Scaling always seems a crap shoot, even between machines with theoretically identical graphics hardware. Sometimes digging around in CMOS setup gives you some options, and some have a function key that can tab between scaling modes.

vorob wrote on 2022-09-12, 10:58:

Guys, please remind me the story about Compaq Presario 1800? As i understood, there is a model with SOLO 1 and ATI M3, which is actually good for retro gaming, but there are other 1800 models with worse videocard, am i right?

I found one in Russia, but no idea about its config. All i know it is SERIES CM2050. Does it help in understanding its internals?

Yeah, there's a few them. There's ATI M3, ATI M1, Rage LT Pro, and really early ones use Neomagic.

I think you want to look for a different number on the bottom label.

Here are some Presario 1800 model numbers mentioned in an ATI M3 driver note for Win2k:

Presario 18XLW, 18XL380, 18XL381, 18XL390, 18XL4,
18XL481, 18XL482, 18XL483, 18XL485, 18XL580, 18XL581, 18XL583,
18XL584, 18XL585, 18XL586, 18XL590, 1800T

ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq//sp19001-19500/sp19381.txt

IIRC, my Presario 1800T with ATI M3 and ESS-Solo are 18XL3 and 18XL4 models. Slightly older models in the 18XL1XX and 18L2XX range I suspect have ATI M1 and ESS-Solo. I have a Presario 1825 that is older still and looks very similar but is very dark blue all over and has a Rage LT Pro. I suspect there are 1800 models with the same motherboard.

vorob wrote on 2022-09-12, 10:58:

Guys, please remind me the story about Compaq Presario 1800? As i understood, there is a model with SOLO 1 and ATI M3, which is actually good for retro gaming, but there are other 1800 models with worse videocard, am i right?

I found one in Russia, but no idea about its config. All i know it is SERIES CM2050. Does it help in understanding its internals?

The BEST Compaq Presario 1800 is the 1800t or 1800EA:
Pentium III 1000 M
15" SXGA+(1400x1050).
320 GB SDRAM
ATI 3D Rage Mobility M128, 16 GB SDRAM, 2X AGP
ES1969 Solo-1

Of this, I have two units in my collection, but I still haven't got the Toshiba 2805-S402 with Geforce2Go 🙁

I think it's the 2800 I've got with a Mobility Radeon 7500, P4 though... I am not super familiar with it, was wifey's third backup backup machine that she finally handed over to me for keeps. Anyhoo, that's sitting on a "to do" pile to go through and evaluate. Evo 500 with the P3-900 has the Mobility Rage equivalent to XC/XL can't keep the mobile designations straight. That was also formerly my wife's that I only got full domain over this year, so also on the to-do pile. Oughta make those both Win98 I think, the Turions and Centrinos are much nicer on XP.

hi all
Does anyone know a laptop model with geforсе and ess solo-1 with the most powerful processor?

negative there are a few that have sound chips like ess allegro and maestro but no solo... the only ones ive ever seen with solos dont have geforces but something else like ati or neomagic

Thx

bttr wrote on 2022-09-13, 19:27:

Hi! Robert from BTTR here. Nice to see some BOOTMGR user these days.

thx for this piece of software, I've been using it to dual boot 2 primary partitions each containing win 9x on the same hdd now for years. It allows me to use different driver sets on the same machine.

My retro laptop with the yamaha XG, has different compatibility with games depending on wdm or vxd driver. With BOOTMGR I can run both driver sets and have way more compatibility with games.

vorob wrote on 2022-09-03, 12:01:

So I’ve been spending some time with this machine Compaq Armada 7792DMT. It’s in absolutely mint condition, even screen is brigh […]
Show full quote

So I’ve been spending some time with this machine Compaq Armada 7792DMT. It’s in absolutely mint condition, even screen is bright as if it was produced yesterday.

Intel Mobile Pentium MMX, 266MHz
"13"" TN 1024x768"
S3 Aurora64 V+ (86CM65) (2Mb)
96Mb (2 slots, 32 MB soldered (up to 144))
ESS ES1878 & ES690F

0F2D8C77-645A-43F5-B5E4-97032712378C.jpeg

Since I’ve got Toshiba that died from leaked battery, I decided to remove it from Compaq. It was never opened before plus some “clever” person decided to place battery under the screen. Had to remove warranty sticker (I is placed on palmrest so now it looks ugly) and take out the screen. Took some pictures of internals (mb is not mine, didn’t go that deep)

B1157938-DCBF-4880-A89F-359130D02DF3.jpegD0BF17CB-0335-44D8-A14A-258A8EB470F0.jpeg23449389-7D96-46DA-8835-4896AA7D79F8.jpeg67717467-C5A7-4937-AA84-1CDBCAFCC7E9.jpeg

As I understand BIOS on these machines is kept on HDD. Thank god it’s alive and exists on my drive, need to backup it. But there are no any compaq tools in windows.

WaveTable works in pure DOS!

nice, It gives me some ideas. Theres a few armada books with similar specs but have 12.1 inch LCDs and 800x600. which would be close to perfect for DOS only gaming. If its possible to downgrade the LCDs to 640x480 TFTs on those models then ya its what I might try next.

The list of viable DOS gaming laptops is about to get a lot fatter with the release of SBEMU thanks to @crazii

Guys I’ve got another fat Toshiba laptop - 740CDT. It needs some cleaning but otherwise it’s functional.

One issue, it won’t turn on when the battery is inserted. If you do it the power led will just blink red.

The seller explained me half the story, that you need to cover one contact and laptop will charge the battery. Then you need to isolate another contact so it will work from battery.

So it’s either you charge it or you work from it.

You may think that battery is faulty, but I’ve got two of them and they both do this.

Maybe it’s a known issue and there is an easy fix?

What power supply are you running it from? The one that came with the laptop or a generic?
The reason I ask is that the Toshibas from that era do check the max power output from a PSU to charge the battery if it's inserted. If it's too low that should cause a fault and if it's too high (my usual experience) then the laptop will start but the battery will then not charge because I guess it thinks there's a short or something.

If you're running it from a bench PSU, make sure that the current you set matches what's on the underside of the laptop. I've blown a fuse before now on my T4900CT using too high current with the battery connected - but it's fine to run on a more powerful PSU if the battery is not connected.

It’s definitely original one. I also got some other Toshiba power supplies, the story is the same sadly 🙁

Got another issue. These laptops can’t display mode 13h in full screen, you always got black bars. But there is a tool called VEXP that enables full screen stretching (https://archive.org/details/vexp13). Author states that it will work on my model, the 740CDT which is powered by C&T HIQV32 (CT65554), but it doesn’t! I tried commands VEXP M1 50 T and M2. No luck, it looks like this:

The one explanation I have that Author never tested 65554 despite he states it works there. He mentioned that he did this tool for 720cdt which is based on C&T HIQV32 (CT65550). I’ve got laptop with this card - 430CDT and VEXP works there:

Don’t know what to do…

vorob wrote on 2023-03-19, 07:34:

Got another issue. These laptops can’t display mode 13h in full screen, you always got black bars. But there is a tool called VEXP that enables full screen stretching (https://archive.org/details/vexp13). Author states that it will work on my model, the 740CDT which is powered by C&T HIQV32 (CT65554), but it doesn’t! I tried commands VEXP M1 50 T and M2. No luck, it looks like this:

Is this a 1024 x 768 screen? It’s been discussed here before that VEXP doesn’t scale to full screen on that resolution, it only works perfectly on 800x600.

IBM Thinkpad.
“A Better Place to Think”

Zeerex wrote on 2023-03-19, 12:58:

Is this a 1024 x 768 screen? It’s been discussed here before that VEXP doesn’t scale to full screen on that resolution, it only works perfectly on 800x600.

Oh, i missed this discussion. Yep, it has 1024x768 panel. And this explains why this tool doesn't help my other laptop with same gpu and resolution.

Now i'm stuck with another issue. Can't get sound working under win 98. Sound is based on Crystal Semiconductor CS4232, found this pack: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?file … 873&menustate=0 but it's not helping.

After the installation, I’m getting some invisible error.

I've heard about a scaler or screenmode utility specifically for Chips and Technology VGA, but can't remember enough to track it down easily, maybe the brains in this thread know what I'm talking about.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-03-19, 15:13:

I've heard about a scaler or screenmode utility specifically for Chips and Technology VGA, but can't remember enough to track it down easily, maybe the brains in this thread know what I'm talking about.

I guess we are talking about same tool - VEXP.

I'd like to mention in here that I've done a little experimentation with the video signals these old Thinkpads put out.

What's happening internally is that they seem to be scaling all resolutions to the same internal resolution (800x600 or 1024x768) *before* it goes to either the LCD or the VGA video out.

That is to say, the LCD controller is not doing the scaling. The video section is doing it.

They will always output the native resolution of the LCD screen through the VGA port, complete with ugly/bad scaling, unless you turn off the LCD entirely.