My 3lectr1cal Conquests!

[3lectr1cPPC]

The speaker and headphones plugged in both pop when I turn it on, and on headphones I can hear that light audio hum that you’d expect when an audio signal is initialized, so maybe something in the settings has it set to be muted or something. Idk. We’ll see when my video adapter arrives. Another thing to note is that the hard drive does spin up and seek test, but then nothing further. Could mean the Mac isn’t trying to boot from it or it’s just wiped, hard to say.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Side note: if you’ve got a thinkpad with a cloudy/scuffed rubber coating but one that hasn’t gone sticky or anything like that, magic eraser gets it looking real good again. Here’s my T430 before and after:

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

Wow nice job!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Yeah it really can work wonders! Here’s its work on the A22p



On a different note, I’ve now turned my attention to the CTX EzBook. Specifically, I needed to tear it down to check for any of those VARTA batteries inside of it. Sure enough, it had one. This time it was a soldered barrel battery, 386 motherboard style. And it was really rotten, surprised the system still ran. Unfortunately the left hinge mounts exploded during disassembly so I have some work ahead of me

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I went ahead and IPA cleaned parts of the board on the PM7100 around the sound chip and CPU, and now it chimes sometimes and doesn’t at other times. I’ll bet caps are at fault!
Another thing I noticed was some minor corrosion on the CPU pins, which is worrying.

The 100uf capacitor nearby has dull solder as well. There was enough dust on here though to be able to tell if a large area leak had occurred and there was none yet.

Also PSU is rock solid stable and about as close to in spec as it gets. Think I got 5.04 and 12.06 on both rails.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Alright so my video adapter came in and one of my monitors does sync on green! Unfortunately it’s a widescreen panel, so not ideal. But it outputs video and goes to the question mark just fine. 7100 on the other hand doesn’t. I’m hoping it just needs the caps changed.

 

[joshc]

Yeah 7100 need to be re-capped by this point.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

This post is playing catch-up with some stuff I've gotten in the past few months. Most of this is PC related (hope that's still at all interesting!) but I've also gotten one new old Mac...

...which is this LC III!

It's in VERY nice shape cosmetically, with very little yellowing or scratches. I recapped the logic board, although it did work beforehand. Caps hadn't leaked that much and the board is (or was, managed to break a few solder pads...) in great shape. It does have an annoying issue though, there before and after the recap. After running for a while, it won't chime or start at all. Chips get warm, PSU is fine, won't POST. Not sure why, but it doesn't affect me too much so I'm not going to lose much sleep over it.
PSU caps are still original, but it's the Astec supply which is more reliably than the ELNA-filled TDK unit from all I've heard. If it gives me trouble I'll take care of it too.
Even the original unserviced floppy drive works fine.

On the PC side of things, I've continued to fuel my vintage laptop addict--- hobby with the following pickups:

From first to last:
1. Nan Tan FMA8100 - a gigantic luggable 386 "laptop" from 1990. It's got a couple issues (dead hard drive mainly) but is otherwise working great.
2. Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX - a pretty darn great and reliable 486 laptop for DOS gaming. No sound card, but ticks all the other boxes. Mine even briefly ran for a few minutes off of the aftermarket battery that it came with, before said battery promptly kicked the can and no longer charges.
3. WinBook FX - a pretty nice Pentium 1 laptop. Mine has a snapped hinge (metal failure, not plastic...) and may have a dead sound card though. Still troubleshooting the sound as I write this. This was the most recent pickup of the bunch.
4. WinBook XL - a VERY good DOS gaming laptop. Has an actual Yamaha OPL3 in it. It comes with the compromise of awful build quality, but ah well.
5. Dell Latitude C400 - late-PIII-era subnotebook. Quite a nice system.
6. IBM ThinkPad T43 - the last of the fully IBM-made T Series ThinkPads. Mine's in excellent shape and fully working. Quite a well made laptop, shame they're unreliable due to poor southbridge cooling and bad solder.


I've also worked on a couple of early 2010s laptops, upgrading and repairing them to make some nice systems that are still usable today.

First, I did an IPS display mod and a classic keyboard mod on the T430 ThinkPad from the swap meet haul. This is currently my daily-use laptop for when I'm on the go. I absolutely love this thing.



I also dipped into Dell systems from this same era with a Latitude E6420 repair project. Combined two bad units and a couple other small parts into one pretty nice one. It still needs an SSD though, and I'd like to find a way to mod a 1080p IPS panel into it like I've done with my T430. The stock 1600x900 one is fine in resolution and brightness, but has awful viewing angles.

And that's a summary of some of my recent finds and projects from the past few months since the swap meet. I've also done other work on many of the swap meet systems, fixing issues, upgrading things, etc.

Apologies for some of the low-res photos - I grabbed them real quick off the collection pages on my website (see signature).

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

I'm glad you got more laptops, you needed more

Good score on the C400, had one of them, nice small machine for carrying around NYC in a backpack back then

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Thanks
It is indeed quite a good system for the size. I bought it untested and got unlucky with a mostly dead motherboard. Luckily I was able to source a NOS replacement and it’s all good now.

 

[jmacz]

T43, I remember lugging one around for work.

 

[CC_333]

I'm glad you got more laptops, you needed more

Can he ever truly have enough?

He needs MOAR!

c

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Don’t worry, “The List” remains long and full

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

I think an early Tecra with their wacko dock would be a nice addition:

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

I do own a Tecra, sans-dock: https://macdat.net/electric_lounge/collection/pc_collection/toshiba/tecra_500cdt.html
I think it's actually the first one?
In any case, the plastics are the worst I've ever seen on these. They were built very well, but good build quality can't help with plastics that crack so easily. It's otherwise working (mostly, the CD-ROM drive is dead). The docks are pretty cool, but they would take up quite a bit of space.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

That's what I'm talking about, very cool!

Yes they were road warrior laptops back in the day, very solid and good performance.

Yes Dock is big, I've always found it so ungodly ugly and cumbersome that it's cool!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

They're beasts, that's for sure. I quite like mine, despite its plastic shortcomings. Pretty darn good keyboard and speakers, good performance, great for DOS stuff.

 

[ClassicGuyPhilly]

So what is your laptop collecting approach or maybe put another way what goals do you have for your collection?

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Today was a very special day. My first “true” vintage era Mac was a PowerBook 5300ce, which I got back in March of 2021. I had iBooks Clamshells and a PowerBook G3 PDQ before that, but this thing was a whole new era of old. Unfortunately, the left hinge snapped in November of the same year and it took out the LCD cable. Partially my fault, I closed it again when I shouldn’t have. It would have been fine if I hadn’t done that.
For over 2 years after, I failed to find a replacement cable or a parts machine. I found a 5300c and swapped its screen in, but it’s 640x480, and it was kind of yellowed at the edges.
Now, thanks to a parts machine from @AlisonT, my 5300ce lives once again in its true original form.

It's really nice to have this thing back, I really did miss it. Sure, I did have a 5300c/5300ce hybrid still, but the extra resolution goes a long way to make it feel nicer.
Another improvement - the parts machine's DC/DC board had a GOOD set of battery contacts. Both of the boards I had were corroded and broken because the batteries in these ALWAYS leak. Now I can pick up one of those NOS batteries off eBay and actually use it! Sweet.

 

[croissantking]

Oh this is great

Now, thanks to a parts machine from @AlisonT, my 5300ce lives once again in its true original form.

Brilliant.