Opening a Big Pile of Retro Tech You Sent In!
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Date: 2022-04-14
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Comments and reviews: 10
Louis
I had one of those 5280's that I dialed up to the 9s in the early 2000s. Had multiple hard drive caddies so I could swap and run different OSes. Loved it because it was a workhorse. Took mine everywhere. The modular ports could hold a floppy, CD ROM or a battery. That is why the battery has the door that extends to the right. You could put it in a modular port and pull the door over to cover the rest of the slot. At the time, with two batteries in the laptop, I would use it for tuning WiFi shot lines and scouting interference. I heard from a Compaq rep about a -workstation- base and hunted around for one. There was another, smaller base that didn't have speakers or the ISA slot that I had, but that usually stayed at work. Mine had a plastic monitor shelf that curved over the back and fit into those two sockets in the top front. The battery disk indicators were aligned to being able to max out each, and indicated which on was indicated by the quadrant of the machine the port was on. The IrDA in the base was really hit or miss but the one on the laptop always worked better. I tried using the Compaq Hardcard accessory in the ISA slot on the base, but it kept locking up, so I replaced it with an ethernet card. I remember the speakers as being pretty good as I used to listen to the GITS soundtrack on it often while working. Somewhere I have a picture of that machine, the dock, a Handspring Visor and a 17- CRT as my home workstation. Used that for about 4 -5 years before getting an IBM from work and using that moving forward.
It also came with a -wireless modem- set up. It wasn't cellular, but an RF telephone accessory that worked with a base and a cordless modem. Was kinda cool as a gimmick. Could support 28. 8 if you used the phone port on the remote or 33. 6 if you used their special PCMCIA modem. Worked so long as you a) didn't really move around and b) no one tried to use another cordless telephone. Even when the phone was on a different line, it would still kick you offline with CRC errors.
I kinda miss those workstation docks. Yeah, the new usb c stuff allows for more diversity, but give me one of those old LTEs or a MacBook Duo for looks any day!
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I had one of those 5280's that I dialed up to the 9s in the early 2000s. Had multiple hard drive caddies so I could swap and run different OSes. Loved it because it was a workhorse. Took mine everywhere. The modular ports could hold a floppy, CD ROM or a battery. That is why the battery has the door that extends to the right. You could put it in a modular port and pull the door over to cover the rest of the slot. At the time, with two batteries in the laptop, I would use it for tuning WiFi shot lines and scouting interference. I heard from a Compaq rep about a -workstation- base and hunted around for one. There was another, smaller base that didn't have speakers or the ISA slot that I had, but that usually stayed at work. Mine had a plastic monitor shelf that curved over the back and fit into those two sockets in the top front. The battery disk indicators were aligned to being able to max out each, and indicated which on was indicated by the quadrant of the machine the port was on. The IrDA in the base was really hit or miss but the one on the laptop always worked better. I tried using the Compaq Hardcard accessory in the ISA slot on the base, but it kept locking up, so I replaced it with an ethernet card. I remember the speakers as being pretty good as I used to listen to the GITS soundtrack on it often while working. Somewhere I have a picture of that machine, the dock, a Handspring Visor and a 17- CRT as my home workstation. Used that for about 4 -5 years before getting an IBM from work and using that moving forward.
It also came with a -wireless modem- set up. It wasn't cellular, but an RF telephone accessory that worked with a base and a cordless modem. Was kinda cool as a gimmick. Could support 28. 8 if you used the phone port on the remote or 33. 6 if you used their special PCMCIA modem. Worked so long as you a) didn't really move around and b) no one tried to use another cordless telephone. Even when the phone was on a different line, it would still kick you offline with CRC errors.
I kinda miss those workstation docks. Yeah, the new usb c stuff allows for more diversity, but give me one of those old LTEs or a MacBook Duo for looks any day!
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NOOBOARD
19: 36 I am still waiting for a Power VR Kyro II review dude -I own this card and it is one of the cards which impressed me the most back the days (aside of the 3dfx Voodoo. There was nothing like that card back then. Fast and cheaper than the competitors. You can even run it passive cooled. It needs some tweaking for some games. The tile based rendering is not that compatible for some games. But this card is just great and absolut underrated and sadly mostly forgotton. The Sega Dreamcast has the predecessor (Series 2) graphics chip. Series 4 never got to marked. But Series 3 got to marked on mobile devices (MBX) and also Series 5 (SGX) and that was where PowerVR (Imagination Technologies) then made their money for a while. They where bought in 2017 by a chinese investor and announced a new GPU for the chinese market last year.
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19: 36 I am still waiting for a Power VR Kyro II review dude -I own this card and it is one of the cards which impressed me the most back the days (aside of the 3dfx Voodoo. There was nothing like that card back then. Fast and cheaper than the competitors. You can even run it passive cooled. It needs some tweaking for some games. The tile based rendering is not that compatible for some games. But this card is just great and absolut underrated and sadly mostly forgotton. The Sega Dreamcast has the predecessor (Series 2) graphics chip. Series 4 never got to marked. But Series 3 got to marked on mobile devices (MBX) and also Series 5 (SGX) and that was where PowerVR (Imagination Technologies) then made their money for a while. They where bought in 2017 by a chinese investor and announced a new GPU for the chinese market last year.
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Rafael
I think those speakers at 11: 20 were made for a launch event of a new product. I have already worked as a journalist doing reviews and hardware analisis. The big companies always invite the websites and partners for produt launches and they always gift us at the events with some of these things. It can go from a paper notepad to a custom flash drive with the brand logo or some really unique things, like those speakers. for an example: I have here an -AMD Fusion portable battery speaker-. some AMD Bulldozer Dogtags, a Intel Pillow and some classic stuff like some plush Intel Astronauts from pentium era.
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I think those speakers at 11: 20 were made for a launch event of a new product. I have already worked as a journalist doing reviews and hardware analisis. The big companies always invite the websites and partners for produt launches and they always gift us at the events with some of these things. It can go from a paper notepad to a custom flash drive with the brand logo or some really unique things, like those speakers. for an example: I have here an -AMD Fusion portable battery speaker-. some AMD Bulldozer Dogtags, a Intel Pillow and some classic stuff like some plush Intel Astronauts from pentium era.
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Dosgamert
Those Manner-bars at 19: 10, I'd eat myself to death on those when we would go on a skiing trip to Austria for a week each year in the 3rd week of January. I should be going in 3 weeks again, but everything got canceled, just like the holiday to Greece we booked last summer (though saying it like this sounds like I got some luxury problems. So I'll just be sitting at home, counting raindrops sliding down the window, playing MS-DOS games I guess (best alternative. But for real, canceled my day's off. Haven't had a proper week of in over a year.
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Those Manner-bars at 19: 10, I'd eat myself to death on those when we would go on a skiing trip to Austria for a week each year in the 3rd week of January. I should be going in 3 weeks again, but everything got canceled, just like the holiday to Greece we booked last summer (though saying it like this sounds like I got some luxury problems. So I'll just be sitting at home, counting raindrops sliding down the window, playing MS-DOS games I guess (best alternative. But for real, canceled my day's off. Haven't had a proper week of in over a year.
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Ian
Also, I had one of those Compaq laptops with the dock - identical to how you see it - in 2002. It was awesome. So expandable, so useful, great modular design. I loved this computer SO MUCH. If I remember correctly, you could get a CRT table that would sit over top of the laptop when closed and support the weight of the monitor. You could hot plug and unplug the laptop from the dock and -go-. Again, one of my favorite laptops ever.
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Also, I had one of those Compaq laptops with the dock - identical to how you see it - in 2002. It was awesome. So expandable, so useful, great modular design. I loved this computer SO MUCH. If I remember correctly, you could get a CRT table that would sit over top of the laptop when closed and support the weight of the monitor. You could hot plug and unplug the laptop from the dock and -go-. Again, one of my favorite laptops ever.
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Bob
The cyrix Media GX was a terrible, terrible CPU and things like this are why they are out of business. I think it has built in sound and video on chip. I had a laptop in 1998 that had a 233 mhz Media GX CPU that ran about the same speed as a pentium 133. There is a YT video titled -How Quake Killed Cyrix- or something similar that describes their wear FP calculation performance.
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The cyrix Media GX was a terrible, terrible CPU and things like this are why they are out of business. I think it has built in sound and video on chip. I had a laptop in 1998 that had a 233 mhz Media GX CPU that ran about the same speed as a pentium 133. There is a YT video titled -How Quake Killed Cyrix- or something similar that describes their wear FP calculation performance.
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horus
I always knew Zonker was going to turn out to be a coder. :-)
We use Davis weather stations at my workplace. It's actually good stuff until a hurricane shows up and blows it down.
I carried a Compaq laptop very similar to this one back in the day when I worked in the oilfield offshore. It was actually a pretty rugged beastie.
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I always knew Zonker was going to turn out to be a coder. :-)
We use Davis weather stations at my workplace. It's actually good stuff until a hurricane shows up and blows it down.
I carried a Compaq laptop very similar to this one back in the day when I worked in the oilfield offshore. It was actually a pretty rugged beastie.
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douro20
Senator pens are made in Germany.
Genest made all kinds of keyboard accessories, including one which was designed to plug into a laptop's parallel port and added extra keys. They used the rather weird Cherry M8 switches which are ultra low-profile mechanical switches with side actuated contacts.
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Senator pens are made in Germany.
Genest made all kinds of keyboard accessories, including one which was designed to plug into a laptop's parallel port and added extra keys. They used the rather weird Cherry M8 switches which are ultra low-profile mechanical switches with side actuated contacts.
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Anthony
I hope you've done or will do an episode with the Compaq and the Mothership computer it docks to. I got a feeling there's an interesting story about what it was used for in those express cards. If so, it might send you on a little reconnaissance adventure. Love your shows!
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I hope you've done or will do an episode with the Compaq and the Mothership computer it docks to. I got a feeling there's an interesting story about what it was used for in those express cards. If so, it might send you on a little reconnaissance adventure. Love your shows!
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Javier
dude I wonder how do you keep all of THAT dust-free. sorry if I'm a bit silly mentioning this, but it gives me anxiety seeing all that equipment you have there and I wonder how do you keep it clean and without any dust accumulating. Just jealous of your mancave though!
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dude I wonder how do you keep all of THAT dust-free. sorry if I'm a bit silly mentioning this, but it gives me anxiety seeing all that equipment you have there and I wonder how do you keep it clean and without any dust accumulating. Just jealous of your mancave though!
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