keenmaster486 wrote on 2025-08-28, 15:33:

The T4x series is nice. When SBEMU first came out I did some testing on my T42, and it worked as advertised.

Yeah, it's a hole in my collection of ThinkPads; I currently have one in most of the main CPU eras:

385ED
240
600X
T440

That left quite a gap between the 600X and the modern T440. I knew it had to be a 4:3 screen and a trackpad (not point), so that limited the options a little.

Update on Toshiba Portege R200:

Screen had really loose hinges. Fortunately it turned out to just be loose screws and so that was easily solved.

Internal CMOS battery pack had started to leak - it had the same party trick as all the old Toshiba laptops used to do; the battery leaked and through capillary action had wicked along the wires to the header terminal on the mboard which had started to turn green; it has been removed and will need neutralising with vinegar and then cleaning with isopropyl alcohol. Why on earth release such a late model with old-style leaky NiMH batteries???

Damage was actually more extensive than it appeared, so the header had to be removed to clean up the corrosion hidden underneath:

It has two lithium battery packs - the built in, slimline one, and an external, clamp-on extended brick. I think the internal one is dead, or only charging to 1-2%. I'll need to work out if either is useable.

No internal drive; but I do now have a 1.8" to CF adapter which I can use - for now I just swapped in the old 1.8" PATA drive from the Latitude X1. DOS booted fine, VSBHDA detected the same ICH6 audio device and it all works as expected. Bonus compared to the Dell is that VSBHDA volume control seems much better (on the Dell I had to use /VOL9 to get any [ear splitting] audio, at anything less it was whisper quiet, with the Toshiba I can use lower volumes nicely). Old format 1024x768 panel looks much nicer in the few games I tested (Doom, Duke3d).

The main bad point is that there is a fault with the keyboard - I'm getting missing keys around the right 3/4, as well as the occasional 'ghost' keypresses, so I suspect the matrix is damaged in some way. No spares at present to be found on Ebay.

If either of the lithium batteries turns out to hold a charge, then it feels like it may be worth trying to source a replacement keyboard; it's a solid feeling device, but very lightweight and incredibly slim. It feels much more modern than its age would suggest. It reminds me very much of the Sony Vaio Z-series.

I am cross-posting a link to my thread here. If there is anyone willing to test, I am trying to improve on the VEXP utility for stretching the graphics output to the native LCD panel for laptops with CT6555x chipset, especially for those with 1024x768 panels.

Found some nice demo program originally on the Toshiba Satellite Pro 440CDT notebook HDD called _P440.EXE.

Recorded some video, but you can run it on yours Windows 95 computer as well!

_440P.EXE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgWuX9-lX30

Note: the demo originally didn't contain any music, so I added music separately from the game Brett Hull Hockey '95

Related, a few months back I found the Toshiba T5200C's demo program: https://archive.org/details/toshiba_t5200c_demo
The strange thing - it was on the hard drive from my NEC UltraLite SL/25C, a system from two years later?? Couldn't fathom how it ended up on that drive.

3lectr1c wrote on Today, 04:29:

Related, a few months back I found the Toshiba T5200C's demo program: https://archive.org/details/toshiba_t5200c_demo
The strange thing - it was on the hard drive from my NEC UltraLite SL/25C, a system from two years later?? Couldn't fathom how it ended up on that drive.

Since it's perhaps the first TFT portable laptop - the T5200C would've surely been a bit much to move around but the Ultralite looks usable on the move.
The owner of both probably transferred the whole contents of the T5200C's hard drive over laplink or something when they upgraded.
A very lucky find!

Thank you for your continued uploads on the internet archive and the macdat site 😀 They're a great help.
I really need to upload part 2 of the Toshiba portable service booklet, scanned all that in the other day and made it into a PDF.

In regards to perfect retro laptops, I am a big fan of pixel perfect scaling and recently found that the SXGA+ versions of the Toshiba Tecra 8200 do perfect 1:2 scaling of VGA and 320x200 to the panel resolution, giving a 13" VGA screen size!

Coupled with a tolerable Trident graphics solution and the Yamaha DS-XG audio, this is my new favourite. If you're looking for one, the 900MHz and 1GHz models of the Tecra 8200 seem to have the higher res panel.

Are those buttons hard or soft-touch plastic? I have a similar Toshiba laptop where I am expecting the buttons to turn to goo at some point.