I have Thinkpad 370C with Thinkpad Dock.
It has Stereo Loudspeaker, and place for one ISA Sound Card, 486dx4 75MHz cpu.
Before i use it with Soundblaster Pro2 CT1600 card, but i need MIDI, so i change to Yamaha Audician what has very good SB, SB Pro Stereo compatibility , has OPL3 chip, and has MIDI daughterboard connector without hanging note bug.
I connect a MIDI daughter board from terratec (sadly the yanaha DB50XG too large for Audician but i plane make flexible cable to connect). Audician has good DOS compatibility.
So i can play with midi and stereo sb pro every game, what i need.

Well, here's where I've landed since I started experimenting in 2019........in that time I've used the following.......* by the ones I still have

- 1994 NEC Versa 40EC
- 1994 NEC Versa M/75*
- 1995 NEC Versa P/75*
- 1995 NEC Versa V/50
- 1995 Diamond Flower/DFI (NanTan) Mediabook FMAP9200M
- 1993 BSi (NanTan) FMA3500C*
- 1995 NanTan Notebook FMAK9200C*

I decided to keep 2 Versa and 2 NanTans to experiment around with now.

1993 BSi NB486DX-33 FMA3500C - I've had another FMA3500 that was monochrome, this is the later model that came with a Trackball and a color screen. It's actually surprisingly good. Due to having 2 serial ports and a parallel port I could see an LPT2OPL and one of those RS232C WiFi Modem devices being fun to mess with on this (that's the plan). The HDD controller does not play ball with ATA-133/100 drives however, so it's a bit persnickety about what kind of Hard Disk you install. It has an expansion slot in back that might be ISA compatible - it's used to connect a "base station" to it that has 2 ISA Slots - which is held on the back by thumbscrews like the original NiCAD battery (which still worked only up until recently). It has a regular "socket 1" type setup, so I may later shuffle the DX2-66 into this and put a DX4-100 in the 9200. Memory is upgraded via SIPs and I was surprised to find that this one has 2MB SIPs in it. It has a mechanical keyboard with a very interesting, soft feel. Right now it's waiting for a CMOS battery and some cleaning up and upgrades.

1994 NEC Versa M/75CP - My favorite old standby. The NEC Versa M/75 was NEC's first Multimedia model laptop computer - it as a Crystal CS4231KQ WSS compatible chipset in it minus the OPL part, and marketed as "Crystal Business Audio". The way NEC got around this problem later was by introducing a "MediaDock" that added a 2X CD-ROM drive and an ESS688 to any Versa Ultralite/E/V/M/P model - but made it rougly the size of a Crosely Cruiser record player. It actually plays well with ATA-100/133 drives, and there's a lot of WSS compatible titles that don't need OPL that work on this so I use it a lot for that, as well as Windows 3.1x and Windows 95 gaming (it triple boots all three). Mine has the very rare "CP" touch screen option on it, which I'm waiting until I move to put a new touch panel on it from e-bay. Right now it's sleeping in storage, and I'm trying to work out how to send the Panasonic KXL-D20 audio outputs to the internal speaker at some point. The battery in it still manages to sometimes eek out about 30 minutes of life.

1995 NanTan Notebook FMAK9200C - This is the color version of the DFi I had earlier. This is a very close contender to the Versa, even though it's DSTN. What it lacks in a DSTN LCD it makes up for in having a SoundBlaster 2.0 compatible OPL/2 based ESS488 audio chip in it. I would say the Microsoft Soundfont sounds better on this chip than the one ESS Provides for Windows 3.1. It has 2 NiMH 1800maH batteries that have rotted themselves to death, and eaten up the contacts on the inside board. I've neutrailized everything. Ghosting is pretty bad but not too terrible, I can still enjoy playing things like NES 1942 on it. Actually, a funny note, running NESticle on this thing exploits a timing issue with the 488, so everything is lower in pitch, but it also exploits a timing issue with the CPU in it - because all my NES games run faster than full speed on auto-skip. Proper speed is a Frameskip of 1 - which would seem odd except this laptop really screams fast despite having only 8MB of RAM and a DX2-66 in it. I've been running some pretty heavy games on it (Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Retro City Rampage DX, BC Racers) and they all run perfectly. Unfortunatley the Cirrus Logic CL-GD6440 graphics controller has 2 problems - one is that it's not compatible with 3d Body Simulator for some reason, it even says that in the readme - and The earlier Maxis Sim games (SimEarth, SimAnt, and Sim City) need a special "TSRFONT.COM" TSR program to make the fonts not turn to gibberish. Overall I've been running this one a LOT lately and I now remember why I ran a Duracom 5110D (also a FMAK9200C model NanTan) for so many years in the 2000's as my primary laptop.

1995 NEC Versa P/75 - Basically a more cheaply built version of the M/75 with a 75 MHz Pentium and an ESS688 under the hood for sound (SoundBlaster 16 compatible with OPL/3). While it seems like the greatest gaming rig it did need CONSIDERABLE reconstruction and plastic surgery to put it back together sturdy enough to be comfortable gaming on it for any extended period of time. I have since put this one on full time Windows 9x duty though, even though the performance is roughly the same as the NEC Versa M/75 - with just a handful of code improvements. Even the TopBench benchmarks were pretty close. I still like it though, mostly for Windows Multimedia games like Diablo, Shivers I/II, and Microsoft Golf 3.0.

I've been using the NanTan a lot but will probably switch to the Versa M/75 again for awhile after I move.

DGi-P-90C (FMA7600)

P90 SX957 (no FDIV bug)
16MB RAM
540MB HDD
1.44MB FDD
TFT Active
ES688 w/ YM-262M

Granted, it has a few issues I need to address that are either minor or major, but it's a nice thick brick.

The one issue is a dead CMOS battery, so I gotta replace it and connect it externally or redirect it so it'll be easier to get to instead of taking the whole thing apart to replace it. And with a dead battery, it won't boot from the HDD. I wonder if NEC built this thing? (They're known for if a CMOS battery is dead, it won't boot without one installed, especially Dallas ones).

The one I'm after but still don't have is a WinBook XP, which I see as a personal ultimate 486 laptop.
They can go up to a DX4-100, have a built in ESS sound card option, plenty of ports, a very stylish design, and they have some other neat features too.
You can find one with a 640x480 TFT LCD, ideal for DOS stuff, and if there's one preferred pointing device for 90s laptops for you, the XP had an option for it.
TrackPoints, Trackballs, and Trackpads were all available for it. Pretty tough to find a 486 with a trackpad built in.
They were ODM'd by ASE Group.

Big two flaws though are that the hinges break (like most 90s laptops) due to weak plastic, and it's got an internal VARTA battery. That second one has been the real sticking point for me finding a working one as they placed it direct on the motherboard near the CPU so I'm about 5 years too late to find a working one. Hopefully I will track one down someday...

I've got more info on these on my website here: https://macdat.net/pc/winbook/xp_home.html

They also made the XP5 which was basically the same but with a Pentium, and an 800x600 LCD option, and a couple other tweaks.

I know there's better built and more reliable stuff out there, but I just really love the design of this one, and it's got a sound card.

I was the IT director for a small company that had nothing but Winbooks, and I had quite a number of those pass through my hands.

They were good machines, but even at the time suffered from broken plastic. I hope you find one in good condition!

3lectr1c wrote on 2023-07-28, 17:49:

The one I'm after but still don't have is a WinBook XP, which I see as a personal ultimate 486 laptop. They can go up to a DX4-1 […]
Show full quote

The one I'm after but still don't have is a WinBook XP, which I see as a personal ultimate 486 laptop.
They can go up to a DX4-100, have a built in ESS sound card option, plenty of ports, a very stylish design, and they have some other neat features too.
You can find one with a 640x480 TFT LCD, ideal for DOS stuff, and if there's one preferred pointing device for 90s laptops for you, the XP had an option for it.
TrackPoints, Trackballs, and Trackpads were all available for it. Pretty tough to find a 486 with a trackpad built in.
They were ODM'd by ASE Group.

Big two flaws though are that the hinges break (like most 90s laptops) due to weak plastic, and it's got an internal VARTA battery. That second one has been the real sticking point for me finding a working one as they placed it direct on the motherboard near the CPU so I'm about 5 years too late to find a working one. Hopefully I will track one down someday...

I've got more info on these on my website here: https://macdat.net/pc/winbook/xp_home.html

They also made the XP5 which was basically the same but with a Pentium, and an 800x600 LCD option, and a couple other tweaks.

I know there's better built and more reliable stuff out there, but I just really love the design of this one, and it's got a sound card.

I scrapped a XP5 last year. Varta battery had leaked and chewed through most of the pins on the soldered Pentium 120mhz and all the CPU traces around the "socket", leaked into the screen somehow???

Ah yes, here right? - Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

I did a forum search here a while back for "winbook" while researching the company for my website resources on their laptops and found that - that was a few months ago before I joined. Real shame, they're pretty neat systems. At some point I'd like to just buy cheap parts units until I can get a working XP, or an Xp5, though I'd prefer the 486 over the Pentium myself. Plenty of better Pentium laptops out there, like WinBook's own FX which is far more reliable and well built.

You mentioned that the battery leakage got on the screen? What did this look like?

Was the Varta battery the CMOS battery or the main power battery?

CMOS. The majority of 90s laptops used them unfortunately. All the Toshibas did, most of the IBMs as well.
I've got a whole page on my website going into more detail about them: https://macdat.net/important_issues/batteries … ptops_cmos.html

It's the #1 killer of vintage laptops at this point, that and screen hinge mounting failures, caps, and LCD issues.

ajacocks wrote on 2023-07-28, 17:57:

I was the IT director for a small company that had nothing but Winbooks, and I had quite a number of those pass through my hands.

They were good machines, but even at the time suffered from broken plastic. I hope you find one in good condition!

Missed this reply earlier somehow!

Which models were the ones you worked on?
The worst hinge failure wise seem to the the original 486 models made by Jetta, The XP/XP5, and the XL. XL was the definite worst though in that regard, I've seen more of those with trashed hinge plastics on eBay than any other model. I'm going to choose to avoid that one.

Most solid one from what I've seen seems to be the FX. I've yet to see a single one with busted hinges, and there's a bunch on eBay that POST and run, so it's unlikely that they have an internal VARTA battery.
As well as that the FX would likely make a great DOS gaming system.
Video card is either a Cirrus Logic GD-7543 or GD-7548, no idea if they're any good, but they apparently have actual creative labs sound chips!

Unfortunately for whatever reason every last one of them that's showed up on eBay recently have been way overpriced. No idea why as they seem common and reliable, but ah well. I'll try to get the next cheap one that shows up. Hard to find many mid 90s laptops with good hinge build quality and nice specs to boot. Keyboards on them should also be really nice, believe Lexmark made them, same who made many ThinkPad keyboards of the time. The XP/XP5 definitely have Lexmark keyboards as well, another reason why I'm after one of them.

Only WinBooks I've got at the moment are a 486SLC-25, a 486C2SX-25C, and a much later X4 from late 2002.
The two 486 models are mostly the same, got a page on them here: https://macdat.net/pc/winbook/486series_home.html
They're no good for DOS games though, no sound card, no TFT screens and terrible keyboards.

The X4 is decent but unremarkable.

Though I already found a perfect retro laptop (Toshiba 2805 with gf2go), I’m now looking for some rare and weird stuff.

For a few years I was searching for Toshiba Libretto 70 on my local market (Russia) but the price was higher than I was ready to pay. But the more I waited, the more expensive it became. I was even thinking buying it from eBay, but at some point a well-known events began, so it’s now harder to buy from eBay in Russia.

And then, suddenly, a new lot appeared on Avito and I immediately bought it.

Now I’m happily waiting for delivery of Toshiba Libretto 70 in mint condition, with expanded ram, original charger and cracked extension dock - 160$

Will post some photos soon.

Make sure to remove the RTC battery when you get it, and make sure to read the maintenance manual for disassembly - the plastic is pretty fragile on Toshibas from that particular era. Removing parts from the wrong angle / direction results in lots of broken clips 🙁

I got lucky with the Toshiba Satellite Pro 410CDT. It had a leaking Ni-MH battery and corroded the battery header. I took a rechargeable coin cell out of the T4800CT since that was having issues left and right and no issues there.

Yeah, all the 90s Satellites (and other Toshiba laptops) are doomed. They're already dropping like flies and it's those blasted VARTA batteries that are doing it. I really need to get my hands on a 430CDT, maybe also a 310 or 320CDT before working ones become unobtainium.

I was able to save a Tecra 500CDT from this fate though, it's one of my personal favorite DOS gaming laptops. Very nice speakers, seemingly decent sound and graphics support and a nice keyboard. Plastic is brittle (and mine has a few cracks), but the build quality is sturdy and the hinges don't seem to be at risk of issues, at least not yet.

3lectr1c wrote on 2023-07-28, 18:38:

Ah yes, here right? - Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

I did a forum search here a while back for "winbook" while researching the company for my website resources on their laptops and found that - that was a few months ago before I joined. Real shame, they're pretty neat systems. At some point I'd like to just buy cheap parts units until I can get a working XP, or an Xp5, though I'd prefer the 486 over the Pentium myself. Plenty of better Pentium laptops out there, like WinBook's own FX which is far more reliable and well built.

You mentioned that the battery leakage got on the screen? What did this look like?

I might still have some of it stuffed in a box. I'll try to rummage it out.

That would be great!

3lectr1c wrote on 2023-07-31, 03:53:

Yeah, all the 90s Satellites (and other Toshiba laptops) are doomed. They're already dropping like flies and it's those blasted VARTA batteries that are doing it. I really need to get my hands on a 430CDT, maybe also a 310 or 320CDT before working ones become unobtainium.

I was able to save a Tecra 500CDT from this fate though, it's one of my personal favorite DOS gaming laptops. Very nice speakers, seemingly decent sound and graphics support and a nice keyboard. Plastic is brittle (and mine has a few cracks), but the build quality is sturdy and the hinges don't seem to be at risk of issues, at least not yet.

Well, it's avoidable if the batteries are removed now and cleaning is done. The other day I got a T2130CS where the main NiMH battery had leaked and although I thought it was doomed, it was 100% after cleaning it up. The leakage was somehow contained and the standby battery hadn't leaked too badly, mostly just damaged the coating on the metal parts.
The 500CDT is pretty great, late enough that display scaling is quite good but also good sound - the plastic being brittle seems to be a common feature of that line, I broke the power button on mine pressing it too hard and had to dismantle the whole thing to fix it.

I think in the long run we'll probably need to map out some of the commonly damaged bits on the PCBs - here's some pics of the Satellite 300CDT that I was fixing the other day, it booted up okay but looking close after cleaning the battery corrosion some traces weren't connected anymore. Here's how it looked after putting the traces back - I used some pictures that I took of a satellite 4000 (basically the same) where it hadn't been corroded at all. Really got to re-do those in hi-res.

This is possible with the Satellite 4xx series too, I had to fix up a Satellite 400CDT quite a bit to get it working 100% again but it does now. In the long run it might be worth someone depopulating a dead board and sanding back the layers to see what goes where so we can more easily run replacement traces where needed. From memory they're 6 layer PCBs.

I suspect unfortunately that even with all of us that are in the know removing the varta batteries, working examples of most of these are going to become barely existent with enough time. I'll bet despite this, 95%+ of them will not have them removed before it's too late which sucks. I've pulled them from all of the following in my collection, they just put them in everything!
- 3x Dell Latitude CPi (1998) (all had minor connector corrosion but otherwise ok)
- 1x Dell Latitude CS (1999) (sustained damage but survived)
- 2x Dell Latitude C610 (2001) (1x sustained connector damage)
- 1x Dell Inspiron 8100 (2001) (connector sustained minor damage)
- 1x Dell Latitude C640 (2002) (connector damage)
- 2x Apple PowerBook 3400c (1997) (little to no connector damage, wire was quite long on those)
- 1x Apple PowerBook 150 (1994) (Had been replaced at some point, no leaks but pulled. got lucky there)
- 1x Toshiba Tecra 500CDT (1997) (connector damage, otherwise survived)
- 1x WinBook 486SLC-25, 1x WinBook 486C2SX-25C (1993) (Used NiCad type that seemingly leak less catastrophically than NiMH ones, both had connector damage but nothing much else)
- 2x IBM PS/Note 425 (1993) (Also NiCad, IBM branded. One sustained connector damage, other was ok)

And finally, the worst of them all - my poor, poor CTX EzBook 800 (K6-II 300MHz, circa 1998)
I bought it working as a fun little Windows 98 laptop, was cheap too. Near mint condition, got it with all the documentation, win98 CD, driver disk, everything. Was working great seemingly and booted no issues.
Took it apart just to make sure... and it had a soldered VARTA barrel battery that had already destroyed several traces. Seemingly all the trace damage was for PCMCIA which I hadn't tested which explained how it still ran. Unfortunately though after cleaning that broke just enough that was holding on for dear life that it's dead now. Real shame. Unfortunately it destroyed at least one component and also damaged a connector for an important daughterboard that handles display data. It's probably fixable but beyond my own skills. Going to chance it with a parts unit once I find one and hope I can get lucky.

Some are definitely too far gone, but my luck with getting junk lots of old laptops lately has been pretty good. If anything I have the worst 'luck' with compaq armadas that had big standby / rtc batteries, even laptops where the main battery has leaked are usually salvageable because the battery connector is on the edge of the board and one I got the battery terminals on the motherboard had corroded off, stopping further damage 😀
I have a couple like that that ran for a bit then stopped, or didn't survive cleaning and now they don't power on and stuff, but they were so rare that there's not really parts so the computer's reduced to a pile of components that are tough to re-use. Good luck with fixing your EzBook up 😀

edit: hmm, just watched your videos on it, my guess is that the pliers method of removing the barrel battery loosened some pins either on that board-to-board connector or a QFP on the back of the board. It's behaving like I've seen happen after I used hot air on a PCB trying to fix the keyboard, that made some QFP pins on the back side become loose and it stopped working til that was fixed.

Hmm. That's actually an interesting take on why it could have possibly died, never thought of that. I'd love to get a look at the back of the board but I've got two problems - I'll start another thread real quick and link it here to avoid going too far off-topic here.