My new toy : a Toshiba T4700CT...

[MacDeath]

I just put my dirty hand on a superb and powerfull Toshiba T4700CT.


A 486 in 50Mhz... VGA, HDD and FDD.
It works in Dos and Win3.1.

I tested it and after a proper removing of the casing, the Screen worked again instead of the dreadfull white screen of Death.


The monitor is quite good, good refresh and clear animated picture which is quite important for old computers...


So yep, I got myself a brand new oldschool PC with a 3"1/2 disk Drive.


I tested it with my good old Budokan original Disk.




I was planning to put some Deluxe Paint on it.
Perhaps GrafX2 may work on this too ?

Also use it as a portable 3"1/2 Disk generator for my CPCs...
So, i'd like to know what good old CPC oriented application are available ?

Be it win3.1 or MSDos... what varied usefull portage apps/converter can I get on this ?



Do you know if getting a 3" disk working as external peripheral on such machine is possible/easy ?

[AMSDOS]

I just put my dirty hand on a superb and powerfull Toshiba T4700CT.


A 486 in 50Mhz... VGA, HDD and FDD.
It works in Dos and Win3.1.

Give it some memory and it'll do OS/2 Warp as well!! 

I was planning to put some Deluxe Paint on it.
Perhaps GrafX2 may work on this too ?

Paint Shop Pro maybe also worth looking into as well.

If you decide to use OS/2 Warp you should be able to add some proper 32-bit applications to it as well since there's a bit of Freeware available for it.

Also use it as a portable 3"1/2 Disk generator for my CPCs...
So, i'd like to know what good old CPC oriented application are available ?

FAQ?

Be it win3.1 or MSDos... what varied usefull portage apps/converter can I get on this ?

  FAQ?

Do you know if getting a 3" disk working as external peripheral on such machine is possible/easy ?

Hmm, the FAQ had something about this, they suggest it's easy if you've got a DDI-1 Disc Drive. Though they seem to be dealing with Standard PCs, I assuming this Toshiba is Laptop - in that case it may have the hardware wired differently from the PC.[/quote]

[MacDeath]

FAQ you ! 


I don't have DDI-1 Disc Drive, just a pair of spare 3" from some of my CPC6128 and 6128PLUS.



OS/2 warp... I used to have a Portable PC with this in a far past.
Well, What RAM is needed ?
I got to check the RAM my Toshiba do have, certainly the basic 8meg extension...

Fun thing, this Toshiba seems to have the "exact" configuration my good old 486 Compag Desktop PC had...
It even has the same "audio recording" options (yet not exactly a proper sound card... well, I also got to check for this)

Brings me back in time too... (when I was like 15 years old).

I will put World of Xeen (Might&Magic4-5) on this.
My brother may still have his old external CD-Rom box...


http://www.toshiba-europe.com/bv/computers/products/notebooks/t4700ct/index.shtm

I just don't have the trackball though...

[AMSDOS]

FAQ you ! 

I don't have DDI-1 Disc Drive, just a pair of spare 3" from some of my CPC6128 and 6128PLUS.

Wasn't there a couple of programs (their mentioned in the FAQ) called CPDREAD and CPDWRITE had some instructions which allowed you to simply plug in a 3" Disc drive and read and write to them. These two programs from memory couldn't be used in Windows and it has highly recommended that you only used them in plain old DOS (no DOS via the Windows box). They were pretty much core programs for anyone looking to plug a 3" Drive to their PC, though I'm unsure if that applies to particular drives like the DDI-1.

Though having said all that if you have a 3.5" Disk Drive on your CPC, then DSK-CPC may do the job or if you need to transfer files around, DOSCOPY if a pretty useful program to have! 

OS/2 warp... I used to have a Portable PC with this in a far past.
Well, What RAM is needed ?
I got to check the RAM my Toshiba do have, certainly the basic 8meg extension...

When I was using OS/2 Warp on my 486 I had Netscape which needed 8Mb minimum, though it wasn't updated and that was ages ago, one of the newer Web browsers I think has been made to run in OS/2 (which one I'm not sure) and I'm unsure what sort of memory it would need. Having said that 8Mb was good, though OS/2 Warp is one of those Operating System where by the more memory you add the better it is. Unfortunately it also needs a good size Hard Disk (I had it running on 170Mb at the time and simply ran out of room!  ), 540Mb was good for a routine system. You'd probably be better off running some Linux system on it though.

Fun thing, this Toshiba seems to have the "exact" configuration my good old 486 Compag Desktop PC had...
It even has the same "audio recording" options (yet not exactly a proper sound card... well, I also got to check for this)

Simply simular computers in the same class. 

[MacDeath]

used them in plain old DOS

No p^roblem as this is a DOS computer...
When I switch it on, it asks me if I want MS-DOS (don't know which one...) or shitows3.1...


To be fair I am not even sure Windows3.1 will be usefull to me...mmmh...
Well, to manage my folders perhaps, or for some applications.

But the games from this era are clearly MSDOS games.


I have to go deeper into this FAQ, but don't have time ATM (job... I start at 4h30 in morning these days...)

Having said that 8Mb was good, though OS/2 Warp is one of those Operating System where by the more memory you add the better it is. Unfortunately it also needs a good size Hard Disk (I had it running on 170Mb at the time and simply ran out of room!  ), 540Mb was good for a routine system. You'd probably be better off running some Linux system on it though.

I think I "only" have the 8Meg card... but my HDD is the max size for this model (320Megs) according to the official documentation.

Simply simular computers in the same class.

To be fair the Toshiba was perhaps far more expensive than my Horizontal case Compaq...

looked like this :


Oh the retro tears... again...

[Gryzor]

Tears? For a PC?

Bah...

[MacDeath]

The PC is used to play Warcraft, Dune2, and so on...
Of course I tear for this, I was like...15-16 years old...

Detail I didn't mention...
8Meg RAM on board + 8Meg RAM exctension = 16Meg RAM, which is quite good for such kind of PC.
And it is quite fast too (for a 486).



Anyway, my brother came home a saw it.

the jerkass told me I should better use DosBox... what a crappy crap when he wants to be...



More seriously...
my problem would be to find a CD-ROM solution...
I need a good old external...


But I also do have an old style Zipdisk drive, which should be great to deal with Data transferts...

I guess I will have to use this... If only I manage to connect this Zipdisk on my Modern PC...

One of the good point with old DosGame is that many of them had no Software copy protection, but relied on some questions from the documentation or special stuff given with the game...
I still have my original NightShift with the special picture-card-disc to pass the test, typically LucasArt, MonkeyIsland had a same device...


Also I have shitton of good old virgin disks...
The problem is to find downloadable games that are actually real Disk (not DosBox) friendly and cracked.


yet I managed to re-use my old original :
Budokan, Populous (and Data Disk) and NightShift.

I'm sad because my copu of Might and Magic 3 (5 disks to install) don't seem to work properly.



BTW, I will probably have to re-install the OS properly... and get my HDD a partition... (C: for OS, D: for the rest...).

Win3.11 is old, and perhaps a bit broken, as it was used by others before me.

gotta ask my bro if he has an original Win3.1 on disk.


Yet the saddest part.
There is (according to my bro) no possibility to add some Soundcard on this kind of computer.
Hence no Joystick too.

And this PC has only a Windows Sound System, which is basically a Beeper on steroid which enable to sample and play ".wave" stuff... but is not even close nor compatible with an AdLib...    

This will bring me back into my real past, lol...
I had to wait my first pentium to get some soundcard of a sort... =next generation, when Motherboards included real sound capabilities...

Sad part is that I actually have old PCI sound card... but there is no PCI port on this stuff.

[AMSDOS]

Yet the saddest part.
There is (according to my bro) no possibility to add some Soundcard on this kind of computer.
Hence no Joystick too.

And this PC has only a Windows Sound System, which is basically a Beeper on steroid which enable to sample and play ".wave" stuff... but is not even close nor compatible with an AdLib...    

This will bring me back into my real past, lol...
I had to wait my first pentium to get some soundcard of a sort... =next generation, when Motherboards included real sound capabilities...

Sad part is that I actually have old PCI sound card... but there is no PCI port on this stuff.

That specific computer would probably need a specific Sound Card if one was made for it, problem is tracking it down if one exists and the cost of it.

[Bryce]

I managed to get a parallel external ZipDrive connected to a modern PC running WinXP. there are drivers available. Although I'd recommend removing the drivers as soon as you've transferred the files, because it seriously slowed XP down when they were installed.

Bryce.

[redbox]

I managed to get a parallel external ZipDrive connected to a modern PC running WinXP. there are drivers available. Although I'd recommend removing the drivers as soon as you've transferred the files, because it seriously slowed XP down when they were installed.

Ditto, and I never quite worked out why. 

[Bryce]

I worked out why: It ran a badly written snail-paced service in the background that was being called on absolutely every disk operation, even when the device wasn't connected. You can disable the service using msconfig (when you don't need to access the ZipDrive), but I chose to just delete the entire thing once I'd burnt all my Zipdisks to DVD.

Bryce.

[norecess]

Tears? For a PC?
Bah...

+1

[Ynot.zer0]

Ditto, and I never quite worked out why. 

it's cos from XP upwards M$oft didn't allow direct access, they put software / device driver layers between the physical external cable and your code, caused lots of grief when my wife was working on calibrating thermal imaging cameras via parallel ports and her company decided to upgrade the testing laptops to XP...

[norecess]

Come on.. it's not Microsoft itself, it's every OS acting like this. It's 2011, it's a luck we have access to modern OSes !


I do personally enjoy having both worlds : CPCs in my house for in-deep programming hardware sex (ahem), but I also find marvelous to get a PC (Mac..) to manage all my musics, videos.. and be able to take them on-the-go.


I love 2011 !

[Ynot.zer0]

Come on.. it's not Microsoft itself...

oh, don't get me wrong, I wasn't knocking them, just stating that they changed the OS (to be more 'secure') and that caused a lot of grief when trying to use serial/parallel ports, hence I have a lot of old peripherals that do not work on new laptops/PCs and the main reason I keep a couple of old laptops/PCs in regular service 

[norecess]

oh, don't get me wrong, I wasn't knocking them, just stating that they...

Ah ok then !

[MaV]

I'm sad because my copu of Might and Magic 3 (5 disks to install) don't seem to work properly.

Hm, I'll have a look at home. I hope I can find the CD.


Jep, and delete Win3.1. It just uses up space. For file management, I'd use one of the "commander" programs (Midnight Commander, Norton Commander, etc.)

[Gryzor]

*Sigh* NC... one of the BEST programs ever. Really.

[EDIT] I use Directory Opus for my daily file management on all my computers. It really kicks some @$$!

[redbox]

[EDIT] I use Directory Opus for my daily file management on all my computers. It really kicks some @$$!

Oooh nice one - that could make Windows 7[nb]I know everyone loves how fast it is, but the GUI is fecking terrible[/nb] just about bearable.

[MacDeath]

@MaV : don't worry, my brother also have the super CD edition with M&M 1-5. I just have to kick his butt more often so he can find it again.


Anyway.
I'll get this Zipdisk running this weekend so I will have a way to channel massive Datas.

Anyway, I also got another old Penthium portable.

This one is quite more recent (the generation after the Toshiba) yet still retro... and have CR-ROM drive, even 1 USB port (ouch...) and so on...

It even had better screen and touchpad...


So I may have my DOOM network.

[robcfg]

Then you only need another old pentium computer to use the 3-screen mode of Doom, that used 3 networked computers to provide a nearly 180º view field... 

[Bravo]

I have a mint t4700ct with 320mb hard drive and with the trackball mouse. Sat in storage for years
And works.  It's up for sale.

[Gryzor]

I have a mint t4700ct with 320mb hard drive and with the trackball mouse. Sat in storage for years
And works.  It's up for sale.

Well, it would help if you created an account so people could PM you, or if you gave an email address