Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-17, 21:09
It's ABS Always Breaks Surely
Re: What do you drive?
Posted on 2025-03-17, 08:11
I still drive my Oldsmobile Intrigue, but it won't be driven until I save enough money to buy a new thermostat housing assembly, a belt, and 3 gallons worth of Dex-Cool ready to use coolant since my water pump is leaking (I have a new one in my house that I bought years ago). Hope I can afford the …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-17, 07:56
Bottom tier I would add Cirrus Logic & Silicon Motion to the Bottom tier. Piece of junk! My luck is just not very good at the moment. Unfortunately, many Taiwanese laptops are garbage, didn't you know? It's more that it has the Maestro-2 audio (and not the Audiodrive), than the build quality. In …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-17, 07:42
I got another Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325Lc that is in much better condition than the other one I had. The corrosion was just starting and I was able to neutralize it and rig the battery that I made for the other laptop for this one externally. I recapped the logic boards, the display, and …
PMD-5500 laptop sound card: what do these DIP switches do?
Posted on 2025-03-04, 16:28
I have this PMD-5500 laptop with this sound card that has a CS4231A-KL with OPL3 YMF-262M and with the current configuration and the DOS driver, the floppy drive goes south when restarting the machine until I shut off the laptop and turn it back, whether running Windows 95 or DOS mode. 20250228_ …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-04, 08:06
The floppy drive doesn't want to be detected after restarting from either DOS mode or Windows 95 (when booting from the hard drive). I'm not sure if it's a bug with the system or a capacitor took a shit. Not taking the laptop apart again due to brittle plastic.. Figured it was a buggy sound card …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-04, 04:21
Sadly, it's 640x480 for the display. Ironically, I can set the resolution to 800x600 and move the mouse around to go around the screen. For the price I paid for this laptop, I can't complain. Except for the brittle plastic. But other than that, with a GamePort, I can hook up my MIDI boxes to it and …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-04, 04:12
Yeah, I just opened the whole quoted thread. I put it on a diskette and tested it on two Pentium laptops: DGi FMA7600 and the PMD-5500. I typed in 54XSET OD and launched a game. No longer stretched, so I added the command to autoexec.bat to see how it performs. Going to see if Windows 9X would …
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-04, 03:38
Is there a utility for making the display not get stretched while playing DOS games?
Re: The quest for the perfect retro laptop: a saga
Posted on 2025-03-03, 04:59
Got a PMD-5500 Pentium-90 laptop with a TFT display and CS4123 sound chip with an OPL3 FM synthesizer on it. It boots to strictly DOS command and I was able to copy game files over to the 810MB IBM hard drive. The downside is the stretched display with DOS games and I couldn't find anything in the …
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Posted on 2025-03-02, 05:19
Starting the recap process for the Zenith Data Systems Z-Note 325Lc I got recently that's in far better shape than the other one I had for a year. I recapped the Sharp display with SMD tantalums from Console5 (sold for the PowerBook 180C that uses the same display) and took off the cap for the …
Re: Bought this (Modern) hardware today
Posted on 2025-02-20, 04:31
Got an XYZPrinting Da Vinci Jr 1.0 at a thrift store for $24.99 I'll give it a whirl in my basement after work by printing a cigar ashtray and see how it comes out and order some better filament for it. 20250218_231404.jpg 20250218_231504.jpg It needs a good cleaning, but for $24.99, I can't …
How can I output the CGA video from my Bondwell B310@60Hz?
Posted on 2025-02-14, 03:12
Here's the scoop: I modified my Sharp 13L-M100B to allow RGB video, which works great with my game consoles, except for one thing: my Bondwell B310 laptop. The laptop lacks a composite output and I made an adapter to convert the H-sync and V-sync to C-sync using OR and XOR chips alike. Unfortunately …
Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread
Posted on 2025-01-30, 01:06
My plan is to build a cable to connect the system to my 13" Sharp TV set that I'll be adding RGB to in the future (I replaced several caps in the set and it works) with both RCA for RGB and a 9-pin cable with both H and V sync tied to C-sync.
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Posted on 2025-01-30, 01:00
Since last week, I went to work on a Bondwell B310 laptop that I paid $30 for at a thrift store. The main issue was the display was acting weird, and I figured those LongLife capacitors took a piss. So, I decided to recap the whole system since the other caps had probably thousands of hours, and …
Re: Retro Rig Photo Thread
Posted on 2025-01-30, 00:06
Bondwell B310. Paid $30 at a thrift store for it, replaced every single capacitor on this thing, and it boots without issues. The display contrast slider needs repairs since it acts a bit goofy at times. Filename 20250124_231055.jpg File size 253.96 KiB Views 733 views File license Fair use/fair …
Bondwell B310 restoration
Posted on 2025-01-28, 15:36
4 days ago, I decided to go to a thrift store and I saw this Bondwell B310 laptop for $30. I decided, what the heck, I'll buy it and see if it works. When I tested it initially, the display had weird lines and some of the text wasn't there and one side was a darker shade of blue as well (the display …
Re: How hard is it to find retro/vintage computer hardware where you live?
Posted on 2025-01-28, 08:23
About a few days ago, I saw a Bondwell B310 in a display case at a thrift store for $30. I bought it the next day, brought it inside, and tested it. I figured the display was having issues and upon further inspection (as always), 2 leaked capacitors (LongLife brand) and after replacing every …
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Posted on 2025-01-24, 02:07
Bought this Bondwell B310 at a thrift store (needs a charger brick and it'll get inspected and repaired before fully testing it). 20250123_141252.jpg 20250123_141255.jpg My ultimate goals are to give the display a major upgrade to an IPS, HDD replaced with flash storage, design or find a sound card …
Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today
Posted on 2025-01-07, 03:24
Bought two cool Apple systems. Macintosh Quadra 605 (needs repair, which means a recap and cleaning the board) Filename s-l1600.png File size 1.11 MiB Views 1262 views File license Fair use/fair dealing exception Macintosh PowerBook 180 (dying LCD, which might be cap problems, but it shouldn't be …
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