could have sworn i posted, maybe it was similar thread.

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-satellite … _7-6749687.html

384 mb RAM (MAX)
16mb vram
floppy
cd/dvd
addon card (i forget) [[currently using a 98 compatible wifi card]]
something something widely used soundboard compatible for old games
screen stretching, (un like a lot of the laptops of the era this model has proper screen stretching no horrid eye killing crappy screen stretching and no horrid tiny letter boxing)

with 98SE utilizing a unoffcial service packs and MSFN member projects like kernex this hit one hell of a sweet spot between modern and retro, i shit you not. mgdx supposedly has some mods/tricks to get full dos compatibility with 98. just imagine full dos support and running new enough software to run youtube, and yes YT videos are watchable @ 360p and less.

the only cons are 384mb ram max and the 16mb vram. if knew about the video card and how it works with the bios, i'd look in to reballing or soldering services and sourcing higher density vram chips 🤣 years ago i asked on wim's bios about modding the bios to support more ram, as i have tried 52mb chips only to have the bios tell me to fuck off. 🤣 i know there is a chip set limitation somewhere but, maybe it can just cap the ram out at 512 mb... okay i'm going off an tangent but, do consider the specs, i don't know of any thing better, if you do let me know. 64-128mb vram with floppy and same or better specs would be the best the world has to offer in laptop form, maybe there is an IBM model out there.

It sounds a little bit overkill, but I would definitely consider it.

cdoublejj wrote:

could have sworn i posted, maybe it was similar thread. […]
Show full quote

could have sworn i posted, maybe it was similar thread.

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/toshiba-satellite … _7-6749687.html

384 mb RAM (MAX)
16mb vram
floppy
cd/dvd
addon card (i forget) [[currently using a 98 compatible wifi card]]
something something widely used soundboard compatible for old games
screen stretching, (un like a lot of the laptops of the era this model has proper screen stretching no horrid eye killing crappy screen stretching and no horrid tiny letter boxing)

with 98SE utilizing a unoffcial service packs and MSFN member projects like kernex this hit one hell of a sweet spot between modern and retro, i shit you not. mgdx supposedly has some mods/tricks to get full dos compatibility with 98. just imagine full dos support and running new enough software to run youtube, and yes YT videos are watchable @ 360p and less.

the only cons are 384mb ram max and the 16mb vram. if knew about the video card and how it works with the bios, i'd look in to reballing or soldering services and sourcing higher density vram chips 🤣 years ago i asked on wim's bios about modding the bios to support more ram, as i have tried 52mb chips only to have the bios tell me to fuck off. 🤣 i know there is a chip set limitation somewhere but, maybe it can just cap the ram out at 512 mb... okay i'm going off an tangent but, do consider the specs, i don't know of any thing better, if you do let me know. 64-128mb vram with floppy and same or better specs would be the best the world has to offer in laptop form, maybe there is an IBM model out there.

I have something similar, a Dell Latitude C610, PIII-M 1.0, 512MB RAM, 16 MB VRAM. Not much used for gaming but I remember playing AoK The Conquerors and Sid Meier's Alien Crossfire like a charm on Win XP.

I wonder, is it possible to throttle the CPU on either of those machines, so that I can avoid the infamous "runtime error 200"?

I know some Toshibas do have an ondemand keyboard "Fn" hotkey function to cut the speed in half...

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I wonder, is it possible to throttle the CPU on either of those machines, so that I can avoid the infamous "runtime error 200"?

Yep, PIII-Ms with Speeedstep can be underclocked:

http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/CPU-Tweak/ … ep-Applet.shtml

Check out this thread too.
Ideal Win98 laptop with SBPro compatibility?

The Compaq Armada M700 sounds pretty decent. Has anyone ever actually gotten SBPro compatibility working on it though?

I have a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT as my main retro gaming laptop and as a 'bridge' between older and newer generations of computers. I bought it many years ago at a flea market already upgraded to 160 MB of RAM (from 32MB built in), 10 GB HDD (from 4 GB) and both a PCMCIA NIC and a modem. Pentium II 266 MHz, 12" 800x600 TFT screen, 3.5" floppy + 24X CD-ROM, serial, parallel, IrDA, PS/2, USB, VGA and two PC Card slots. Heavy and built like a tank, too.

I run Windows 98SE on it and with such abundance of I/O it makes for a great bridge system between the legacy and the 'modern' computing world in a convenient form factor. I love the look on people's faces when they come to me with a floppy disk they need the data out of (or some similar arcane hardware/software need) and I whip this beast out from its bag. I even rebuilt the battery with fresh Li-Ion cells and it manages a pretty respectable 2 hours and 40 minutes of runtime! 😁

Gaming wise the built-in 2MB C&T 65555 seems to be OK but I haven't taxed it much, I mostly play DOS and early Windows games on it, nothing really special. The LCD is an active-matrix TFT so no horrible hallucination-like ghosting that plagued the TN screens of older models. It uses a custom font for 80x25 text mode which in my opinion looks pretty good, and I actually prefer the 'rough' scaling it does to graphics, much more than the 'softer' scaling more modern GPUs/LCDs do. If possible I set games to run at 400x300 in order to get a nice integer scaling.
Sound wise it comes with a Yamaha OPL3-SA3 chip which I'm very fond of. Nice DOS/SBPro compatibility, the GM emulator for DOS games it comes with is quite nice too (but I'm not really into high-end PC audio so YMMV). The speakers also sound quite good for a laptop, I guess the thickness/overall mass of the case really helps with the loudness & bass response. It also features a real volume potentiometer which is a feature I really miss in modern laptops, full three jack audio I/O too.

Here's a picture of it from 2009. Since I got it used from a flea market I took the time to take it completely apart and clean it thoroughly.

The only issues I've had with it are:

• The CCFL is kinda dim due to its age, but after some warming up time it's quite usable.
• The DC cord on the AC adapter has frayed, nothing that some heat shrink tubing couldn't fix.
• The original trackpoint nub disintegrated so I swapped it with a red IBM one.
• Recently I noticed that the [-] key has stopped working. The keyboard membrane seems to be sealed so I don't really know what to do.

I've even used it for old-school hardware/software development, as you can see in this video: 😀
Homebrew 8x8 LED Matrix Display - Scrolling Text - YouTube

133MHz wrote:

I have a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT as my main retro gaming laptop and as a 'bridge' between older and newer generations of compu […]
Show full quote

I have a Toshiba Satellite 4010CDT as my main retro gaming laptop and as a 'bridge' between older and newer generations of computers. I bought it many years ago at a flea market already upgraded to 160 MB of RAM (from 32MB built in), 10 GB HDD (from 4 GB) and both a PCMCIA NIC and a modem. Pentium II 266 MHz, 12" 800x600 TFT screen, 3.5" floppy + 24X CD-ROM, serial, parallel, IrDA, PS/2, USB, VGA and two PC Card slots. Heavy and built like a tank, too.

I run Windows 98SE on it and with such abundance of I/O it makes for a great bridge system between the legacy and the 'modern' computing world in a convenient form factor. I love the look on people's faces when they come to me with a floppy disk they need the data out of (or some similar arcane hardware/software need) and I whip this beast out from its bag. I even rebuilt the battery with fresh Li-Ion cells and it manages a pretty respectable 2 hours and 40 minutes of runtime! 😁

Gaming wise the built-in 2MB C&T 65555 seems to be OK but I haven't taxed it much, I mostly play DOS and early Windows games on it, nothing really special. The LCD is an active-matrix TFT so no horrible hallucination-like ghosting that plagued the TN screens of older models. It uses a custom font for 80x25 text mode which in my opinion looks pretty good, and I actually prefer the 'rough' scaling it does to graphics, much more than the 'softer' scaling more modern GPUs/LCDs do. If possible I set games to run at 400x300 in order to get a nice integer scaling.
Sound wise it comes with a Yamaha OPL3-SA3 chip which I'm very fond of. Nice DOS/SBPro compatibility, the GM emulator for DOS games it comes with is quite nice too (but I'm not really into high-end PC audio so YMMV). The speakers also sound quite good for a laptop, I guess the thickness/overall mass of the case really helps with the loudness & bass response. It also features a real volume potentiometer which is a feature I really miss in modern laptops, full three jack audio I/O too.

Here's a picture of it from 2009. Since I got it used from a flea market I took the time to take it completely apart and clean it thoroughly.

The only issues I've had with it are:

• The CCFL is kinda dim due to its age, but after some warming up time it's quite usable.
• The DC cord on the AC adapter has frayed, nothing that some heat shrink tubing couldn't fix.
• The original trackpoint nub disintegrated so I swapped it with a red IBM one.
• Recently I noticed that the [-] key has stopped working. The keyboard membrane seems to be sealed so I don't really know what to do.

I've even used it for old-school hardware/software development, as you can see in this video: 😀
Homebrew 8x8 LED Matrix Display - Scrolling Text - YouTube

I really like the look of that thing. It has specs that are more than adequate for most of the games I want to run (aside from UT and Quake 2, but those aren't so important), and it's got that retro look to it too. What I'm wondering is how well it handles 320x200 and 320x240 resolutions. The pic you posted looks like it's running a DOS game at 320x200, but I don't really know for sure.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

What I'm wondering is how well it handles 320x200 and 320x240 resolutions. The pic you posted looks like it's running a DOS game at 320x200, but I don't really know for sure.

I took some pictures of common DOS games (and 80x25 text mode) so you can judge for yourself. Here!
If you have any suggestions just let me know. 😀

The CT65555 does screen scaling?

I believe it does. I remember hooking up an external monitor to the laptop and getting 800x600 everywhere when using both displays simultaneously.

133MHz wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

What I'm wondering is how well it handles 320x200 and 320x240 resolutions. The pic you posted looks like it's running a DOS game at 320x200, but I don't really know for sure.

I took some pictures of common DOS games (and 80x25 text mode) so you can judge for yourself. Here!
If you have any suggestions just let me know. 😀

Not bad. Some of the pixels look kind of off, like the display needs its phase adjusted, but other than that it displays well, and it even gets the aspect ratio correct! 😁

That machine is almost identical to my 480cdt except for the cpu. Mine is only a p233mmx with 64MB RAM. I love it, I just don't use it as often as I want to. It's one of the machines that will never get sold off from my herd.

Does that Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound chip on the Toshiba work from straight DOS? Same with the MIDI?

Been awhile since I used it but what i remember was the opl3 works as expected in dos but the midi is a soft synth that requires some version of windows to run.

These machines have a small app that interfaces with the bios and allows you to set the resources from a set list. It also does wss pretty nicely from what I remember.

I'll see if I can pull it out when I get home and grab as ome screen shots of the configs.

Thanks. Also let me know if FM works well enough in DOS since soft synth is not available. There are quite a few Toshiba laptops with this option available. Thanks!

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I know that back in the 90s, there was really no such thing as a "gaming" laptop, but I'm wondering if there were any laptops made in the mid-late 90s that were decent at all for DOS/Win9x gaming. What I would be looking for is like Soundblaster compatibility, decent VESA support and 2D acceleration, and a tolerable screen.

As for the games I would want to play on it, I'm thinking like Build engine games, older RTSs (StarCraft, WarCraft II, the first few Command and Conquer games), and just other stuff you would play on a typical Pentium 1/2 system.

There are several laptops from that era that used real Yamaha YM262-M chips (OPL3)! 😁

The ones that come to mind are:

Compaq Armada 1598DT (Intel MMX)
Compaq Armada 1700 (Pentium II)
Thinkpad 760el (100/120/133mhz Intel CPU's)
Toshiba Tecra 8000 (Pentium II or Pentium III CPU's -- Pentium II 366Mhz model allows for UT to be playable and both Pentium II and Pentium III modles had overall near desktop performance, a really high end laptop for the time -- not sure if the Pentium III modles had Yamaha YM262-M chips though as it used a different motherboard )
Toshiba Libretto 50 all the way through 110 (Varied)

Any of those from the above mentioned should give you nice performance and let you have real OPL3 FM synth. 😎

Also if I remember correctly, certain Toshiba Portege xxxCT models as well, however I don't remember specifically which modles.

IBM Mwave laptops also have FM synth, but it's royally jacked up and IBM never fixed the issue because those laptops were intended for business useage.

Well, I did my testing or whatever. These all apply to the Toshiba Satellite Pro 480CDT and are not guaranteed to apply to another other model (but it's going to be pretty damned close).

Under Windows, the OPL3-SAx driver installs the standard control panel:

The BIOS app "tsetup" includes two pages of options:

The sound options are on the second page and include:

The full list of available choices for each entry are:
WSS I/O: 530, 540, 550, 560
SBPro I/O: 220, 240
WSS/SBPro/MPU-401 IRQ: 5, 7, 9, 11, 15
WSS(Play) DMA: 0, 1, 3
WSS(Rec.)/SBPro DMA: 1, 3, or "same as play"
FM and MPU are locked to the standard 388 and 330 respectively.

I made some recordings of both FM and the Softsynth under Windows 95. I apologize for the quality of the sound what with the popping and cracking but I'm all packed up ready to move in the next couple weeks and the cable I used to patch from the headphone jack on the Toshiba to my cheap modern laptop mic jack to record was shitty. That, and going from amped jack to amped jack kinda screws with the sound. These were all recorded with Audacity on whatever the default settings are as I just installed it on the recording laptop for the first time. The files are whatever default lame-encoded 128k mp3s that audacity spits out when exported.

I only had two DOS games installed on this machine so I used the setup programs from each to make these recordings.

Duke 3D - Soundblaster
http://robertalpizar.com/vogons/DUKE3DSB.mp3

Duke 3D - General MIDI
http://robertalpizar.com/vogons/DUKE3DMIDI.mp3

TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM - 4-OP FM
http://robertalpizar.com/vogons/TIE4OP.mp3

TIE Fighter Collector's CD-ROM - General MIDI
http://robertalpizar.com/vogons/TIEMIDI.mp3

I rebooted the laptop in MS-DOS mode and tried both setup programs again and the FM sound worked as expected and sounded exactly the same. General MIDI would attempt to play as it's pointed at the correct "active" address but without the soft engine behind it, nothing played.