First post, by Zack_H
- Rank
- Newbie
The very first Windows 3.1 computer I ever owned was an Epson ActionNote 500C. I found it at a thrift store almost 10-years-ago. I was mesmerized by how old and primitive of a laptop it was, and really liked it a lot. I was quite young at the time, so when the screen eventually failed on it, I had no clue how to repair it, and it eventually got thrown out. I now know the screen fault was from failing SMD capacitors, but even if I had known that then, I had no clue how to solder, so it would have done little good.
Then roughly three-years-later, I got a second one off of eBay, and while it worked fine, it wasn't in the greatest condition. I had been using this one up until just a few days ago.
So I finally bought another a little over a week ago, and it arrived a couple of days ago. This machine was sold as "turns on but screen doesn't come on," so when I got the laptop, I figured out that the screen was working, but the backlight wasn't. Turned out to be a capacitor on the inverter board that leaked and rotted a trace, so once that was repaired, the backlight shined once again!
Then came the second issue, the image on the screen of the "new" ActionNote was terrible. Very shadowy, way more than it should be, even on a single-scan passive-matrix LCD. The reason for this is failing capacitors on the LCD panel (same issue that killed my original ActionNote). I do actually remember that the image-quality got worse and worse on my original one before the display died, so it all makes sense now.
So I took the screen from the ActionNote I already had, and installed it into the new one. This screen also needs a recap, but the image is okay for now on it. I will be recapping the original LCD soon and putting that back in.
This ActionNote I just got also came with the original Logitech TrackMan trackball, which I didn't have before. It was missing the button though, so I stole one from a parts trackball, which is the wrong color, but it works at least.
This one also has the Areal A180 180MB hard drive, just like my original ActionNote had. These Areal drives are very unusual. They sound really cool and are very reliable. They are also a bit shorter than a standard 2.5" hard drive. These were also among the first drives to use glass platters. Glass platters were a very unusual thing in the early '90s. The Epson ActionNotes are the only computers I have ever seen these Areal drives in. My other ActionNote, which has now became a parts machine for this one, has the 260MB Areal A260 drive, so I will definitely keep that as a spare.
Here are some pics of this wonderful machine:
I used the bezel from my old ActionNote, as this one was a little nicer, and still has the "Clock Doubled 486" sticker, which denotes the Cyrix 486SLC-2 50MHz CPU that these use. If you know anything about the 486SLC, you'd know that it's basically a tweaked-up 386SX. In fact, this machine doesn't benchmark much higher than my Compaq Contura 3/25 does, which is a true 386 laptop. That being said, it's still very competent Windows 3.1 laptop, and would have been a decent machine for its $1700-ish price tag in 1993/94, a time when other laptops could easily be $3000 and up.
I also popped my already-modified Dallas clock chip on there. It was so nice of them to socket it!
It's also worth noting that this laptop has the smallest passive-matrix color display I have ever seen! It is 8.4-inches, which was usually the size that active-matrix displays were. I think it pretty damn cool myself. Looks very "vintage" with such a tiny display. 😀
The finish on this laptop is typical of an early '90s Taiwanese-built laptop. It's actually a really nice feeling textured finish, but not the most durable finish on the planet. It's fine as long as you are mindful of it.
Anyway, I'm very happy to have a really nice ActionNote 500C now! This one is considerably better condition compared to my first and second one. I consider this to be one of the main computers that got me into this hobby, so it's very special to me.
Now to get the other ActionNote models I don't have! 😀 I do actually have an ActionNote 4SLC/33 on the way, which is exactly the same as this, but with a 33MHz CPU and a slightly larger, grayscale display. Seller says the hard drive is bad, so the spare Areal A260 might be going in there if the drive is actually bad.
Although they are somewhat cheaply-built, the ActionNotes are actually very reliable and easy to work on. Never seen one with a catastrophic/unrepairable problem.
Starting Windows 95. . .