Does anyone know if there are any 8088, 286, or 386 laptops that have TFT screens?

If you want a fast screen on a '88 '86 v20 286 etc, I hope you like orange, mono plasma is it. Color is even super hard to find on 386, and then you might only get a 6" panel with a lot of bezel. Then 486es color at all was still a premium option. I am not saying that a TFT doesn't exist at all on any of these classes, but if it did, it was some super high end unit, made for portable CAD work or something, that sold units in the mere hundreds maybe. Though CAD wasn't even taken that serious on the PC platform until faster 386DX, real CAD was done on supercomputer workstations. Also remember with TFT color panels of any size being in the multimegabucks, they weren't gonna pair it with a "mainstream" CPU, so it woulda had early 486 in the home computing "386" era, pentium in the "486" era, and maybe pentium pro in "pentium" era. So with ahead of the curve CPU power, it would seem to be behind the curve in form factor probably (Compared to other processor in regular business portables which would have been a couple of years later). Meaning you might be looking at clunky clamshell or large "lunchbox" type machines to get it in 386.

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:39:

Does anyone know if there are any 8088, 286, or 386 laptops that have TFT screens?

Maybe not the best source but still better than nothing: https://www.wsj.com/adimg/sas-laptop-history.pdf
"1992 First IBM ThinkPad: 700C is a tour de force in basic black. Pointing stick and touchpad; first TFT (thin-film transistor) color display."

At least the year sounds plausible so me so I doubt there's a 8088 or 286 with TFT. And even 386 will be unlikely.

Actually the 700c 's little brother the 300c had a 386SL and a 9" TFT ... they were rumored to be unreliable though so dunno what your chance of finding a working one is.

All early laptops are tempermental and unreliable.

From what I remember buying laptops for work back in the 90's it wasn't until the 486 era that screens were decent TFT types (and color TFT was the norm around Pentium era).

keenmaster486 wrote on 2022-03-09, 22:39:

Does anyone know if there are any 8088, 286, or 386 laptops that have TFT screens?

I have this list of 386 laptops with color screen. Not sure any of them is TFT though. Maybe Sharp?

DELL SYSTEMS 325NC
EPSON NB-SL/25C
AST PREMIUM EXEC 386SX/25C
LEADING EDGE N3/SL25
NEC Ultralite SL/25C
SHARP PC-6881

I should try to find a half broken AST Premium Exec color to splice with my half working Premium Exec mono.

Edit: Think I remember reading sometime, that color is only 64 colors on that one though... not sure of source... dunno if it's the same source that "made" me buy it in the first place some years ago, thinking it was a color model, that seemed to say the 386/20 was mono and only the 386/25 was color... and the thing said 386/25 on it, so I paid a whole $15 or so... then when I powered it up... mono on a half working screen.... I think the source got from somewhere that color was only available on the 25Mhz model, as the 25C, and missed that bit, and that it was also avail in mono with the 25.

Six wrote on 2022-03-09, 13:13:

Hey Vorob, can u guide me a little ? A have an compaq evo n600c and i don.t know how to get the sound going for msdos game even in windows 98. How i can do that, i am a total noob, is there a special driver for audio? Thanx in advance.

Here you go: https://youtu.be/r6JE90COLJo
Re: Compaq N600c: hangs on playing audio in DOS, music works

Thanx

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-10, 02:43:

Actually the 700c 's little brother the 300c had a 386SL and a 9" TFT ... they were rumored to be unreliable though so dunno what your chance of finding a working one is.

The only 386 i know with a tft screen is the ibm 300c. It took me many years to find mine, they are never for sale.

Well there it is folks, the last Unicorn. 🤣

In this context: would it be possible to replace the screens of old notebooks with more modern ones? I mean not only old DSTN-displays but also old TFTs with modern TFTs. For example the screen of my Toshiba CDT (Pentium MMX) is really good for its age, but the screen of my 10 year old Lenovo i5-notebook which I would consider 'mediocre' by today's standards is way better.
I've seen that some people have successfully replaced the screens of similar Lenovos with better ones. So I thought that maybe even older 'retro-screens' could be replaced?
Surely I'm not the first with this idea. Are there any such projects?

When is a 386 not a 386 though, just occurred to me that 486SLC machines are more 386ey than 486ey. Now that might be more of a stretch though, finding premium screen with budgety CPU, though I know Zenith/Packard-Bell laptops had 486SLC to try for another bite of the cherry when 486 were wanted by the market, with a 386 design (Z-sport I think it was) so, might not be beyond the bounds of possibility that you find somebody had a premium 386 machine that they stuck an SLC in to lengthen it's market life.

So something else I came across, mini reviews of some pre-486 machines, prepared in 1991...
https://mansfield-devine.com/speculatrix/2017 … -guide-laptops/

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-03-15, 01:25:

When is a 386 not a 386 though, just occurred to me that 486SLC machines are more 386ey than 486ey. Now that might be more of a […]
Show full quote

When is a 386 not a 386 though, just occurred to me that 486SLC machines are more 386ey than 486ey. Now that might be more of a stretch though, finding premium screen with budgety CPU, though I know Zenith/Packard-Bell laptops had 486SLC to try for another bite of the cherry when 486 were wanted by the market, with a 386 design (Z-sport I think it was) so, might not be beyond the bounds of possibility that you find somebody had a premium 386 machine that they stuck an SLC in to lengthen it's market life.

---

So something else I came across, mini reviews of some pre-486 machines, prepared in 1991...
https://mansfield-devine.com/speculatrix/2017 … -guide-laptops/

I have this kind of laptop - IBM 330C it has 486SLC and a TFT screen.

That is one cool laptop. Guessing no integrated sound other than the PC speaker, eh?

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-03-16, 05:38:

That is one cool laptop. Guessing no integrated sound other than the PC speaker, eh?

Yes, no integrated sound. But it has a PCMCIA slot. Here is my post with some more details on thinkpads forum https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=127772

Bondi wrote on 2022-03-16, 05:53:

Yes, no integrated sound. But it has a PCMCIA slot. Here is my post with some more details on thinkpads forum https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=127772

So it is very similar to NEC UltraLite SL/25C Laptop 386 SX-25:

https://hwmuseum.pp.ua/laptop/1916.html ... B1%20SX564
https://www.ebay.com/itm/115266674785

bjwil1991 wrote on 2022-03-16, 05:38:

That is one cool laptop. Guessing no integrated sound other than the PC speaker, eh?

I've got a strange idea about that, will likely have it shelved for some while, I'm 20 projects deep at the moment. I wanna take a covox type circuit, and feed it back into a laptop through an otherwise underemployed modem. Because many machines used the internal speaker for modem too. Then in theory you've got a compact dongle wired only to the machine itself and the sound is all self contained, no trailing speaker cables. Of course it's gonna sound pretty awful, why the extra bother over PC speaker really, not sure if there's much where covox will work and speaker won't. However, external speaker could be used in desktop mode rather than portable portable... I know the batteries aren't much cop now for much portable porting, but I learned before the days of wifi, that one cable is livable, (power or cat 5) for armchair use etc but 2+ not so much.

vorob wrote on 2022-02-05, 19:47:

photo_2022-02-05_22-36-05.jpg […]
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photo_2022-02-05_22-36-05.jpg

I've made a purchase - Sony Vaio C1 PictureBook PCG- C1VSX/K, 40 USD. Laptop + Floppy + CD-Drive + VGA Cable + Charger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_C1_series

Now I'll have to replace the polarizer on LCD: https://youtu.be/zbrW7uUYpkw From one side it's possible and this dude fixed exactly my laptop. On another side, it looks like painstaking work...

I see that this laptop uses the same Yamaha chip as Toshiba 2805. But IRQ is 9 which is not available in DOOM for eg. I wonder if it can be fixed?

Found a screen replacement on AliExpress, looks like same LCD's were used in some cars. Already received, but It is damaged, one vertical line is constantly lit:

Anyway laptop is working now and i can move forward. First of all i would like to know more about its ATI Rage Mobility-M1. What's the desktop analog of this card? Rage 128? Can i mod desktop driver so it could work with this laptop?

Where there is a will, there is a way. Modern LCD panels generally have either a 30 or 40 pin interface, in either eDP or LVDS, and you can get a controller for them to allow them to process VGA and HDMI, and some have composite and component inputs. Once you have that, you can integrate a Pi-based RGB-to-HDMI interface, and convert the internal signal to work with the modern panel.

See Noel's (of Noel's Retro Lab) video for details on how this can be done, in his case on an Amstrad PPC512:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvn2lBFhioQ&l … jMHF1INdlCwzSJF

- Alex