Olivetti M-10

[chris]

Well, several months ago I was digging through my dad's office looking for some wire strippers, and I came across a stylish leather rectangular case. I opened it and found something that looked more or less like an electric typewriter. I put some minor effort into fixing it(it wouldn't turn on) and then gave up and shoved it back in storage.

Yesterday I remembered about it and decided to look the thing up online. Turns out it was a Tandy TRS-80 Model 100 clone... one of the first real laptops. Some hurried inspection of the thing showed me something I hadn't noticed before - it had a battery door. I open it to find..

A solid WALL of solidified battery goop. Ick. Cleaned it out over about half an hour, opened the thing to make sure none got inside it, and plugged in some new batteries. Turned it on and was greeted with "Sun Jan 01, 1900, 00:00:00, ©1983 Microsoft" and a menu with a few options. Sweet!

Thus far I've:

Connected to a BBS using the built in modem (300 baud! Speedy!)

Figured out how to save/load to tape.

Gonna head over to RadioShack tomorrow and pick up a null-modem cable to transfer BASIC apps to it.

 

[dbraverman88]

Great find. They were often used by reporters in the field.

1. Great keyboard.

2. Enough memory to hold a good-sized news story.

3. A built-in modem to send the story back to the newspaper.

--David

 

[Bunsen]

I ... the .... it .... buh ....

8-o

*****HATE******

8-o

 

[chris]

Bunsen:

You can normally find these cheap on Ebay when they pop up... I saw one go for $35 a few days ago. If you're lucky you might be able to find one at a flea market.

 

[Bunsen]

Not around these parts, pardner.

 

[Christopher]

look on the US eBay to see if there are any that will ship to you.

 

[Temetka]

Nice score.

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

[chris]

OK, taking pics now. Will update when done.

UPDATE:

Pics at - http://picasaweb.google.com/486box/Olivetti

And something special:

geocities.com/geckoboy2424/hi68k.wav

That is a recording of a textfile saying "Hi 68kMLA" that was saved to tape.

 

[Quadraman]

I am surprised it works. Usually when old batteries burst inside a machine it's all over. The chemicals eat up everything.

 

[chris]

This had a very nice plastic shield around the batteries - in no area did the chemicals actually get to any of the boards. This was helped a bit by the fact that it was laying on its back, so the chemicals were oozing over the battery door and not into the machine guts.

 

[chris]

Augh. No amount of work will make this thing connect to any of my other computers! I even tried making my own null-modem cable after the RadioShack one didn't work(according to the page at http://www.club100.org/library/doc/cables.html) and nothing has worked! Been trying to use Teeny... I'm going to try to connect with telcom software just to see if the serial port on the M-10 works. I think it might be a ROM difference that's making Teeny not work.