Great machine! Why not get a 5.25 drive for one of your later machines, to service this one? In addition, this computer could perhaps benefit from a XT-IDE card. Is there a free 8 or 16Bit ISA slot?

Aui wrote on 2026-04-25, 18:15:

Great machine! Why not get a 5.25 drive for one of your later machines, to service this one? In addition, this computer could perhaps benefit from a XT-IDE card. Is there a free 8 or 16Bit ISA slot?

I thought about getting another 5.25 drive but aren't they quite expensive? Also yes there is an extra ISA slot.

They are not cheap. An alternative would be to remove the drive you have and temporarely use it on a newer machine to write the disks you need. A free ISA slot will allow you to install a HDD via an XT-IDE card. They use compact flash cards which you can also read and write on modern computers allowing for quick file transfer (although to me pure floppy disk based system also has its charm)

Aui wrote on 2026-04-25, 19:16:

They are not cheap. An alternative would be to remove the drive you have and temporarely use it on a newer machine to write the disks you need. A free ISA slot will allow you to install a HDD via an XT-IDE card. They use compact flash cards which you can also read and write on modern computers allowing for quick file transfer (although to me pure floppy disk based system also has its charm)

I found a seller on ebay who makes custom 360k 5.25 diskettes for people. I figure I'll save myself the time and just buy a couple from the seller with the labels all nicely done for me haha. Maybe I will use the ISA slot in the future, thats not a bad idea for an upgrade down the road.

Lots of questions/possibilitties come to mind...

It would help to have an exact model number so we could look up the specs...

Does the HD "spin up" - often the prolem with such old HDs is "sticktion" which you can somtimes get working by rotating the drive sideways (along the axis of the spindle) fairly aggressively during power-up.

I also had a drive once that I "took apart" and manually freed the heads from the platter in the hopes of it working long enough to recover data from it - which then continued to work reliably for years. Always best to do such stuff in a clean-room, but just keep the work area spotless, I don't think you have much to lose.

Really worth trying to get a working HD - trying to run from floppy is quite limiting - and you end up putting a lot of wear and tear on rare/difficult to replace items.
Failing that if there's enough RAM you might be able to make a boot floppy that essentially runs the system on a RAMdrive.

ATs(286s) often had 5.25" HD (1.2m) drives ... are you sure the drive in it is 360k (the AT could access/boot 360k disks on an HD drive) - if you can get ImageDisk to run on it, you could tell by stepping 40 tracks from home and seeing if the head ends up near the other extreme (360k) or near the middle (1.2m)

Can you enter a BIOS or have a "setup disk"? If yes, what does it show the drive as configured as, and does it allow 5.25" HD or 3.5" HD to be configured?

If yes to either, it has an HD floppy controller, and you could probably replace the drive with a GoTek - GoTeks are often used to replace 3.5" HD drives. but I think I tested mine and confirmed that it could be used as a 5.25" HD. (A GoTek would also solve the wear problem, and there are tools to access the USB stick you use in one from another system which would make transferring stuff possible).

You say you would normally make 3.5" disks - sounds like you have another system with a floppy/controller - you could pull the drive from the portable and use it to make disks by writing 360k images, or just access existing disks to put files on/off of them. All you might need is a floppy cable with a 5.25" connector (the one in the portable might work).

Does the machine have a network port? If yes, we might be able to find a "packet driver" to access it and you could use my DDLINK to moves files to/from it. If not network, does it have a COM port? - You could do the same using that interface (just slower).

Just some ideas to try and help make the machine more usable!

You can get a working 360k drive on ebay for $50-100 pretty easily. I don't think that exactly qualifies a "very expensive" but I suppose it's a matter of perspective

Yes, I also think "very expensive" is relative. Considering the age and rarity of the machine you are currently working with (and the fact that it is still booting up properly and the crt works) you may want to consider thing like proper tools, wear on rare parts (as Dave commented) and some options to service and explore the machine carefully (if I would find such a computer, I would be absolutely thrilled, but also a bit scared to break things). If you teally want to frequently use it, I think XT-IDE is the best option.

It really depends on exactly what you have, looking at images online, I see some that look similar:

Original compaq portable - NOT a 286, PC compatible.

Portable 286 - AT compatible, came with 5.25" 1.2M drive and 10-20M hard drive. I've seen RAM ranging from 128k - 2M, with 640k being a common number. I expect higher are RAM cards in the ISA slots.

Back views show serial ... but obviously a card in one of the several ISA slots ... again depends on what exactly you have. You could probably put an ISA network card in!

Aparently came in the same case as the original portable, although I remember the Compaq Portable I had having two floppies mounter vertically (you can see it on "Daves Old Computers")

Portable II - also came in 286, similar features, slightly smaller case.

I also saw mention of "Portable 286" with a 3.5" drive - could have been an aftermarket bodge, or a Portable II - wasn't clear.

At first I thought this might be just a clone of the ComPaq portable, but comparing yours to photos of the Compaq portable online, although they look very much alike, the area to the left of the screen isn't nearly as wide. This is a kinda fundamental difference in case build which suggests completely different interior.

Although I'd heard of them, I've never actually seen a KingTek before - please post more detailed photos, incl back panel and interior.

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-04-26, 12:08:

At first I thought this might be just a clone of the ComPaq portable, but comparing yours to photos of the Compaq portable online, although they look very much alike, the area to the left of the screen isn't nearly as wide. This is a kinda fundamental difference in case build which suggests completely different interior.

Although I'd heard of them, I've never actually seen a KingTek before - please post more detailed photos, incl back panel and interior.

Here are some more photos I am still trying to figure out how to open this thing, maybe the model number will mean something. I don’t want to break it, I am not a computer expert by any stretch haha

Great! - I'd like to see the inside, so sometime when you have it opened ... ?

I see you do have a serial port (or at least a DB9-M connector), so you should be able to use DDLINK to transfer files directly to it without messing with moving floppys.

I also see a couple parallel ports, so if you have another DOS system, you could DDLINK over parallel (a LOT faster than serial, but still not as fast as LAN).

I'm slightly curious about the DB-15 connector .. most likely this is a game port connector, but ... some old/more-obscure networking used DB-15 for the nerwork interface (I have some old ISA NICs with both BNC and DB-15), so it's possible (but very unlikely) that it does have a network interface. You can get adapters from DB-15 network connectors to much more common RS-45.

Worth opening it up to see what that connector is connected to (and you could take in "inside" pic at the same time! 😀

I’ve been trying for an hour to get it opened but it’s not really budging… I managed to slightly pop up this tab to move to slide out a little but not much. I tried to get the other tabs to move but it feels like the plastic will break if I try to force it.

Ohhh... Don't risk breaking it ... still,you would have had to add/remove DRIVES, RAM etc. There must be a "trick" to releasing the cover.

While looking, I did find several sites that showcased it ... maybe one has disassembly details...

DaveDDS wrote on 2026-04-27, 03:33:

Ohhh... Don't risk breaking it ... still,you would have had to add/remove DRIVES, RAM etc. There must be a "trick" to releasing the cover.

While looking, I did find several sites that showcased it ... maybe one has disassembly details...

Can you send the link to the sites that showcased it?

Of course "Thicknet". I was wondering why it had a MIDI port but no audio jack sockets.

I believe you can use a CentreCOM 210T to connect that to a regular Ethernet network without futzing around with the cables and vampire clamps and all related horrors.

drewking12 wrote on 2026-04-27, 20:51:

Can you send the link to the sites that showcased it?

I just googled "compaq portable 286" and "kingtek" - and mixed the term aroind a bit.

I also selected "Images" and picked sites showcasing system that looked like that.