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Friday, 30 August 2019

Rare Compaq Presario 700 Laptop

You know a laptop isn't rare when a seller tells you it is!  This 'rare' Compaq Presario 700 Series laptop is so rare, that not only did I manage to pick up two of them from two different sellers, I purchased them on the same day!

One works, one doesn't.


Typical with an old laptop, the CMOS battery needs replacing as per the next screen:


On pressing F1 to Boot, Windows XP begins to load...


As this AMD based system only has 128MB of RAM, Windows XP is VERY slow to load...




These laptops are rather old so it's highly likely that you will need to replace the CMOS battery, to see how it's done click here: Compaq Presario 700 CMOS Battery Replacement


Tuesday, 27 August 2019

WACOM Graphire Tablet (Slate Blue) ET-0405-R

Got this little beauty in the post today:



Not sure of the exact age of this device but from the enclosed manual it appears to be circa 2000, so could be up to 19 years old.

It's a serial device that also needs a PS/2 port for power (hence the PS/2 pass-through in the cable).

Sunday, 18 August 2019

Logitech TrackMan Portable Mouse T-CE3 - PS/2


This little beauty came with a laptop I recently won on eBay:


It clips on to the side of a compatible/suitable laptop and plugs in to the PS/2 port.

Saturday, 17 August 2019

Compaq Armada Series QuickRestore Recovery CDs

This came all the way from Israel today (vie eBay):


I didnt realise but it has both Windows 95 and Windows 98 restore options/CDs.  I can't wait to try them out!  I need to make a backup ISO image of them first so these can go away in to storage.



EDIT/UPDATE:

Not sure why you can't find the ISO files on the Internet Archive when you search for them so here's a direct link to the Discs:



Friday, 16 August 2019

PCMCIA Card - Modem and BNC NIC

Today I recieved what looks like a pencil case in the post - it turns out it's a case full of a few PCMCIA cards:

Thursday, 15 August 2019

Compaq Armada 7400

This turned up a few weeks back but I've only just had a chance to take a look at it.  It's a bit dirty, the hinge covers are damaged and there are a couple of screws missing.  It did however come with not one, but two power supplies which is a bit of luck as it's not a normal round connector but a square-ish one with 4 prongs inside it.





On connecting up one of the power supplies that came with this laptop I briefly saw the Compaq logo appear on the screen before it turned itself off.  Seems there is a loose connection as when I wiggled the power cable at the rear of the laptop it would let me power it on but as soon as I moved the cable slightly it powered off again - I'll have to take it apart and see if it's fixable at a later date.

Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Watch Display Box Case

As I purchased a rare Compaq Watch the other week I thought it best to look after it properly so this faux leather box/case turned up today:



Over time (pun intended) I wonder how many more Compaq Watches I will end up owning?

Iomega Zip 100 (MAC) No Power Supply

A bit of a strange one this as I won an Iomega ZIP 100MB drive on eBay with 3 ZIP disks (one is stuck in the drive) and a 1GB Jaz Disk.


 

I have a couple of Iomega USB drives with power supplies so I can power this up and try it out but I don't have a MAC so wont be able to read what's on the disks - unless there is a program you can use to read MAC formatted disks on a PC?  I'll have to take a look and see what I can do...

Tuesday, 6 August 2019

Compaq Contura 3/25 intel 80386SX

Just got around to opening up the Compaq Contura 3/25 I 'won' on eBay the other week to see if it works or not.  I got out my trusted universal power adaptor of the day, plugged it in, pressed the power button and hoped for the best!... and it powered on, booted and failed the POST due to the CMOS/BIOS battery being flat - no surprise really as this laptop is originally from 1992!

Time to take it apart to explore its innards:



Ooh! Is that a Hard Disk Drive I see hidden at the top right of the laptop under the silver piece of metal?  Lets find out...


Yes it is!


So, the reason it was sold on eBay as not working is due to the CMOS/BIOS battery being flat and not storing the HDD geometry settings so it doesn't think it has a hard disk inside (which it clearly does).

It doesn't take the standard CR2032 battery but a slightly larger CR2430 so I have ordered some from Amazon (Same-Day Delivery) so I should be able to get this up and running tomorrow so watch this space...



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