So, i also bought a Tosihba T3100e/40 luggable PC from 1991

This week, I bought a Toshiba T3100e/40.

It was made in 1990 and the machine I got by mail is in excellent condition.

Superb hi-tech specs are : 12mhz 286, 1 MB ram, 40 MB harddrive, even a 1.44MB diskdrive, 2 serial ports and CGA video grafics.

Why do I post this on a toughbook forum ?

Because i have more than 20 tough\books and this T3100e/40 is also kinda rugged.

I opened the machine trying to swap the internal harddrive for something larger, and see that the internal shielding/protection is rather good.

Total weight of this beast is 6.5 kilos !

Oh, and it has a lovely PLASMA screen that glows orange/red letters on a black background.

 

Now that is a old school classic. I need to finish up my CF-25 some time here in the future.

 

I was thinking about grabbing one of dems to browse the web.... OHH WAIT...

 

I read on some websites that a 286 is able to surf the internet. with some tricks. no youtube or cpu-intensive flash games., but still good for e-mail reading, newsgroups etc.

 

I am old enough to say "I have actually been there, done that!"

 

The CGA mono graphics eliminates any web browsing as it is known today. Back in the day, you could phone DIAL a website direct and browse in mostly TEXT or the real fancy places had ASCII "graphics". I remember stupid high phone bills. Once an addict always an addict.
When windows 3.11 came out, it was like the invention of the car compared to horse and buggy.
The expensive color monitors had an amazing 16 colors at at a breathtaking resolution of 640x200 ( some called that EGA I think)
Standard CGA text 320 x 200........................

 

This T3100e/40 has a special CGA video chip, that not only displays standard CGA 320x200, but can also display 320x400 (!) . I am seeking software for this ability. Could be handy. Yesterday, i installed some old Infocom and Sierra adventure games, and played the whole day and night until 6 am. Hihi.

the videochip seems to be compatible with the AT&T 6300 / early Tandy PC-clones.

I had a lot of difficulty to format the harddrive. Tried many bootmanagers etc.etc. still not working. So, what was the cause of my problem that took me 3 whole days to solve ?

At the BIOS screen, you can change settings. Standard, the Harddrive is set to 20 MB, but you can change it to 40MB. Anyhow, i kept on changing it to 40mb, and then press ESC to escape. in the lower botrtom keys are explained, and END means REBOOT.

So i didnt press the END key in the first 3 days of my discovery of this lovely ancient luggable computer with a carring handle...

Yesterday I tried to press the END key.

and voilas. No need for partition managers anymore. Simply format C: with MS-DOS 6.22

and voilas. True 286 power !

I found this video on youtube, explaining the special abilities of the AT&T 6300 computer of 1984. Nice to see those old programs...



Some of them I have to install and try out for myselve on my Toshiba...
these are :

- Geoworks Ensemble Pro (v1.2) 1991
- Fractint v20
- Zsoft Paintbrush v1.68
- Microsoft Word 5.0 (1989)

Next week i will get another golden oldie.

The Olivetti personal computer laptop S20/D33 (also from 1991)

]

 

I bought one of those for my daughter at the used computer outlet when it was about a year or so old. That screen was wicked cool in its day. Rumor has it that the displays were made by Panasonic.
CAP

 

O... M... G... time to guide Roger Wilco through Space Quest 1 .... or Larry Bonds in Police Quest?

Is it an IDE HD or RLL/MFM?

I'm sure you can interface something through serial or parallel port if there isn't an ISA slot for an Ethernet (Token ring? heh.) card.. then terminal into a server to use Lynx and Pine. heheh.

 

Its and IDE HD. Lucky for me. The 3100e/40 has an IDE hard drive. The olde 3100 has an MFM or even older type.

Bad thing is: I cant find a good service manual. I need some information from the internets about dismanteling./opening the laptop to get to the harddrive.

I succeeded into removing the keyboard and got to the motherboard, but cant remove the upper part with the screen...

I can see the harddrive and the diskdrive, but they are in a metal shield, and the screws are underneath the screen... yeah....

But one thing i did succeed in. Replacing the DEAD CMOS battery. It was a special 3.6 volt litium AA battery. I replaced it with a CR2023 3v lithium battery. And it works okay. I dont want to break this nice machine, because its almost in prestine condition with only very minor scratches. Everything looks like it was bought, used maybe for 3 weeks and then put in a locker for 23 years until I bought it.

So, i wait until I find a good procedure/manual that explains me in detail how to replace the harddrive.

It has 2 Serial ports. And it also has one very COOL feature. on the bottom is a metal shield that can be removed. It has a standard ISA port connector, so i can insert any half-size ISA card (VGA/network or even SoundBlaster !). Yeah.

and as i collect old systems before i started to collect toughbooks, i also have a rather large stash of old XT/AT cards. (about 25 ISA sound cards, 40+ ISA/PCI graphic cards.etc.). Also got 3 old IDE drives of 100-250 Megabytes.

This system also has 4 dimm sockets for memory upgrades (it has 1MB standard but according to the internet information on some forums, the memory can be expanded up to 3.5 or 5 MB).

It now works with MS-DOS 6.22, but i didnt find a good sollution to use the extra 384Kb.

 

T-series T3100e

Toshiba T3100e Manual

Disassembly of T3100e Laptop

Toshiba T3100e (2) - Computing History

Toshiba T3100E manual

http://www.searspartsdirect.com/par...Parts/Printer-Parts/Model-T3100E/1100/0501500

http://manual.pcbam.com/toshiba-t3100e-manual-book/

Is this enough documents for you? lol

 

Thank for the info-links , Ador !

 

Beautiful.

The ergonomics look better than typical modern laptop design. I like how the screen is a little more back and up from the keyboard. The low-to-no-contrast monochrome plasma screen... not so much. Put it is pretty!

 

I had one of these...



and one of these...



and one of these...

(And I even built a REAL keyboard for it from one of my old C-64 keyboards)



and one of these...

(Only with the plasma display)



and my first PC was a Data General 8088/8085 16-bit console that ran CP/M from one FH 5 1/4 floppy and stored data on a second one. I can't even find a pic of that one online anymore... It looked a lot like the Z-120 below, only it was white & dark blue console.

[EDIT]

I found a pic of my old DG today; since the forum won't let me add any more pics to this post, you'll have to look for it below.

[/EDIT]




I STILL have this one:

(Though the last time I booted the old 5MB 5 1/4" FH Winchester Drive, I had to whack it with a screwdriver handle to get it to start spinning up)



And I still have this one in pristine condition in a bag under my bench:





mnem
*Older than dirt*

 

And someday, my son and I will make a mobile out of these with family photos in the middle; I'm still looking for some 12" platters...





[EDIT] And here's the DG as promised... I promise, mine wasn't as skeevy looking.



[/EDIT]



mnem
Sucking sucky 6 attachment limit anyhoo...

 

Cool, is that last computer on that list a Tandy 200 ?

 

Yup, in all its 40 Column, Static State glory.


mnem
Faster, cat.

 

Just so the kids aren't confused, that is the one-and-only, original WayBack machine, Sherman, and Mr Peabody. You won't find that at archive.org.

 

I like confusing the kids.......


The WABAC Machine (pronounced, and often synonymous with, Way-back) refers to a fictional machine from the cartoon segment Peabody's Improbable History, an ongoing feature of the 1960s cartoon series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. The WABAC Machine is a plot device used to transport the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman back in time.

Within the Peabody's Improbable History cartoon segment, the machine was constructed by Mr. Peabody, a professorial, bow tie-wearing dog, as a birthday gift for Sherman, Mr. Peabody's pet boy, to be able to visit famous historical events. At the request of Mr. Peabody ("Sherman, set the WABAC machine to ..."), Sherman would set the WABAC controls to a time and place of historical importance, and by walking through a door in the WABAC machine, the two would be instantly transported there. The machine apparently later returned Mr. Peabody and Sherman to the present, although the return trip was never shown.

According to Gerard Baldwin, one of the show's directors, the name "WABAC" is a reference to the UNIVAC I.

 

oooooohwwwww, that is my first laptop! This brings back memories. The salesman sad it had a big advantage: you don't need to haul around an adapter brick, it's already build in!! just a powercord and you're good to go. Never mind the 6kg back breaking weight of it all. Ooh, the orange on black screen, my eyes start to hurt, water and tick again. Report after report has been written on this thing.

 

UNIVAC incoming:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/UNIVAC-I-BRL61-0977.jpg

It DOES look like the WABAC machine!

Youngster on the block. Our first computer (which I did not want) was a Tandy 2000. It had 5.25" floppy drives, and used discs with a whopping 360 KB of data on each side for a total of 720 KB. It intimidated me greatly, because it constantly asked: "are you sure you want to do that?" I thought I wanted to do that until it asked me that. Was there a reason it questioned me that way? Learned to program many useless things (like windshield wipers) before getting bored with programming. So I went back to just being an intimidated user.

 

Heh.

The Computer Lab (yeah, that's what we called it back then) had TRS-80 Model 1 & Model IIs; the Model IIs had Floppy drives; the Model 1s had TAPE DRIVEs. As in CASSETTE TAPES, and you had to write the Counter # of your program on the tape so you could find it manually. Just like my First C64; though I never had a VIC 20.


Of course, Cap'n remembers the good ol' days of PUNCHCARDS, tabulating machines and Babbage's Differential Engine; and recording a program by carving bits into a stone tablet with a chisel.


mnem
Okay; so maybe I'm slightly younger than dirt.

 

Are you sayin Cap'n is as old as dirt?

 

I would never say such a thing unless it was absolutely, positively funny. And I was out of range.



mnem
*uber*

 

You're also missing some 1.8" microdrive platters.

 

I thought about that; got a couple dead 1.8" drives from iPods & GPSes; but... the hole is only like 3mm across. Gonna be hard to put a photo in there. Maybe a message on MicroDot though...


mnem
Great. Something else to add to my "To-Do" list...

 

When I worked at the Philips managment office , an old guy who was also working at my office, told me many stories about programming computers with those old PUNCHCARDS. He also told me a little trick do "sabotage" the programmer. Whenever a programmer was finished making the punch-card program (making a large stack of them), and walked towards the machine where the punchcards had to be inserted (that machine made a whola lot of noise...), somebody would just stick his leg in front of him, making the poor guy fall on the floor, with all those punchcards spread on the floor.. Yeah, so the poor guy had to return to his table, and spend another couple of days re-arranging the cards for his program. Good 'ol memories.

Also , when i was at teenage kid of 12, my first programming experience was on a Dutch Aster CT-80 (TRS-80 model 2 (or was it 3) clone. Learned a lot of it.

Concerning the T3100e. Since i replaced the CMOS battery the thing works like a charm. Almost no scratches, and i am very very proud to have such an old luggable computer in such a good shape in my personal collection of historic computers.

Since a couple of days, i am searching the internet for old games and utilities to play on it. A lot of fun, playing on that monochrome plasmascreen the old games like Kings Quest, Xenon 2, Ultima VI, BloodWych etc.

 

What, no Duke Nukem?


mnem
The guy wears a pink tank top and nobody questions his masculinity. Seriously.

 

punch cards, used them at a cnc-machine, but they wheren't loose ones, these where the harmonica type, meters and meters long.

 

Meet Ralph, my Dwagon slaying Wildebeest seen here modeling my favorite hat. I'm not sayin', but I'm too old to be a Baby Boomer.

"No Ralph, you can't go to San Antone and lay a load of "Whupass" on the Dwagon. Hippy liberals from Massachusetts are not too popular down in Rick Perry country."

CAP

 

I recently got in touch with that Bulgarian military 8bit PC:

http://www.pravetz.info/images/pravetz/photo-pravetz-8m-military-1.jpg
http://www.pravetz.info/images/pravetz/photo-pravetz-8m-military-2.jpg

Sadly I wan't able to buy it

My first touch with computers (when I was a kid) was with Pravetz 8S. CM630/1Mhz processor and 128KB RAM

 

Some info for the exotic Pravetz 8M model:

The computer was 8bit with TWO processors: Synertek 6502/1Mhz and Z80/4Mhz
The RAM was 64KB stock and extendable up to 128KB
Two 5,25" floppy drives
The monitor in picture mode was with resolution 280x192 with 6 colors or 40x48 with 16 colors. Additionally there is a mixed graphic + 4 text lines mode, which was exotic at that time

With the first processor it was able to work with DOS and ProDOS and with the second (the faster) processor it was working with CP/M. The computer was native (hardware) in Cyrillic language.

I don't know of other analogous computer at that time (1985)...

 

Was the computer a bare board as shipped?

Because that console reminds me of an aftermarket one they used to make for the C64, only hacked a bit and painted brown instead of ivory; and I think that keyboard has an old Atari or Commodore joystick hacked in.

*Waves to Ralph*

Y'all come on down; I'll buy you a beer and we can talk about how Texas politics is poisoning the rest of the nation...

mnem
*extra cheesy*

 

100% stock model. The "military edition" however is hard to find. And it's not "aftermarket"... because there wasn't really a "market" when it was produced. It was not for sale at all

Âèðòóàëåí ìóçåé íà áúëãàðñêèòå êîìïþòðè Ïðàâåö - here are all Bulgarian computer models. Most of them are based on Apple architecture. We was a very big producer between 1980 and 1989 but the factories then slowly fall in bankrupcy in 1994.

 

Meet Ralph's buddy Bruce. Ralph wants to bring Bruce with him. They've been watching MSNBC and in light of current events they want to meet you in Austin. They claim it's because Austin is likely to be the safest place in Texas for their lefty pinko leanings but I have overheard some discussion about that "hottie" Wendy Davis. You don't know her by any chance?
CAP

 

Ahahahaha ROTF. Thanks CAP, made my day. They even fit the networks viewer profile, by the look of them.

 

I did send her a note thanking her on behalf of myself and my wife for standing up in the same room as Dou(enuggett for 14 hours straight; she could might reply. Maybe. If she does I'll hook y'all up. If not, the rodeo's in Feb. I'm sure a couple young studs like them can get some action THERE...


mnem
moo. Or don't.