My new Libretto 70CT \ VOGONS

My new Libretto 70CT

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First post, by theelf

Posted on 2016-07-25, 00:45

theelf Offline

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Sorry my english

For many years i was a happy user of a libretto 50CT, until two weeks ago, i have the luck to found a 70CT on ebay for a good price, and perfect condition

I replace the internal disk with a 16GB CF card, and did the mod to have a 166 mmx

http://download.milesburton.com/Libretto/www. … tips/l70200.htm

I love the libretto 50 and 70CT because the lack of any fan. With the CF card instead HDD, no noise at all, is amazing

For now i did this cheap trick, until a long CF to IDE 44p adapter arrive from china... 🤣

I did some test in 3Dbench and Doom 1.9c, and the results are that the CU at 166mhz, is similar to my AMD 5x86 133mhz PC. In FPU of course is way faster, much much faster than the 5x86, and the mmx helps in some emulators and software

Im very happy with the speed, i understand this is a low power CPU, and still the performance is good

First, compare the laptop with a pencil... is very small, but keyboard is usable, good size keys

next to my old 50CT

The 640x480 screen is great, and the best, is a good TFT, no this old dualscan that are difficult to see

Playing doom at 320x200

and Quake at 320x240

EGA games looks great too

No problems with any game for now... but this is real DOS jeje, problems will came anytime

Great for listen to MP3 even at high rates

Some emulators... NES, MSX, GameBoy great, Megadrive and up OK, but with vsync needs frameskip

One good thing, is that drivers are 100% windows 3.1 compatible, even the C&T 65550 have DCI acceleration

XingMPEG video at 320x240 looks great

I tested two emulators i like and use amiga and mac (DOSFellow and Fusion)

I dont test much games, i use the workbench more because some old software, but i think is not much slower than my real A500... but of course, DOSfellow is very incompatible

Fusion emulator support direct video render driver, this give a nice speed up

I think is faster than my 33mhz powerbook, but with the size of a VHS tape... 😀

Ok, thats all, i just want to show this little computer, since i was a 50CT owner for many years, in so happy to have a 70CT in this great condition

Reply 1 of 17, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-07-25, 02:37

keenmaster486 Offline

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Ooh, ahh, lots and lots of eye candy! 😁

I want one of these so bad... keep it up, use it a lot! Does it have a USB port? If so then you can put Win9x on it and have USB flash drive support so you can transfer files back and forth from modern computers.

Great find!

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 2 of 17, by RacoonRider

Posted on 2016-07-25, 03:31

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Cool! We all here have a sweet spot for Librettos 😀 Are you from Russia?

keenmaster486, there's really no need for USB, I use PCMCIA to CF adapter for that. Works in plain DOS, like charm.

P.S. Those kitties on the last picture are so cool 😀

Reply 3 of 17, by 133MHz

Posted on 2016-07-25, 03:55

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RacoonRider wrote:
Are you from Russia?

I'd say Spain or Latin America, based on the keyboard layout and Maniac Mansion in Spanish. 😜

http://133FSB.wordpress.com

Reply 4 of 17, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-07-25, 05:35

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RacoonRider - yeah, I know it's not necessary, I just prefer it over CF since it's more convenient, at least for me since I'm transferring data to and from my modern laptop which doesn't have a CF port 😀

And I guess he probably doesn't want 9x on there anyway, so yeah OP, think more seriously about the CF option 😊

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 5 of 17, by RacoonRider

Posted on 2016-07-25, 06:09

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133MHz wrote:
RacoonRider wrote:
Are you from Russia?

I'd say Spain or Latin America, based on the keyboard layout and Maniac Mansion in Spanish. 😜

Just saw the picture of Aeroflot plastic card, which is a Russian airline.

Reply 6 of 17, by theelf

Posted on 2016-07-25, 09:32

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jaja, thanks guys... about nationality

I born in argentina, move to spain when was 19. My ex wife is russian, then i live in russia for many years. Because I always use aeroflot to travel (and i travel a lot), I get a gold card (you can see I use the old silver card for the libretto 🤣 )

My actual wife is Japanese, and i move to live to Japan 6 years ago, thats why part of computers in my collection are japanese too, PC88, PC98, Toshiba... etc

Some kind of mix 🤣 i like to travel

About keyboard layout, i really really... REALLY preffer the US one... but i dont want to change the one in the 70CT, i will keep "original" jeje

keenmaster486 no usb ports in 50 or 70CT, not even in replicator ports. Will be great anyways a usb port. In this 70CT now i have DOS+Win3.1, NT4 and OS/2 Warp 4

Reply 7 of 17, by Stiletto

Posted on 2016-07-25, 16:17

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Great photos! 😁

"I see a little silhouette-o of a man, Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you
do the Fandango!" - Queen

Stiletto

Reply 8 of 17, by b_rros

Posted on 2016-07-25, 16:31

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RacoonRider wrote:
Cool! We all here have a sweet spot for Librettos 😀 Are you from Russia?

keenmaster486, there's really no need for USB, I use PCMCIA to CF adapter for that. Works in plain DOS, like charm.

P.S. Those kitties on the last picture are so cool 😀

Hi, any chance of explaining this further?
I do have an 70CT and use a PCMCIA to CF adapter to transfer files from and to the Libretto, but I have to do it in Windows, if I boot up to Dos I have no access to the card, i do have cardsoft installed to have access to a SCP-55 card, and that work great, but I can't access my CF card in Dos.

PS: Great machine! Love mine to 😀

Reply 9 of 17, by RacoonRider

Posted on 2016-07-29, 05:16

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b_rros wrote:

Hi, any chance of explaining this further?
I do have an 70CT and use a PCMCIA to CF adapter to transfer files from and to the Libretto, but I have to do it in Windows, if I boot up to Dos I have no access to the card, i do have cardsoft installed to have access to a SCP-55 card, and that work great, but I can't access my CF card in Dos.

PS: Great machine! Love mine to 😀

I use cardsoft too, it just works as if I had another HDD on E:. The CF card is formatted into FAT, maybe that's the issue?

I also used ataenab before, it works, but it's a mess if you only use trial and I don't want to pay for it, it's kind of pricey.

Reply 10 of 17, by JTD121

Posted on 2016-07-30, 00:42

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I wonder if there is any market for a modern version of these teensy Librettos? I have a Thinkpad X260, and it's definitely small, but not quite this tiny and compact 😁

Great find, theelf!

Reply 11 of 17, by keenmaster486

Posted on 2016-07-30, 01:02

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JTD121 wrote:
I wonder if there is any market for a modern version of these teensy Librettos?

YEESS! I started a thread once about possibly creating new "retro" hardware. I just don't have the expertise to get something like that started.

It would be great to have the "retro x86" version of the Raspberry Pi, which would basically provide a complete DOS computer on a single board.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 12 of 17, by JTD121

Posted on 2016-08-06, 13:53

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Oh, you gonna dig this then!

https://imgur.com/gallery/J0P5n

Reply 13 of 17, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2016-08-06, 15:11

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keenmaster486 wrote:
JTD121 wrote:
I wonder if there is any market for a modern version of these teensy Librettos?

YEESS! I started a thread once about possibly creating new "retro" hardware. I just don't have the expertise to get something like that started.

It would be great to have the "retro x86" version of the Raspberry Pi, which would basically provide a complete DOS computer on a single board.

Closest thing I've found is 86duino. There were a couple projects for Atom based boards in an RPi form factor, but I'm not sure if they're rolling yet.

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 14 of 17, by Niezgodka

Posted on 2016-08-15, 00:34

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16 Gb with Libretto? I thought that 4Gb is max 😐
Did you get multiboot on it with windows/DSL/DOS?
I have 50CT - I love it, but sound quality for modules is poor.

Reply 15 of 17, by Libretto

Posted on 2016-08-19, 11:04

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@theelf

Congrats to your "new" Libretto 70ct.

I´ve got one, too, but facing difficulties... Wonder if you could help ?

I´ve installed W95 with the installation floppies - easily.
On W95 the floppy drive is not recognized anymore. Same for my PCMCIA CD-Drive.
Switching from W95 to DOS also does not help.
How can I copy files to the hard drive then ??

Just another thing about the TFT. On 16bit / 24 bit color depth the picture seems to be ... odd. Something is wrong. Somehow blurry? Can´t describe it. Is this normal ?

EDIT: Just searched through my cellar and found (very surprisigly) an old CF Adapter and even a 1GB CF. The biggest surprise ever was to see W95 install that card out of the box and showing up the (accessable) content. Hurrayyyy !!!!! 😊 😊 😊

Reply 16 of 17, by 8bitbubsy

Posted on 2017-02-19, 18:05

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Regarding the screen:
The machine seems to be limited to a palette of 222K colors. The weird image you get is because of a technique callerd 'dithering'.
To make it non-dithered, set it to 222K colors in the BIOS (hold ESC while rebooting to enter BIOS) and use 256 colors in Windows. This is a sad limitation...

386:
- CPU: 386DX-40 (128kB external L1 cache)
- RAM: 8MB (0 waitstates at 40MHz)
- VGA: Diamond SpeedSTAR VGA (ET4000AX 1MB ISA)
- Audio: SB Pro 2.0 + GUS 1MB
- ISA PS/2 mouse card + ISA USB card
- MS-DOS 6.22 + Win 3.1
- MR BIOS

Reply 17 of 17, by yawetaG

Posted on 2017-02-24, 13:28

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8bitbubsy wrote:
Regarding the screen:
The machine seems to be limited to a palette of 222K colors. The weird image you get is because of a technique callerd 'dithering'.
To make it non-dithered, set it to 222K colors in the BIOS (hold ESC while rebooting to enter BIOS) and use 256 colors in Windows. This is a sad limitation...

If it supports up to 222K (222,000) colors, then 16 bit color mode (65,000 colors) should work fine...

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