I decided to test the hardware by installing Windows 11. I knew it was too old for 11, but I'd heard there were work arounds, so I was killing three birds with one stone - seeing what I think of Windows 11, seeing how it goes when you install it on unsupported hardware, and seeing if this system actually worked. I did the registry edit when installing, and after that it installed with no further issues and Windows update works fine.

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet.
All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with drivers, one empty disc, the drive, the cables, all included.
Can still find some discs for sale on amazon, though they're in short supply.

oh, and while it says e-ide on the front of the box, it says it's parallel on the side, and since it's an external device and has a parallel cable included... it's probably both 😉

I wish magneto optical had become a thing. I imagine that it would have been a much more reliable and interesting evolution for removable media.

Even though we did eventually get flash media, it wasn't an affordable alternative for years and has never become as ubiquitous or disposable as floppy disks.

We did get writable CDs, but they are not a reliable form of storage due to the organic dyes, and aren't as useful or compatible as rewritable media. DVD-RAM is the exception, but it has always been expensive and never cheap and disposable.

Got some freebies today...

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-11, 17:41:

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet. All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with d […]
Show full quote

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet.
All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with drivers, one empty disc, the drive, the cables, all included.
Can still find some discs for sale on amazon, though they're in short supply.

oh, and while it says e-ide on the front of the box, it says it's parallel on the side, and since it's an external device and has a parallel cable included... it's probably both 😉

There is a Russian language page from 1997 which briefly mentions the release of the Verbatim OptiDriver 230 & 640 MO drives. Also (coincidence?) there was a company called Optisys who seemed to specialise in the optical storage market, including their OptiDriver device drivers, so maybe some kind of partnership going on with them and Mitsubishi (Verbatim)

https://web.archive.org/web/19980624194510/ht … m/opti2100.html

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2022-07-12, 14:07:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-11, 17:41:

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet. All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with d […]
Show full quote

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet.
All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with drivers, one empty disc, the drive, the cables, all included.
Can still find some discs for sale on amazon, though they're in short supply.

oh, and while it says e-ide on the front of the box, it says it's parallel on the side, and since it's an external device and has a parallel cable included... it's probably both 😉

There is a Russian language page from 1997 which briefly mentions the release of the Verbatim OptiDriver 230 & 640 MO drives. Also (coincidence?) there was a company called Optisys who seemed to specialise in the optical storage market, including their OptiDriver device drivers, so maybe some kind of partnership going on with them and Mitsubishi (Verbatim)

https://web.archive.org/web/19980624194510/ht … m/opti2100.html

Nice find. It seems like they only did software..

I'll edit the post with some more photos later. at first glance it seems like it should be easy to open up the external drive... though it is definitely not just push & slide.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-11, 17:41:

My latest acquisition for which I am not easily finding info on the internet.
All the parts are in the box, the diskettes with drivers, one empty disc, the drive, the cables, all included.
Can still find some discs for sale on amazon, though they're in short supply.

There are plenty of Magneto Optical media on Yahoo Auctions if you're in need of discs.

MO disks last forever.

One or two were bad on a set of discs I bought came with the MO I think 800MB or so? 5.25" FH size drive. No longer have it anymore. The ones that worked needed dust cleaned off the platter surface, and drive needed recapped.

Cheers,

Rescued two laptops from going to the scrapper, a Gateway Solo 2300 and a IBM Thinkpad 1171-1300.
The Thinkpad has a broken hinge and a subsequent broken lid, haven't done much with it. It has a Celeron 500 and a crappy passive matrix screen.
It also has a ESS Maestro sound card and a Silicon Motion 2D only card. Not sure if it is worth repairing at this point.

The Gateway also had a passive matrix screen but I have already replaced it with and active TFT panel and upgraded the ram from 16mb to 80mb.
This laptop seems fairly well suited to DOS gaming with a genuine Yamaha OPL sound card and less exciting but mostly suitable Neomagic 2d chip.
The laptop has a 166mmx Pentium currently, but I found a 266 Tillamook chip on ebay for 19 bucks, figured it was deserving of the upgrade.

If anyone has much interest in these upgrades I might post a follow up. Sorry no pictures ATM

Solo 2300 has a fault that affected all: A screw backs out easily under the Pentium MMX module and short out. Best way is use low strength loctite.

My friend had 3 notebooks of these and all are affected.

Cheers,

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem.

only DDR2 and DDR in this photo. 2G 1G 512M 256M PC6400 <> PC2100

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-07-14, 23:04:

Solo 2300 has a fault that affected all: A screw backs out easily under the Pentium MMX module and short out. Best way is use low strength loctite.

My friend had 3 notebooks of these and all are affected.

Cheers,

Good to know, thanks for the tip!

Oh, it has like 30 screws. And most unusual thing, the motherboard is also encased in metal tin box with more screws.

This what it looks like:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255210677720

Cheers,

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-15, 12:50:

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem. […]
Show full quote

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem.

only DDR2 and DDR in this photo. 2G 1G 512M 256M PC6400 <> PC2100

MoAr memory goooood. Though is that blue stuff real desktop RAM or smurf grade server stuff? ... I'm having to give myself a Rule or 3 or 4 though. No 30pin 1MB or smaller, no 72pin 4MB or smaller, no SDRAM 64MB or smaller, though exceptions made for 16 chip 32MB for VX and early 440 boards, no DDR 256MB or smaller, no DDRII 512mb or smaller, no DDR3 1MB or smaller and I think I'm gonna have to set the bar for 8GB and better for the DDR4, but barely got any yet. However, all the small stuff still sneaks in somehow, buy a box with large modules prominent and there's a bunch of shrimpy ones hiding under them. I ain't chucking them out or anything, just have a lifetime supply of the smaller stuff, which tends toward less useful than the bigger stuff.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-15, 16:13:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-15, 12:50:

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem. […]
Show full quote

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem.

only DDR2 and DDR in this photo. 2G 1G 512M 256M PC6400 <> PC2100

MoAr memory goooood. Though is that blue stuff real desktop RAM or smurf grade server stuff? ... I'm having to give myself a Rule or 3 or 4 though. No 30pin 1MB or smaller, no 72pin 4MB or smaller, no SDRAM 64MB or smaller, though exceptions made for 16 chip 32MB for VX and early 440 boards, no DDR 256MB or smaller, no DDRII 512mb or smaller, no DDR3 1MB or smaller and I think I'm gonna have to set the bar for 8GB and better for the DDR4, but barely got any yet. However, all the small stuff still sneaks in somehow, buy a box with large modules prominent and there's a bunch of shrimpy ones hiding under them. I ain't chucking them out or anything, just have a lifetime supply of the smaller stuff, which tends toward less useful than the bigger stuff.

I know what you mean. I'll have to sort through it all and decide what to keep and what to part with.
Though for now...

Soundcards, videocards, networkcards, firewirecards, USB port cable, dimm, so-dimm, simm & some compaq armada laptop format modules, 1G doms and some Juzt-reboot thingamajigs.
not shows, a mac lc, a philips cdd 462, a commodore pc10-III and some keyboards, two of which I assume are XT.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2022-07-15, 15:48:

Oh, it has like 30 screws. And most unusual thing, the motherboard is also encased in metal tin box with more screws. […]
Show full quote

Oh, it has like 30 screws. And most unusual thing, the motherboard is also encased in metal tin box with more screws.

This what it looks like:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255210677720

Cheers,

Seems about right. Most of these older small laptops weren't exactly the best thought out designs.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-15, 16:57:

I know what you mean. I'll have to sort through it all and decide what to keep and what to part with. Though for now... […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-07-15, 16:13:

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-15, 12:50:

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem. […]
Show full quote

I've done it to myself. Now I truly have a memory problem.

only DDR2 and DDR in this photo. 2G 1G 512M 256M PC6400 <> PC2100

MoAr memory goooood. Though is that blue stuff real desktop RAM or smurf grade server stuff? ... I'm having to give myself a Rule or 3 or 4 though. No 30pin 1MB or smaller, no 72pin 4MB or smaller, no SDRAM 64MB or smaller, though exceptions made for 16 chip 32MB for VX and early 440 boards, no DDR 256MB or smaller, no DDRII 512mb or smaller, no DDR3 1MB or smaller and I think I'm gonna have to set the bar for 8GB and better for the DDR4, but barely got any yet. However, all the small stuff still sneaks in somehow, buy a box with large modules prominent and there's a bunch of shrimpy ones hiding under them. I ain't chucking them out or anything, just have a lifetime supply of the smaller stuff, which tends toward less useful than the bigger stuff.

I know what you mean. I'll have to sort through it all and decide what to keep and what to part with.
Though for now...

Soundcards, videocards, networkcards, firewirecards, USB port cable, dimm, so-dimm, simm & some compaq armada laptop format modules, 1G doms and some Juzt-reboot thingamajigs.
not shows, a mac lc, a philips cdd 462, a commodore pc10-III and some keyboards, two of which I assume are XT.

Don't forget to check if any of those SDRAM modules happen to by chance be VC-SDRAM 😜

Juzt-reboot thingamajigs

Those remind me of the Reborn cards we used to have. I should even have a paper manual of one of those somewhere iirc?
Don't really have a good idea what I could use them for nowdays though.

weedeewee wrote on 2022-07-15, 16:57:

Soundcards, videocards, networkcards, firewirecards, USB port cable, dimm, so-dimm, simm & some compaq armada laptop format modules, 1G doms and some Juzt-reboot thingamajigs.
not shows, a mac lc, a philips cdd 462, a commodore pc10-III and some keyboards, two of which I assume are XT.

Wow ! Nice haul.

Its local hard rubbish time...

Gigabyte GA-Z87 with i5 4670K

HUGE Phanteks Enthoo Primo Ultimate case... I looked up the PC CaseGear price in 2014 and it was $429AU!!

Other things..
WD Raptor HDDs
XFX 8800GTX
ADI Microscan CRT

Need to decide what to do with the case... maybe reverse sleeper or something..