Open it up and see if the PCB is branded and/or has model numbers. Almost certainly this is Taiwanese ODM stuff, so probably known under a myriad of brand and model names.

MITAC, 100% sure. It has all their usual design indicators. MITAC notebooks were sold under all kind of brands. I own a couple of these as well, with a 386 one almost looking exactly as yours.

hmmm, yeah, i googled for Mitac and they are very much alike this model. I will try to open it up this weekend to see if i can find any clues on the boards inside. Thx.

Opened it up today in search for clues. Found no such thing. Nor did i find a cmos battery which is odd.

If you search for SLT486DLB, there's another one here but it's an Amrel branded one: https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=125534
Wow, it has what looks like a regular full ISA port on the back.

Also, Amrel stands for "American Reliable Inc"!

The BIOS battery on that thing is the little coin cell by the piezo speaker, that's a little rechargeable lithium and if it can store bios settings for 5 minutes it should be fine. They hold up really well and don't often leak in the way that NIMH batteries do.

Zoom into this old magazine advert to see what I think is your laptop?

It looks like Amrel is the american brand and does appear to be a real company that still makes some computer stuff, just now it's military and vehicle computers. This laptop is probably made by a Taiwanese ODM to Amrel's specifications / design customisation, Mitac seems pretty likely.
While I was poking around the amrel site archive, it pushed me to www.login.se. So I guess that's what they traded as in Sweden. You can find the drivers for the "486 DLB Enhanced model" here: https://web.archive.org/web/19970408222103fw_ … n.se/archsv.htm

Thermalwrong,

wow. My hat goes off to you Sir for this detective work. Thank you very much 😀

It is very interesting to read about this model/series of laptops in that advert. I wasn't aware that it had this (huge) docking station. And i'm extremely grateful that this drivers page that you found actually have the pcmcia drivers on it (i have been chasing those for a long time). Will explore those files this evening for sure.

thx again mate

br

And speaking of CMOS batteries: The one inside (the image above) decided to stop working after all these years and i was thinking about replacing it with a new one. I could not really get a good glance at it when i opened it up, but i assume it is a plain 3v cell. But are these batteries usually rechargable or not?

Just keep it running / powered for a while to see if the CMOS battery recovers. That one's got a small (12mm diameter) rechargeable cell which you can see in the brown heatshrink just by the piezo speaker near the front edge of the laptop's motherboard.

That should not be replaced with a CR2032 non-rechargeable cell because the mainboard is designed to charge it up, which is dangerous with CR2032 cells. The current battery there may work if it's left to charge for a while and even when it's working correctly it won't store charge for more than a few months if there's no main battery pack hooked up.
Given the blue corrosion around the main battery terminals, that really shouldn't be connected anyways 😀

Thx Thermalwrong,

i'll try to use the PSU on it for a while and let it sit before delving into more hazardous stuff. But good to know that it would then be a rechargable cell that is needed 😀

No, absolutely no plans to connect the battery pack again. While it did work for a while when i bought this machine, the last time (before i disconnected it for good) it actually "sizzled" and sounded weird and then i knew not to try to keep it connected ever again.

Some feedback, it turned out to work exactly as you described it Thermalwrong ( i left it on for some time, then disconnected everything for a few days and then turned it on again and it keeps the settings). My hat tips for you Sir 😀

thank you.