ZA Furries

So I found my dads old work laptop and decided to see if I could get it working again.
I found a suitable charger and got to work :p
It was a lot of fun getting it working again, all the hardware is still in perfect condition,
And so I present to you, our recently revived, 22 year old, DOS 6.22 Running Computer :p
(It cost my dad R19500!)

Holy smokes, that is awesome!! I love old hardware!
Here I thought my 2001 Dell laptop was old. XD
Incidentally, my Dell cost the same price back when it was new too. They had freaking insane price tags back then, eh?

No kidding, but my dad needed it for his work :p
20k wasn't exactly small change back then was it :p

I'm still playing around with the machine, it is so cool!
It's stiffy disk drive seems to be faulty... maybe it's just me not using DOS properly though.

The FDD might have been belt driven, the rubber degrades over time, you can open it up to check and replace it.

Oldest laptop Ive got is a 386 with a Cyrex 486 overdrive

Well if works calls for it, then I guess one has to take out that roll of banknotes.
Definitely not! 20k was pretty much ten times what it is today!

I can imagine! Those old DOS machines are pretty epic! I have an old desktop from back then too. It uses a black and yellow screen, and has a 10MB hard drive with a 5.25" floppy drive. It has quite a couple of neat programs on it, like this layouting program and a pretty nice program for astronomy. Also, it's got a few games on it too! Like the original Prince of Persia and a 4x4 racing game.
Why do you think the drive's faulty? What is it or is it not doing?

Gothic Collie wrote:The FDD might have been belt driven, the rubber degrades over time, you can open it up to check and replace it.

I've had that problem. I've got a really nice record player. It's built into a cupboard that my grandfather made but the motors were held in the correct place by hard rubber supports. The rubber has crumbled away now and so none of the parts connect. Will probably have to find someone that can make custom bits if I ever want it repaired...

^^ It happens alot with old electronics, the famicom disk system I have had to have its belt replaced,my zx spectrum had to have the entire keyboard flex replaced aswell, old computers like the commodores and Amigas suffers from it a lot, there are several ebay sellers just specializing in replacement drive belts.

PS Allso look for bad caps and check if the Ni-Ca battery on the motherboard is leaking, when it leaks9and it will eventually0 the acid starts eating away at the pcb and eventually erodes the copper off of the pcb,this has killed just about every 386 board I own

Let me Get it running quickly and I will show you what it's doing

Okay so, I have tried this with a couple of stiffies already,
I put it in, and when I try to go to its drive it gives me the error shown bellow, I tried other possible drives too, but my dad says it was definitely drive a:
makes all the noises it's supposed to though :p

Could be anything from a stuck disk head, to a drive belt(like mentioned) only way to check it would be to open it

PS allso in dos to change drive letter just type "a:" no need for "cd a:" as "cd" is short for change directory and your not doing that but instead changing the drive path, none the less the end result will give you the same error.

I tried getting to it, I cant just snap it it seems, oh well.

I was wondering if I was doing it wrong :p
My mom told me to use the cd for that. it's kinda sad how little DOS I know, but i was able to get by with just cd, dir, /p and /w just fine

Pitty your in Northcliff els you could just bring it past my place and I will dissembled and refurb it for you

The easiest way to add or edit files without a fdd, would be to remove the HDD and use a 2.5" ide to usb adapter/enclosure, just dont delete or mess with any system files, els it will make your life very difficult to correct without a FDD

If the hard drive is non removable,or you cant find a adapter, you can build a Laplink/direct cable find a old pc with a Parallel port and use dos 6 in vbox and run INTERLNK (In DOS type "help interlnk") to transfer files, that's if the laptop has dos 6 as well, els you will need a way to load it or use something similar.

Edit: looking at the screenshot it looks like the system tries to load mscdex but fails did the system have a cdrom at one stage or another?

"/help" could be handy.

My dos knowledge is very bad though.
I remember what a pain it was to install Duke Nukem. =_=

Gothic Collie wrote: Edit: looking at the screenshot it looks like the system tries to load mscdex but fails did the system have a cdrom at one stage or another?

Sorry I only saw that now :p

I don't think it ever had a CD rom, but it's not impossible, My dad did use it up till '99, amazingly.
I will try find its bag, if it had any accessories they will be in there.

22 years ago is only 1991, 22 years ago sounded like 80's in my mind :p not that laptops were around then.


Oldest computer I have that works is a Macintosh SE/30, from ~1989 IIRC.

Fluke wrote:22 years ago is only 1991, 22 years ago sounded like 80's in my mind :p not that laptops were around then.

I know right? :p

And I wouldn't be so sure, this little guy's from '83 http://oldcomputers.net/trs200.html

Fluke wrote:Oldest computer I have that works is a Macintosh SE/30, from ~1989 IIRC.

And wow that's cool! :3

MEthinks I need to look at it next time I see it. I think I have a few spare floppy disk bands lying in the folds of my cave

HAHAH! That is so cool! I happened to dig this old laptop out of my late grandads stuff! I have no idea how old it is, but it runs of Win 95, and has the weirdest ram I ever seen... it looks like a compact flash memory card....

50MHz, 8MB Ram 340MB Hdd and a 1.44MB Floppy drive...

This one used to be mine, when I did homeschooling in Gr5 i broke my first PC and my aunt borrowed me this one... It still has the program on... She then passed it on to my grandad...