hefty chunk that includes those two dials. I have never had the guts to try and dismantle that chunk individually. It's connected to the motherboard via wires similar to the wires composing floppy disk drive ribbon cables or the good old 40-pin hard disk drive ribbon cables. However, they are not composed in a ribbon. Also, they group in two or three connectors on the motherboard. I think there's also an anti-interference ring on them. Should I get the laptop from the guy and take pictures or scan parts of it with an actual paper sheet scanner? On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 6:30 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote: -- Alex Lovin - www.erasereality.3x.ro

Oh yes, you could definitely use it in the dark. That's what I forgot to add. It is definitely backlit. On Fri, Oct 9, 2009 at 8:24 AM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:

On 9 Oct 2009 at 11:04, Alexandru Lovin wrote: The first site I gave you is probably the best bet. If you're desperate, they can even make CCFLs to your custom order. Most likely, they have your size in stock. I'm afraid that LEDs aren't the answer here. They work well for small screens such as that on your mobile phone, but a laptop (or desktop) screen requires a lot of light. --Chuck

On 10 Oct 2009 at 0:41, Alexandru Lovin wrote: You didn't say where in the world you were located. I'm sure that there must be someone close enough to you. I'm sure it's nothing as exotic as PCI for a 386SX laptop. It could well be a version of ISA, but some devices used their own bus implementation, so it's difficult to say. The question is more of "who would want to design a board for a little-known vintage laptop?" Given sufficient monetary impetus, you could certainly find someone to do it, but otherwise, why would anyone want to do it? I think it's a better use of your time to enjoy the thing for what it is, not what it was never intended to be. --Chuck

Oh and one more thing, Sir. When I said I don't want a flame war, I didn't mean we should stop talking. I meant that's the way I see things - if you give me a 286 motherboard, I'll be looking for the best CPU for that board and all the features present in modern computers: sound card, network card, video card, tv tuner, etc. I'm hoping to get a hint answer from you: ok, you want all those over-the-top modifications. I think this man (or this company) can help you. What are the prices for a 386 DX laptop? Does anyone have one of those / is willing to sell it? I don't need the battery to be functional, nor do I care about the CPU speed (if it's a 386DX that's enough for me). I'll just plug it in and run many old things on it, after upgrading it as much as possible. I don't care about the brand, either. I need it to have basic things like a hard drive, a floppy drive and maybe a modem (I'm not keen on serial cables or laplink cables, really). I am interested in as much RAM as possible, however. Even if it has 2 MB of RAM but can be upgraded to 8-10-16-32 or whatever, it's better than a laptop having 1 or 2 MB base memory, upgraded to 4, but impossible to upgrade further. I also really need it to have an LCD screen. Grayscale, of course. I'm not even thinking of a colour screen because I know LCDs were far from colors at that time. But if it had a CRT screen (although, as far as I know that was over with 8086 or 80286 laptops) it would be very hard to find a replacement, should the original fail. You can get a custom made LCD but I can't imagine there is someone left on the planet making CRTs. I apologize if I offended you, Sir. On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 1:51 AM, Alexandru Lovin <thypope at gmail.com> wrote:

Ok, Sir, you want me to do explaining? I will do explaining then. With all the respect I owe to everyone subscribed to this list. The problem that you are going to run into, is that those WITH those The same Mr. Guzis (yes, he's an exceptionally respectable man, I noticed, but I didn't know he is usually busy) told me that enough money should grease my own projects that I have little to no expertise in. So it's a question of finding the right man and having enough money to do all that. Why do I even need a 386SX laptop at 20 MHz to have USB via the LPT port and a custom card to act as a network card and as much RAM as I can give to it ? Simple. Testing the limits. I want to test what hardware Windows installs on. A 386 won't get farther than Win95 and apparently '98 (by running Win98 setup using "setup.exe /nm"). I'm not forgetting Linux but that one is much more modular so I guess even the latest versions would probably allow the compiling of the kernel for a 386SX or DX. I asked for someone to sell me a 386DX laptop. Mr. Guzis kindly guided me to another website. It seems that a gentleman who has his own page on classiccmp (a Mr. Dunfield) has put a Eurocom Note3300 up for sale in September 2008 (along with other old laptops). I'm just hoping he still has it because he asked for $10 for it, which is absolutely cheap. Why all this old hardware? A while ago, I sent an e-mail to this same list, asking if people would be interested in having computers with more than one old processors. Like a system with 16 AMD 386DX-40 CPUs and a lot of RAM. Or a newly-made Altair 8800 with 32 Z80 CPUs at 20 MHz or so. The ones who did answer were not very interested in the idea. But I still want to do it. Of course, it requires digging for old hardware everywhere I can find it, ask around for specs, ask investors if they want to finance the idea... Wanna know the results? I still have Hercules 8-bit graphics card I paid about 100$ for, including shipping, from the US, in the original USPS box and with the sponge shock absorbers. That one will most probably fit the Altair 8800's S-100 bus and will be able to do graphics, although this thing might be able to display colours in some sort of clone of the CGA mode (it's talk to an expert, prefferably from the old Hercules team itself. I need to make a new video chipset, able to display the Hercules graphics mode but in the resolutions of today, far beyond the original. I have detailed specs of what to put in which system and how to make them cluster computers. Of course. But investors barely understand the idea. Except for one or two Americans (who were really out of time to discuss this) and one Danish man (who was out of money). How about that. The current idea is to open up a garage that converts old people's cars to electric or hybrid. I thankfully already found an investor for this one, but I'm still writing the business plan because there are so many parts I have to take care of - engines, batteries (know of any "molten-salt" or Lithium-Cobalt oxide battery makers?) and even the wires to connect the batteries between themselves. Make enough money, move on to making new, standalone electric vehicles. Then establish the other company, start buying rights to remanufacture the old chips I need. Already talked to an Intel representative in Romania, he said Intel doesn't license x86 chips to others. I told him we would specify in the agreement that we only want to re-create the CPUs and not become a competitor, in all the ways a lawyer team could find. He didn't have an answer for that. Asked if I could call him later on about this idea (he was an analyst managing/filtering projects to be funded by them, and I went to him with this proposal). He said sure. He added that AMD does license x86 products to others. Ah-hah. Great. So the licensing of the K6-III+ at 450 MHz will be easier (for a system with 8 of these) or the Athlon 64 x2 Black Edition at 3100 MHz (for a system with four of these) or the 386DX-40, or the Turion 64 ML-44. Also, this means I'll have to get all of Intel's CPUs in one shot, because he thinks that will cannibalize Intel's own market, which it might. I managed to find an old 16-bit Linux and an 8-bit OS (made for the Commodore 64 apparently) that resembles Linux. I have the bookmarks on another computer. A few tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands or millions) of Euros later, they will all be made to run on multiple processors. Same for FreeDOS and ReactOS. I didn't get a good soldering iron yet, but I will someday. Romanians use soldering "guns," called so because they actually look like hand pistols, made during the communist times. They're still made somewhere and still sold, complete with the body and handle made of ebonite (I'm not sure that's what you call it in English, it's that material looking like plastic but much more resistant to mechanic shock and high temperatures than plastic). Cheap, too - about 1.5$ if I recall correctly. Right. No, I'll tell you what I need. I need one of those big scanners who are able to give you a detailed print of ALL the connections inside a given PCB, including the discreet chips on the PCB for one of those 3D views of all the connections. I don't need to know how to solder, I need to know what to find and where to find it. I could then send that 3D view to my Aussie friend and he'd be able to decipher it and tell me what I need to know. He told me how to bridge sixteen 286 motherboards - via expanded memory controllers, because expanded memory works in blocks. Starting with the 386DX system, it would all be easier because you can build a PCI to PCI bridge. The Intel analyst also told me that redesigning an existing northbridge or CPU costs millions, so redesigning chipsets to accomodate more CPUs is not an option. But since he wasn't interested in the idea, I didn't tell him about PCI to PCI bridges or hardware EMS controllers for the 16-bit systems. I'm with you on that. But there's absolutely no time to become a world-class soldering man like the motherboard guy is (he replaced the original tip of his soldering gun with a bent nail and he can replace SMD chipsets with that). I have to do something to earn money, and the job diversity around here is probably exponentially bleaker than it is in the US. Wanna do game design? Up yours. Wanna do this? Ok, you're hired. You get 330$ monthly and you get the opportunity to spend 8 hours at the office, usually more! In this case, I really prefer doing something that puts my brain to work like converting cars to electric or hybrid. As far as I know, every year there are international Olympics in Math, Physics, Latin and whatnot. My associate made it to the national phase in highschool. Twice, if I'm not mistaking. I still had to explain twice or three times the concept of making a Diesel-electric car: the Diesel engine runs at all times, the battery capacity needs to be enough to feed the electric motor and that's basically it. No gearbox, except for the front-wheel drive cars, in which case we'll probably block it into the gear where the ratio is 1:1. So, I got used to people not understanding what I want to do or why. I didn't want to bore you with such a lengthy e-mail, so I wasn't too keen on explaining all this. The company re-making vintage computers would be established for an unlimited amount of time and it would produce Altairs with Z80 CPUs, 286, 386, Pentium Overdrives and Pentium II Overdrives, K6-III+, Pentium III-S, Pentium IV single cores (for the socket 478 and 775), Athlon 64 X2, Phenom X3, Core 2 Duo and Quad, Turion 64 ML-44 and Core 2 Duo and Quad for mobile computers, forever. Yeah, an apprentice is definitely necessary in this case. But thank you - I haven't really thought of that. Even such a tiny detail is important. Thank you for baring with me and reading all this.

I think that a better forum for this might be the Vintage Computer Forum (http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/). It tends to specialize more in later systems and does have topics both for hardware technical support as well as vintage laptops. Very likely, you can find another owner of your system to chat with. Best regards, Chuck