The Sony Vaio laptops keeps popping up. I think they are definitely my favorite now as far as old laptops go. The design is just so nice and they seem to use a lot better plastics than the other brands of the same vintage.

This time it a a PCG-C1X
Pentium 266Mhz (chipset seems like it should be a Pentium II)
ES1879 Sound (real mode DOS compatible)
2.5MB Video (not D3D compatible)
8.9" TFT 1024x480 screen.
64MB RAM (upgraded to 128MB) - the RAM upgrade itself is probably worth about as much as I paid for the whole thing shipped.
Has the original restore disks, Win98SE and Windows 2000.
Also has the floppy and CD-ROM drive, wireless PCCard, and USB 10/100 NIC, Sony PCCard to memory card adapter and some other odds and ends.
Says it comes with the VGA adapter cable, but it isn't pictured.

Sale said that the pointer in the keyboard doesn't work due to a broken cable and it won't turn on when the battery is installed, but I am guessing the cable issue should be a not too difficult fix and the battery is probably just bad.

Too many pictures to post everything, but here is some of it.

A genuine Windows 2000 Pro..

The envy is real..

That's unused OEM. There's quite a lot them hanging around here and there, but technically you'll violate terms of use if you install it.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

but technically you'll violate terms of use if you install it.

In the U.S. maybe, but who cares anyway..? 😎

The Serpent Rider wrote:

That's unused OEM. There's quite a lot them hanging around here and there, but technically you'll violate terms of use if you install it.

It was actually installed on the laptop as seen in the picture.

Anyway, I really doubt MS cares about anything pre-XP license-wise. Only reason I start at XP is because you still need to activate XP with MS.

And since support has completely ended for XP, MS is not going to care about that either. Or Vista for that matter, but I have 0 reason to use Vista.

xjas wrote:

zip.jpg

^^ This one even came with a factory Zip250 drive. Apple went on a binge of including zip drives for a while, to appease prospective buyers who were scared of the removal of the 1.44MB floppy. Uncertain times!

I want to live in a world where the LS-120 drive took off and continued to evolve and I have a box full of 32GB superfloppies on my desk that go into an internal SATA drive that takes almost every disk made from 1990 on. Flash cards are too small and come in too many incompatible designs, 3.5" floppies were exactly the right size, and LS-120 was backwards compatible, unlike Zip.

Woolie Wool wrote:

xjas wrote:

zip.jpg

^^ This one even came with a factory Zip250 drive. Apple went on a binge of including zip drives for a while, to appease prospective buyers who were scared of the removal of the 1.44MB floppy. Uncertain times!

I want to live in a world where the LS-120 drive took off and continued to evolve and I have a box full of 32GB superfloppies on my desk that go into an internal SATA drive that takes almost every disk made from 1990 on. Flash cards are too small and come in too many incompatible designs, 3.5" floppies were exactly the right size, and LS-120 was backwards compatible, unlike Zip.

I can only imagine how unreliable, expensive and slow a 32GB swappable magnetic media disk and drive would be.

15 lbs worth of slot1 cpus 🤣 🤣 ( Pentium2 / Pentium3 )
Pic from the seller... im eager to receive the package 😎

okenido wrote:

piiiii.jpg

15 lbs worth of slot1 cpus 🤣 🤣 ( Pentium2 / Pentium3 )
Pic from the seller... im eager to receive the package 😎

Nice. Post what you actually get after sorting.

I've got yet another Sony Vaio PCG-C1VN on the way.. this one definitely for parts.. or maybe I will just swap the screen from my current one... not sure.
The case on this one is in much nicer shape than mine. The charge port on mine is broken as well. Works but very loose due to the plastic being broken.
And if I am really lucky, it will have an unobtanium RAM upgrade.

Man. You are on a roll. My Sony Vaio (P3) is sadly about 2000+ miles from me at the moment at a relative's house. Kinda wish I had it in my possession. I really like the look and feel of those guys.

My NOS Gainward GeForce3 64MB CardExpert finally showed up. Paid $25 shipped for it.

Beautiful card. I love the all red design. Supposedly it was built with higher than spec memory so maybe I can get it up into the Ti500 clock speed range.

It'll be going into the S478 1.7GHz Willamette machine. It should make a nice year 2001 machine until I find a cooler for the Socket 423 board I was given or get the Socket 423 Sony Vaio working. Not sure what's wrong with it. I can't remove the power supply to get to half the internal components which really doesn't help. I was able to test it with a different PSU because the 4 pin and 20 pin connectors were accessible but it still didn't start. Does anybody know if Sony used proprietary power supplies during 2001?

bought a lot of cards very cheap.
most are just crap, i only wanted the tnt ultra so had to buy all 4

Pabloz wrote:

bought a lot of cards very cheap. most are just crap, i only wanted the tnt ultra so had to buy all 4 […]
Show full quote

bought a lot of cards very cheap.
most are just crap, i only wanted the tnt ultra so had to buy all 4

TGUi9440-3 PCI is rare according to Wikipedia.

And is that the ESS AudioDrive that is supposed to be one of the best SB compatibles you can get?

You might give the Crystal chip a go as well. Don't buck it till you try it.

TGUi9440 rare? It was a pretty common mid 1990's low-end card in my experience. These days anything from back then is rare, but this isn't in the same league as many other things people are looking for. The only reason it might become rare is people binning it for lack of interest or redeeming features. It's a (slow) 1MB PCI VGA card, with functional Windows and DOS driver support. Not much more than that, but if you need 2D image (at low res/colour depth) it'll do the job.

The most interesting thins about this card is how late it is - that 9440 chip has a 1997 day code. This was low-end in 1994/5, by 1997 it's astonishing Trident was still manufacturing it, more so that people were still equipping cards with it.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

TGUi9440-3 PCI is rare according to Wikipedia.

And is that the ESS AudioDrive that is supposed to be one of the best SB compatibles you can get?

You might give the Crystal chip a go as well. Don't buck it till you try it.

the ESS Audiodrive is the ES1868F
and i didn´t know it was actually a good isa soundcard.

cyclone3d wrote:

And since support has completely ended for XP, MS is not going to care about that either. Or Vista for that matter, but I have 0 reason to use Vista.

I have 1 reason for myself to have a dedicated Vista machine: Using programs that no longer work on Windows 7+ due to f*cking Windows Updates breaking support for them. >.<

Pabloz wrote:

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

TGUi9440-3 PCI is rare according to Wikipedia.

And is that the ESS AudioDrive that is supposed to be one of the best SB compatibles you can get?

You might give the Crystal chip a go as well. Don't buck it till you try it.

the ESS Audiodrive is the ES1868F
and i didn´t know it was actually a good isa soundcard.

I like them. Very straightforward and compatible.

TheAbandonwareGuy wrote:

My NOS Gainward GeForce3 64MB CardExpert finally showed up. Paid $25 shipped for it.

Beautiful card. I love the all red design. Supposedly it was built with higher than spec memory so maybe I can get it up into the Ti500 clock speed range.

It'll be going into the S478 1.7GHz Willamette machine. It should make a nice year 2001 machine until I find a cooler for the Socket 423 board I was given or get the Socket 423 Sony Vaio working. Not sure what's wrong with it. I can't remove the power supply to get to half the internal components which really doesn't help. I was able to test it with a different PSU because the 4 pin and 20 pin connectors were accessible but it still didn't start. Does anybody know if Sony used proprietary power supplies during 2001?

Hey that's interesting, I've just built a 478 1.7GHz Willamette. Strange thing is, my Canopus GF3 Ti500 won't play nicely with it. Displays text mode stuff fine, but blanks out when the drivers kick in under Win2k - tried nVidia drivers as well as the Canopus ones from the product CD. Keen to hear how you go with the Gainward GF3.

On the purchase front, just picked up a Pentium MMX VRM for an IBM socket 7 machine.

The Serpent Rider wrote:

That's unused OEM. There's quite a lot them hanging around here and there, but technically you'll violate terms of use if you install it.

Unused OEM is good enough for me, don't have even that..

Microsoft is a lot more lenient about the use of their licenses than people think, they won't mind using that license on another PC at all.

oh, they care. quite a bit. but going after individuals is not worth the time, effort, bad pr, and most Importantly, MONEY to enforce licences.