Socket3 wrote on 2020-07-13, 20:41:

Here's my 2 cents: any K6-II laptop that matches your size requirements. Most K6-2 laptops run either the VIA MVP4 chipset with a Trident Blade 3D / Blade XP video card and ESS sound card or even a dedicated S3 Savage mobile chip. The Trident Blade 3D on board video witch has perfect dos compatibility and will 3d wise it can play quake 2 @ 640x480 at good framerates. It has good direct 3D and openGL support. The S3 Savage has perfect dos compatibility and rather good 3d capabilities considering it's paired with a K6. Some K6 laptops come with a SiS chipset with means you get a Sis 305 video card with again great DOS compatibility. Either way you can't go wrong. Can't speak for build quality or keyboard tough.

Another plus is that you can replace the K6-2 with a regular socket 7 pentium since the K6-2 (K6-2+ or K6-III+ usually come in laptops) is always socketed. Some machines allow for 2.8v - others don't. In any case you can use setmul to slow it down. You could even experiment with a Tillamook if you can get your hands on one.

Ehhhh. You don't really have that much size flexibility on K6 laptops - it's almost always a 5-8 pound ABS waffle iron, and the smaller screen on them either implies a bigger bezel, HPA (dualscan passive matrix, which is nasty), or both. I've never seen a K6 equivalent, to, say, a 3 lb Thinkpad 240 or a 4 lb 560E/X/Z.

I also did not recall seeing an S3 SavageMX/IX on a K6 laptop - the VirgeMX maybe (those are in the Toshiba 1600/2100 CD family), but machines with the SavageMX/IX tend to be out in 1998/1999, which are paired with Coppermine P3s as they are slightly later than the K6 days of 1997. Even for the SiS305s I am a bit doubtful about - I've seen SiS741 chipsets on Athlon/Duron laptops, but for the K6 period is mostly the SiS530s, which are SiS6326 based. The best GPU you can hope for in that vintage for a K6 is the ATi Rage Pro LT (which is like the Riva128 mobile). Of course, if you consider that the K6 laptops are considered "value" machines, I doubt that they are all that great. The K6 versions of the Compaq Persario 1200 series are known for brittle plastics and faulty power jacks even back in "the days"

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-14, 18:52:

The K6 versions of the Compaq Persario 1200 series are known for brittle plastics and faulty power jacks even back in "the days"

I have one of these, K6-2 @450MHz, 192MB RAM, Win98SE. The power jack broke, it was re-soldered, then the whole motherboard failed, had to be replaced, however the laptop is currently working with (AFAIK) no issues.

I got a Vaio PCG-SR31K recently

cute and small 10.4" 1024x768 subnotebook with PIII750, Savage IX 8MB and Yamaha "DS1" (idk if that means YMF724 or could also be another DS1* designated one, maybe YMF754) still need to test it out more 😀

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-14, 18:52:

Socket3 wrote on 2020-07-13, 20:41:

Here's my 2 cents: any K6-II laptop that matches your size requirements. Most K6-2 laptops run either the VIA MVP4 chipset with a Trident Blade 3D / Blade XP video card and ESS sound card or even a dedicated S3 Savage mobile chip. The Trident Blade 3D on board video witch has perfect dos compatibility and will 3d wise it can play quake 2 @ 640x480 at good framerates. It has good direct 3D and openGL support. The S3 Savage has perfect dos compatibility and rather good 3d capabilities considering it's paired with a K6. Some K6 laptops come with a SiS chipset with means you get a Sis 305 video card with again great DOS compatibility. Either way you can't go wrong. Can't speak for build quality or keyboard tough.

Another plus is that you can replace the K6-2 with a regular socket 7 pentium since the K6-2 (K6-2+ or K6-III+ usually come in laptops) is always socketed. Some machines allow for 2.8v - others don't. In any case you can use setmul to slow it down. You could even experiment with a Tillamook if you can get your hands on one.

Ehhhh. You don't really have that much size flexibility on K6 laptops - it's almost always a 5-8 pound ABS waffle iron, and the smaller screen on them either implies a bigger bezel, HPA (dualscan passive matrix, which is nasty), or both. I've never seen a K6 equivalent, to, say, a 3 lb Thinkpad 240 or a 4 lb 560E/X/Z.

I also did not recall seeing an S3 SavageMX/IX on a K6 laptop - the VirgeMX maybe (those are in the Toshiba 1600/2100 CD family), but machines with the SavageMX/IX tend to be out in 1998/1999, which are paired with Coppermine P3s as they are slightly later than the K6 days of 1997. Even for the SiS305s I am a bit doubtful about - I've seen SiS741 chipsets on Athlon/Duron laptops, but for the K6 period is mostly the SiS530s, which are SiS6326 based. The best GPU you can hope for in that vintage for a K6 is the ATi Rage Pro LT (which is like the Riva128 mobile). Of course, if you consider that the K6 laptops are considered "value" machines, I doubt that they are all that great. The K6 versions of the Compaq Persario 1200 series are known for brittle plastics and faulty power jacks even back in "the days"

You might be right - maybe my memory is failing, but I remember seeing a K6-2+ equipped laptop with a S3 Savage video card... I think it was a late 1998 Toshiba... or maybe a Fujitsu? Oh well. As for build quality, yeah, K6 machines were budget laptops and pretty cheaply made. I happen to like big, bulky old laptops, but I can't compromise on screen quality either. TFT or bust.

imi wrote on 2020-07-14, 19:35:

I got a Vaio PCG-SR31K recently

cute and small 10.4" 1024x768 subnotebook with PIII750, Savage IX 8MB and Yamaha "DS1" (idk if that means YMF724 or could also be another DS1* designated one, maybe YMF754) still need to test it out more 😀

YMF754B - I had a SR27k “cousin” back ~2004 with a 744. They are decent but crippled by the 440MX/440ZX-M chipset, which capped them at 256MB of RAM. As long as they run Win98 it' s a decent experience. Getting the drivers for it though? That's a completely different matter altogether.

adalbert wrote on 2020-07-13, 20:41:

Here is my old post with good laptops Old laptops 386, 486, P1, P3 - all with DOS audio and good specs - TFT screens, floppy dri […]
Show full quote

Here is my old post with good laptops Old laptops 386, 486, P1, P3 - all with DOS audio and good specs - TFT screens, floppy drives, sound cards. 386 to Pentium 3.

I think that that the laptop with best compatibility ever is Compaq Presario 1800 😀 (upper right on the photo) model number 18XL481 - be sure to look for that one or check the specs
MS-DOS to Windows XP compatibility

* Floppy drive
* CD/DVD drive
* TFT 1024x768 screen with -smooth scaling-
* DOS compatible ESS Solo 1 sound card (with good quality FM music, unlike ESS Maestro; you just need to load DOS driver)
* Very good JBL speakers (there is some noticeable bass and stereo width)
* Pentium 3 700 MHz
* 3D acceleration: Ati Rage 128 8MB, games like Half-life work flawlessly
* PCMCIA/Cardbus (Orinoco wifi in DOS or modern cardbus wifi card in 9x/XP)
* SVGA driver works in Windows 3.11
* Gameport if you can find a docking station
* ethernet, modem, USB, PS/2, VGA, COM, LPT, TV out

Videos:
DOS audio https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … zVjQXQ0bFk/view
GTA 3 😀 (with some hack to run on 8MB VRAM) https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … V9ieWdYbXc/view

I have multi-boot with MS-DOS, Windows 3.11, Windows 9x, Windows XP, Linux and everything works great. Didn't use it in quite a while, but turned it on now and it still works.

Yeah, those 1800 XLs are big machines - I think their usual travel weight is quoted at ~7 lbs, the ESS Solo-1 does make them “something special”. Decent enough machines off the Compaq consumer line, it’s really too bad HP pulled their specs and service manuals a few years back so it’s not that easy to figure out what to get, or sometimes more accurately, what you are getting yourself into (some of those machines have Mobility M3s with 16MB of VRAM). They are decent contemporaries of the Dell Inspiron 5000E.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 02:26:

Yeah, those 1800 XLs are big machines - I think their usual travel weight is quoted at ~7 lbs, the ESS Solo-1 does make them “something special”. Decent enough machines off the Compaq consumer line, it’s really too bad HP pulled their specs and service manuals a few years back so it’s not that easy to figure out what to get, or sometimes more accurately, what you are getting yourself into (some of those machines have Mobility M3s with 16MB of VRAM). They are decent contemporaries of the Dell Inspiron 5000E.

What do you mean? I can face Compaq Presario 1800 without ESS Solo 1 or with graphics worse than M3? What's the worst scenario?

I don't think its size as a downside. Dunno about you but I prefer to keep everything inside one machine, so no external screen for me. It' good to have a big screen on a laptop 😀

vorob wrote on 2020-07-15, 07:24:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 02:26:

Yeah, those 1800 XLs are big machines - I think their usual travel weight is quoted at ~7 lbs, the ESS Solo-1 does make them “something special”. Decent enough machines off the Compaq consumer line, it’s really too bad HP pulled their specs and service manuals a few years back so it’s not that easy to figure out what to get, or sometimes more accurately, what you are getting yourself into (some of those machines have Mobility M3s with 16MB of VRAM). They are decent contemporaries of the Dell Inspiron 5000E.

What do you mean? I can face Compaq Presario 1800 without ESS Solo 1 or with graphics worse than M3? What's the worst scenario?

I don't think its size as a downside. Dunno about you but I prefer to keep everything inside one machine, so no external screen for me. It' good to have a big screen on a laptop 😀

The 1800 series have multiple members - the 1800, the 1800XL and the 1800T. Supposedly the family spans about 35 sub-models between 1998 and 2000.

All of them are ESS Solo-1 and Coppermine P3/440ZX chipset based. All of them has 64MB of RAM soldered in and can take one more stick of SODIMM, maxing out at 320MB. Some are Rage Mobility LT, and some are Rage 128 Mobility based and can range from 8MB VRAM to 16MB VRAM, and 14” XGA to 15” SXGA+ (which uses the same LCD panel as their ThinkPad T series counterparts and are prone to LCD fading and turning red over time thanks to CCFL aging).

Since HP pulled the support documentation years ago, you’ll really have to do your own research and figure out which model is which, and how their specs work. Some of the Compaq Presario consumer machines (1200/1600 series) are known to not age well - LCD ribbon cables fail, DC power jacks fracture, plastics embrittlement, LCD hinge failures, and etc. Not sure whether this translates to the 1800 series.

HP still does host at least one Presario 1800-series service documentation (or some HTML-to-PDF conversion of it), and I found two others at elhvb.com:

• Presario 1825 and 1800T
• Presario 1805 and 1810
• Presario 1800XL280, XL380, XL381 and XL390

I didn't find the one for the 1800 itself yet.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 11:32:

uses the same LCD panel as their ThinkPad T series counterparts and are prone to LCD fading and turning red over time thanks to CCFL aging

I remember your words about it some posts earlier. Tell me please, these particular panels degrade especially badly compared to others? Cause I thought all ccfl based panels degrade becoming yellowish.

vorob wrote on 2020-07-15, 18:02:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 11:32:

uses the same LCD panel as their ThinkPad T series counterparts and are prone to LCD fading and turning red over time thanks to CCFL aging

I remember your words about it some posts earlier. Tell me please, these particular panels degrade especially badly compared to others? Cause I thought all ccfl based panels degrade becoming yellowish.

It's the LG-Philips LP141 series - and it's not really the LCD as much as it's the CCFL tubes within - they all degrade over time, but some tend to die quicker for some reason (not that a 20 year lifespan is considered short by any usage of the word). You could in theory replace the CCFL tubes by taking the LCD panel out of the mountings and then unpeel the CCFL off the panels themselves, but considering how delicate they are, it's not something you really want to do.

HandOfFate wrote on 2020-07-15, 11:54:

HP still does host at least one Presario 1800-series service documentation (or some HTML-to-PDF conversion of it), and I found t […]
Show full quote

HP still does host at least one Presario 1800-series service documentation (or some HTML-to-PDF conversion of it), and I found two others at elhvb.com:

• Presario 1825 and 1800T
• Presario 1805 and 1810
• Presario 1800XL280, XL380, XL381 and XL390

I didn't find the one for the 1800 itself yet.

Unfortunately those service manuals only tell you how the entire thing comes together, but not offer a SKU-by-SKU account of their specs (it lists CPU type, RAM allotment, HDD size for a given submodel but that's about it). In fact, if you look at the 1800XL documentation it'll tell you that the machines have the Rage Mobility or the Mobility M3 by looking at the IO address/DMA/IRQ listings, but not at which screen size/resolution/VRAM comes with which machine - It's not nearly like IBM/Lenovo and their PSRef/TAWBook documentation or Dell Service tag lookup's "original specs as built" listings. HP long buried Compaq's remains. At least on the Evo n6x0c series the extant service manuals it gives you a pretty good idea of what you are dealing with.

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 18:37:

You could in theory replace the CCFL tubes by taking the LCD panel out of the mountings and then unpeel the CCFL off the panels themselves, but considering how delicate they are, it's not something you really want to do.

I personally wouldn't want to replace them until they are completely dead and just accept the color tint. Big LCDs aren't so fragile if you are careful, but it's easy to let some dust in, or deform the diffusing layers. So the LCD will likely still work after such operation, but there is risk of uneven/dusted image. It is also possible to install LED strip and replace inverter with buck converter. The backlight probably wouldn't be even with LEDs, but in theory would work forever :p

adalbert wrote on 2020-07-15, 20:21:

ragefury32 wrote on 2020-07-15, 18:37:

You could in theory replace the CCFL tubes by taking the LCD panel out of the mountings and then unpeel the CCFL off the panels themselves, but considering how delicate they are, it's not something you really want to do.

I personally wouldn't want to replace them until they are completely dead and just accept the color tint. Big LCDs aren't so fragile if you are careful, but it's easy to let some dust in, or deform the diffusing layers. So the LCD will likely still work after such operation, but there is risk of uneven/dusted image. It is also possible to install LED strip and replace inverter with buck converter. The backlight probably wouldn't be even with LEDs, but in theory would work forever :p

No, I certainly don't recommend replacing them until absolutely forced to - my own T21 with the SXGA+ screen has the same issue, but once the CCFL heat up the red tint will go away...but it's definitely helpful to think of LCDs before the mass market LED changeover as being life-limited items, as in, it'll fail one day. It's just that certain CCFLs attached to LCD panels like the LP141 series (found on Thinkpads, Compaq Presarios and HP Omnibooks) will fail earlier than others (my 23 year old Thinkpad 560E packs a perfectly good TFT screen). Not that the Thinkpad T2[0-2] doesn't have enough issues as-is...I am still holding my breath for their "click of death".
Yes, you could in theory swap them out with LED strips (commonly available on sites like Banggood, most of which I don't entirely trust), but once again, taking apart a 20 year old laptop with brittle plastics is already a headache as-is. Taking apart an LCD to extract the CCFL/swap in a replacement? That is a completely different matter altogether.

adalbert wrote on 2020-07-13, 20:41:

DOS audio https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … zVjQXQ0bFk/view

Just made a comparison video to your laptop, this is how mono speaker of N400c sounds: https://youtu.be/F-M9Yxqr1sw
Not sure what to say, for me it sounds just different.

N400c and N600c share the same audiochip?

Is the Toshiba T4800CT a good candidate for a retro laptop? It has Windows Sound System integrated, but not sure how well the Sound Blaster emulation is in of itself. Has a color TFT display, floppy drive (will make sure it works and repair it in case it doesn't work), and 500MB or so HDD. Best of all, it's functional and if I want to add a better sound card, I can get a docking station, the Toshiba Desk Station IV and install a Sound Blaster 16 card and CD-ROM drive or get an external PCMCIA CD-ROM drive that's quad-speed and Sound Blaster compatible.

mitac 5033, my friend. has a ess audio drive chip and good video compatibiltity, solid keyboard and a trackpad and CDROM drive.

the only drawback is the loud fan, which should never kick up on dos games

vorob wrote on 2020-07-17, 13:57:

Just made a comparison video to your laptop, this is how mono speaker of N400c sounds: https://youtu.be/F-M9Yxqr1sw Not sure wha […]
Show full quote

adalbert wrote on 2020-07-13, 20:41:

DOS audio https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2rbHIj6SMlF … zVjQXQ0bFk/view

Just made a comparison video to your laptop, this is how mono speaker of N400c sounds: https://youtu.be/F-M9Yxqr1sw
Not sure what to say, for me it sounds just different.

N400c and N600c share the same audiochip?

Almost the same. The n400c uses a Maestro-3/Allegro, and the n600c has a Maestro 2E. Both of them do not have ESFM hardware support for OPL3 emulation. AFAIK the only difference between the 2 is Sensaura 3D audio support on the Allegro and some refinements on improved Winmodem support - the DOS side is practically the same. Of course the n400c probably have a different speaker setup since it’s on a smaller chassis, so who knows how Compaq wired it up.

Sev80 wrote on 2020-07-18, 15:29:

mitac 5033, my friend. has a ess audio drive chip and good video compatibiltity, solid keyboard and a trackpad and CDROM drive.

the only drawback is the loud fan, which should never kick up on dos games

The Fujitsu Siemens Liteline 5033? It’s the same machine but sold under the Mitac and/or Schneider names.

It’s a strange machine - an Intel 430TX socket 7 machine (P166 to 233MMX) that was dragged kicking and screaming into the K6 era (lower voltage VRM on the later models to support 1.8-2.0v VCore) but with 430TX baggage throughout- 66MHz FSB and no support for the K6-2+/3. On the earlier models it uses EDO RAM with a limit of 64MB per SODIMM. On the later machine it needs PC66 compatible SDRAM with a limit of 128MB per SODIMM.

The old socket 7 heritage was reflected in the use of a 2MB Trident Providia 9385 GPU and the use of an older, ISA based ESS Audiodrive. I am not even sure whether the ODM included a 32bit cardbus controller. It might be nice as a DOS laptop, but toss it Quake 2 and it’ll suffer. The 2MB Trident card, the 66MHz FSB and slower RAM access will hold it back, and I am not even sure if it has onboard L2 (the K6-2s do not have on-die L2, instead relying on whatever comes with the motherboard)

It’s not as performant as the later dedicated K6-2+ or 3+ laptops with Acer Labs/SiS SS7 chipsets (like the NEC Lavie U LU45L/33D or it’s VersaPro equivalent). Some have Trident Cyberblade i7s, while other have Rage Pro LTs or possibly S3 ProSavage as their GPUs.

bjwil1991 wrote on 2020-07-18, 06:27:

Is the Toshiba T4800CT a good candidate for a retro laptop? It has Windows Sound System integrated, but not sure how well the Sound Blaster emulation is in of itself. Has a color TFT display, floppy drive (will make sure it works and repair it in case it doesn't work), and 500MB or so HDD. Best of all, it's functional and if I want to add a better sound card, I can get a docking station, the Toshiba Desk Station IV and install a Sound Blaster 16 card and CD-ROM drive or get an external PCMCIA CD-ROM drive that's quad-speed and Sound Blaster compatible.

It has an ESS688 and probably a YMF262 (legit OPL3) as its FM component - it’s firmly in the “good enough” category for DOS audio. I am not sure if the onboard speakers are mono or stereo (likely the former)

The real gotcha here is the onboard GPU, which is a WD90C24A (not the fastest) and it’s (from what I understand) an old school 18 bit color TFT LCD panel.