This is taken from another site but this is why the cf-18 digitizer does not have serial ports.
"At first sight, the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition looks very familiar. It is heavily based on Windows XP Professional, but has an extra layer of software to handle the unique features of a tablet, including the pen-based input system.
The software is tightly integrated with the hardware, so it is supplied as an OEM product and is not available to retail customers.
A tablet is designed to be used on the move so most models support Wifi, Bluetooth and infra-red. Microsoft has added a feature called Grab and Go to Windows XP Tablet, which ensures that the tablet and its software will perform flawlessly even if you pull the network cable out of the back and take your tablet for a walk.
Some connections won’t tolerate this sort of treatment, so Windows XP Tablet doesn’t support legacy serial, parallel or PS/2 ports."
Also this is a link to another manufacture website that shows serial ports are not supported under win xp tablet.
http://web1.toshiba.ca/support/techsupport/tsbs/all/-TSB001155.htm
Guess that explains why they just saved the few extra bucks on the serial connectors.
-James
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Thats funny as my cf-19 with tablet pc has a working com-port!
Alex -
Ya i am not sure what they changed but that was the first thing i thought when i got my cf-19 too.
Strange i guess.
Do you have the digitizer model?
-James -
Alex -
I see i thought you had a touchscreen version for some reason i guess i mixed that up with one of the CF-18's
-James -
Before I had listed as digitizer, but there is no room now
Alex -
Hi Guys,
Back to the original question, issue. I also have non working tablet buttons on a cf-18 but I only have XP pro installed not XP tablet pc. Is it possible to get them to work with only having xp pro? I think it is great that you talked Toughbook into buying an 18. He is a genius with the 28 and 29. I was fortunate enough to acquire one of his Ultimate 28's. It is beyond words. Thanks Toughbook!!!! -
OK here are the steps
Install xp
If your disk is just xp or xpsp-1 upgrade to sp-2
Now a list of drivers in order
Wifi driver only from intel And have device manager unknown network device search in the folder you downloaded
Listed on the intel download site as English: 12.2.0.0_X_Drivers.zip Download
Ver:12.2.0.0 Date:1/5/2009 Size:7133 (KB)
OS INF File driver , unextract to c: and install and reboot
Video driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
Sound driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
Modem driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
Now you can do the backwords hotkey stuff...
Hotkey plus driver download extract and go into device manager under the second unknown device direct to the plus driver and reboot
Now the same thing with the hotkey driver as above , note there is only one uknown device in the device manager
then
touchpad driver/touchscreen driver install through device manager upgrade the mouse driver conitunue to reboot after each addition
hotkey settings
hotkey plus manager
hotkey apendex
software key board
display rotation tool
By this time you will have the keys working and you can go into the panasonic program list and modify the rotation and front key settings
Add any other drivers now that I missed
Alexdiagnosticbox likes this. -
Alex.... EXCELLENT POST!!! Lots of great info!
Also... instead of starting a new thread.... Any word on the CF-18 bomb that exploded over in Australia? Seems everybody must be finding them on the side of the road based on 75% of all the 18s on ebay are being offered from there.... That and a lot of them list having 10+ in stock. I thought I read somewhere that a few people here bought them and they looked okay but had a hard time finding drivers since they weren't built for the USA.
Anyone? -
Rick,
I believe the problem with drivers was the Aussies couldn't get restore disks because Panasonic USA and heartlandsi wouldn't sell overseas, and won't support computers that originate overseas. The drivers are all available, and there are a lot of them, at Panasonic.ca. Its just putting them in in the correct order that's tough, you know it aint easy if it gave Alex and Teo problems. The odd model # seems to come from the original owners, an Australian telcom I believe.
CAP -
Yes the market seems to be flooded with them
I know Cap paid less for his usa cf-18 than the price that those Australia cf-18s are going for
You are wrong on the drivers, they would be the same for all countries ,except of coarse the wwan which would probably be good only in the origin country so if you need that, you would buy a model originally sold in your country
The issue is with support/service as Panasonic Service will not support models sold in other countries
Thats not just warranty either, thats for out of warranty as well
Thats to discourage grey market products entering the country
Edit: Cap said most of what I posted as I was typing...
Got to learn to type faster
Alex -
I don't think there will be a lot of good local deals on CF-18s while the Aussies have the market flooded. The guys with a few to sell won't go up against all that stock. I haven't paid much attention, anyone here got one of those ones from "OZ"? I bid $345 for 4 machines from the same guy, won on the 4th try. He ran out unfortunately, I would have paid more money for more if I had seen how good his stuff was.
CAP -
Well... I just won one for $430.... And that is a fair price I think as that included shipping. The weird thing was that it was a "Dutch Auction"... The guy had two... I bid the highest ($437+change) for one of them and won the bid... With my exact highest bid... To the penny! That has never happened before. I'd like to see how that happened... But ebay doesn't show that anymore!
<Doing my "I'm SO excited" dance> -
Rick
So the other bidder paid the same $437.33 ?
Is the mk-2 that you bought a touchscreen or digitizer?
Alex -
Rick,
I believe in a dutch auction every one gets one at the lowest winning price. So the other guy bid more than you and got his for the same price you did.
CAP
EDIT: Rick it looks good! Post up the model # as soon as you can and we'll see about getting everything to work with your new "huge" hard drive. -
I don't know the exact model number but I do know that it is a Touchscreen. It's strange.. I normally ask for the complete model number before I bid but I figured the guy has a good rep and it seems to be complete... But with OS not loaded.
-
I just got one of the aussie CF-18's (in fact, I'm on it right now). Mine is a 18D 1.1 ghz Pentium M Touchscreen. It came with a 40GB hd (already upgraded!) and 512 ram (also already upgraded). Model number is CF18DKB22KA (I think, the label is almost totaly illegible)
The system showed up in pretty good shape, all things considered. It's definitely been well used but doesn't show any abuse, just some nice patina. It needed a good cleaning, and still needs a bit more, but the keyboard is in good shape, the screen has absolutely NO marks, and the only mechanical problem is a missing cover for the power port.
The battery I got is good for a little under an hour, so I've ordered a replacement. The power supply is a Fujitsu which has been re-terminated with a panasonic compatible connector (this was in the auction description, so no big deal). It's usable, but the connection is not quite as solid as it should be, I'll probably be on the lookout for an OE panasonic adaptor. I also received the stylus, tether, and the short carry strap
Mine came with a hodge-podge load of XP tablet edition SP3, probably from a Toshiba originally. Most everything worked out of the box, except the front panel buttons. I went through and updated/removed a bunch of things, and ended up getting the front panel buttons working, except for the screen rotation button. I can rotate the screen from the Intel Display icon in the toolbar and also from the keyboard, so I'm not ready to break everything (again!) to get it working. I suspect that it is generating a key sequence for screen rotation that is no longer supported by the display driver. The other annoyance is that the on-screen keyboard button brings up the panasonic app, instead of the XP Tablet OSK, but again, I'm not yet ready to break everything in a quest to get it working.
There was a trick to getting the hotkey drivers working, and that was I had to manually delete the driver files from the Windows directory, then re-install.
I haven't tried too hard to get the WAN modem up yet, although I do get the green antenna light when I turn it on, so I think it is connecting. I'll probably open it up this afternoon to see what I can figure out about the WAN, and also to look into GPS options.
nine -
Nine... Thanks for the info! Please let me know which WWAN software you need. It is hard to find on Panny's off-sites... I downloaded some of them before I lost the link. (Reformat and lost My Favs.)
-
Rick,
Some, but probably not all of the WWAN drivers are on Panasonic.ca
CAP -
As far as I know you can use a driver for each cf-18 with the same mark but of course there are two type of cf-18 the digitizer and the normal touchcreen except for wwan application.
For the the rotational button problem Tomcat..(alex) has a wright up(procedure) to follow in order this button to work.
ohlip -
Thanks for the offer. The WAN is a Sierra SB555, and the drivers from panasonic.ca seem to get it up and running (I believe I used the ones labeled for Telus). I'm not able to tell which network it's connected to, I believe both Verizon and Sprint are CDMA providers in my area. I currently don't plan on activating it, unless I can figure out how to do it for less $$ than most of the providers seem to want. There is an old SMS message stuck in the modem, notifying me of a missed phone call. It's dated October 07
I am interested in doing the internal GPS. I know there's some information scattered through the threads here, but I haven't found where it's been pulled together into a single spot. I know ohlip has gotten it working with the EM408 module. I've also heard excelent things about the new ublox modules, so I may try to work one of those up into a solution.
more fun every day!
nine -
THEY WORK!!!
Finally! Alex you are the man. Followed your instructions to the letter and with one minor glitch(missing driver), it is all good. My CF-18 is now completely functional and is again my new BFF. Thank you Tomcat.
CAPLast edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015 -
I'm glad I had the guinea pigs in there before me to figure it all out!
And just in time... Should be here Thursday or Friday.
-
As I told you it is easy. Just remember htkey plus first before the regular hotkey driver.
ohlip -
Dear All,
I have the Toughbook 18 Mk1, was hit by a virus end of last year, eventually (more by luck or judgment) got it running again.
However with two noticeable differences
1. I dont have the System Restore facility, have checked if it was a driver problem, emptied stuff out as said it was full etc etc but still no luck.
2. On switching on the first shown screen is black, then click and desktop display comes up and screen saver shows OK.
Is there something that can be started that can check - repair and do all sorts of magic things for the computer illiterate
Input appreciated.
PS good site and have sent it to friends for referencing their issues -
JMS,
Welcome to the forum! Its probably easiest to just wipe the hard drive, or better, get a new bigger faster one, and do a complete reinstall of everything. Read a bit, there are discussions of hard drive swaps(easy), and installing operating systems(easy when someone else has gone through it), drivers (we'll show you how), and anything else you need. Read some of the threads about CF-18s and come back with your questions. Use google to search the forum, it works best.
CAP -
I agree... Upgrade and reinstall.. You'll be glad you did when you get a slightly speedier laptop in return... Plus no more fragmented files. That will help speed things up too.
I reinstall XP every 12-18 months just to make things right again. I'm always surprised about the speed I pick up. Of course I also delete a lot of unnecessary crap that I had on there too! -
My CF-18 should be here about this time tomorrow. I guess it will be a late night. I should probably download all the drivers and print out the exellent directions of Tomcat... But I'm not sure what MK model it is... I guess it would be easy enough to figure out... It's a 1.1Ghz...
-
TB
The Aussie 1.1ghz I got is a D model, a mk2
nine -
Ahhhhhhhh.... My hopes are dashed... I got in the other 1.6GHz I was expecting later.... I thought it was supposed to be the CF-18... I'm a little ticked as it came from CA. The CF-18 is coming from CO and I've already received BOTH 29s from CA! (The 1.2GHz I bought came in yesterday!)
AAHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhh (AGAIN!) I have been SO looking forward to playing with the 18 tonight!
<Good News though... The CF-29 had stock GPS in it and the auction didn't list it! Plus a High Cap Battery! So... Whoohoo for that at least!> -
Well.. I just logged onto DiscountPC's website. (I had to create an account) I see their FedEx transmittal that shows that it SHOULD have been delivered today... The only problem???? THEY STILL HAVEN'T DROPPED IT OFF TO FED-EX!
<Steam rolls out the ears>
I gotta talk to John.... -
Rick,
Let us know, I'm planning on being up late the night you get it and Alex seems to never sleep. I will remind you that all of the necessary drivers are on Panasonic.ca with the exception of 1 hotkey app which I had to get from Panasonic, called Hot Key Plus Manager (hplsman). There are a total of 4 hotkey drivers/apps in my MK2.
CAP -
hi everybody, here is Guido from Italy writing from a cf-18 from Australia like many here. I'm using it from one week and I really like it a lot.
Thanks for every advice that helped me with it, like the screen rotation that wasn't working (now only button doesn't work)
Like toughbook I was really surpised when the highest bidder against me has offered the same euros as my highest bid.
Everithing here works fine except the buttons... I think i will fix it following your instructions as soon as I will feel like...
Also, on the PC, the kind Australians left all the drivers they needed to restore the pc.... Only few are missing, like hkplus.
bye.... enjoy! -
blargh.blargh.blargh Notebook Consultant
This was a special build that Panasonic did for Telstra. About 3,500 of them were deployed them to the Telstra field technicians and engineers. They were leased on a three year lease cycle and started to come back from lease about two months ago.
I bought one and it works great. They EBay reseller has loaded a bodgy version of WinXP Tablet Edition. But you're best to blow that away and install a fresh copy of XP pro (there's a WinXP COA on the bottom of the tablet).
The standard web drivers work great. I got everything working including the hotkeys. I haven't bothered trying to get the CDMA modem working as it is of no interest to me. -
I'm scrapping with the WWAN modem now. I have all the Verizon variations. I guess I'll try them one at a time...
-
Here's a list of what i have, can some kind soul tell me what is what or reorder them in the right sequence?
Checknet-2.11L10D-2kxp-nonlogo-M-web (a zipped file with some cab files and setup)
disprot
dmi
gprs
hkeyapp
hkeyplus
hkeyset
hotkey
hplsman
intelinf (is this the inf driver first on the list?)
intelvideo
lan
modem
mouse (is this touch screen as well?)
pr_lan
sound
video
wlan
wlansw
writing
I found the 12.2.0.0_X_Drivers.zip can i run it from anywhere or do i also need to unzip it to the Util folder before running.
Your help much appreciated! -
found http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/cgi-bin/itn/toughbook/dl01.cgi and might have worked most of them out but would be great if someone could confirm i've got them right.
intelinf - OS INF File driver, unextract to c: and install and reboot
video and intelvideo - Video driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
sound - Sound driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
modem - Modem driver unextract to C: util and install and reboot
Now you can do the backwords hotkey stuff...
Hkeyplus - Hotkey plus driver download extract and go into device manager under the second unknown device direct to the plus driver and reboot
Hotkey - Now the same thing with the hotkey driver as above , note there is only one uknown device in the device manager
then
mouse - touchpad driver/touchscreen driver install through device manager upgrade the mouse driver conitunue to reboot after each addition
hkeyset - hotkey settings
hplsman - hotkey plus manager
hkeyapp - hotkey apendex
writing? - software key board
Disport - display rotation tool
That leaves me with with -
dmi - No idea what this is
gprs - i expect the hardware for this is outdated anyway so won't bother with it.
Checknet-2.11L10D-2kxp-nonlogo-M-web also gprs so won't bother
Will guess the order of these
lan
pr_lan - no idea what this is
wlan
wlansw
All good fun -
I see you figured out the exe files
dmi/viewer - Is an application that shows your hardware, its not needed
gprs - i expect the hardware for this is outdated anyway so won't bother with it. WWAN software not needed
Checknet-2.11L10D-2kxp-nonlogo-M-web also gprs so won't bother either wwan not needed or bios not needed
Will guess the order of these
lan
pr_lan - no idea what this is...me either
wlan not needed
wlansw...... wireless switch is needed
The wireless lan device in device manager should update driver to where you unextracted the intell driver sofware
Alex -
getting there slowly
Everything is working now accept nothing happens when i press the software keyboard button (shame as i use that), and the wireless switch on the front turns it's light on and off but doesn't seem to be connected to the software wlan switch or do anything else (Don't need it but is there a way to stop it being back on every time i reboot?)
You were dead right about the performance increase, very noticeable improvement!
And i learnt from this thread that i can automatically change the screen rotation and back again when i change between laptop and tablet mode so all in all it's been a useful HDD death experience -
The Wireless switch at the front controls the wwan
It has nothing to do with 802.11 wireless,as its controlled with a software switch only , so you are doing good
Alex -
Still haven't figured out the software keyboard but it dawned on me the "writing" driver turned out to be handwriting so i'm still missing a driver for the keyboard. Do you know where i can find it? Searches not turning anything up and jp pana site doesn't list it. -
I will look for it later for you
I will be an application,not just a driver
Alex -
Found it - http://pc-dl.panasonic.co.jp/cgi-bin/itn/toughbook/dl02.cgi?main=765
meiskb_18_1_d030320.exe
I must be loosing it, it came up with a search for an application and i thought why didn't it come up listed for the model, checked again and there it was
Still any ideas on getting the wwan lights to go off for good much appreciated if i haven't used up all your patience -
Note to self: try and work it out before asking
managed to work out that as the switch lights up immediately with the power on i won't find the answer in windows. Found wireless modem option in bios and switched it off. It helped to know what the switch did. No more annoying flashing light
CF-18 Drivers and Buttons
Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by Zippy-Man, Nov 27, 2008.