Ian's Retro Museum
"Working" On The Move ■

A look at the laptops I have in my collection

Now we could "work" away from the office. Oh joy!

Who didn't have "something" other than work applications installed on their laptop?

The first portable computers couldn't really be called laptops, they were nothing more than a desktop computer with a handle fitted, but it didn't take long for built in monochrome screens and heavy batteries to appear, meaning you could, just about, use the computer while away from the office

Not for long though, unless you had access to a power outlet!

Hewlett Packard Omnibook 3000

My first Laptop, feel the power of the mighty Pentium II, 233MHz, 146MB RAM, 4GB harddrive. You can see a spare harddrive on top. I paid all of 50p for that off ebay. It originally had Windows ME installed, then it was upgraded to Windows XP SP1 (Didn't have enough disc space to install SP2/3), now it has Windows 2000 SP4 installed and the spare drive has an old version of Puppy Linux on it. Also note the Wifi card sticking out the side as this model doesn't have any on-board networking.
I am going to try and get Lubuntu installed on it as it just about meets the minimum specifications for installation.

Asus 900XP Netbook

I fancied getting myself a cheap netbook and bought this from PC World (Yeah I know!) because it was reduced to clear. It came with a cut down and modified version of Windows XP to fit on the fast 4GB C:\ SSD drive, it also had a slow 8GB D:\ SSD drive. There was a tool that moved the Program Files folder and contents to the 8GB drive, as the 4GB drive would run out of space fairly quickly. This model has been upgraded with 2GB of RAM, a very fast 32GB SSD and Windows 7. Once upgraded it's actually a very capable machine even though the processor is only a 900MHz Celeron.
Unfortunately it's not compatible with Windows 10 due to the display adaptor, originally the upgrade advisor said the processor was not compatible as well, but that was a bug apparently.

Asus 900 Netbook

This machine is the same as the above, but it came with Linux (Xandros) installed and originally a 4GB/16GB hard disc arrangement, they are actually two different chips rather than partitions.
This machine now has the same hardware upgrades as the above model, but runs Lubuntu (Light Ubuntu) very well.
I used to use this machine for working on this website.

Dell Latitude C540

I had an idea for a media centre project and needed an old computer, I asked online if anyone had one to donate and received this, However there were some issues I had to sort out before I could use it.
1. No sound, originally I thought this would be down to driver issues, but the hardware wasn't present in the device manager. After some furious Googling on another machine, It was found to be caused by a faulty dial-up modem which was on the same bus. Once removed the hardware appeared, and Windows XP automatically installed the driver. Problem 1 solved!
2. No Wireless internet, This was caused by driver issues, For some reason the original wireless module had been replaced with a 3rd party module, so the driver downloaded from the Dell support webpage wouldn't work, Windows didn't recognise it (although Ubuntu Linux could recognise and use it without screwing around with drivers), so I had to remove the wireless module and Google the model name. I found a manufacturer webpage, found a suitable driver, installed and connected. Problem 2 solved!
3. The only on-board USB port is USB 1, so I had to use an old double port USB 2 PCMCIA card in the slot (Yes I know it's a Belkin product, This is a rarity as it actually works!), by using a home made cable I can borrow power from the on-board port rather than use another PSU. Problem 3 solved!
After all that the display driver wouldn't output in wide screen so this laptop wasn't suitable for my project. Bummer! Oh well never mind, I just bought and used a Raspberry Pi instead.
This machine was upgraded to 1GB of RAM (from 512MB) and now runs Windows 7 slowly.
The processor isn't compatible with Windows 10 according to the upgrade advisor.

Compaq Mini CQ10-500SA

This was originally my daughters netbook, after years of abuse she bought herself a new laptop and I bought this one from her.
To my surprise it was eligible for the free Windows 10 upgrade, which ran like a bag of poo, so now runs Lubuntu. I'm using this machine for Android development as it's the only laptop I have (at the moment, don't tell the wife ;) ) that can run Android Studio.
You can see the Ctrl key is missing and the battery does not hold a charge, also the charger cable has been broken and repaired many times, but however it still works ok.
This is now my daily machine until I can get to the local computer fair to buy a more modern machine... (Mission successful, see below)
I used the Windows 7 key from this PC to activate Windows 10 on my desktop.

Lenovo G50-80

Large bonus from work (in vouchers) + Unused christmas money + PC World = New laptop, obviously!
Photo borrowed from t'internet
8GB RAM, 1TB storage, CORE i3 2GHz dual core processor with 2 threads per core, 15.6 inch screen, Windows 10, etc...
Loads of bloatware uninstalled, then re-installed to fix the battery only charging to 60% issue, then uninstalled again!
Using this instead of the old single core Celeron netbooks is like going from a 50cc moped to a Bugatti Veyron, dbPowerAmp on the old machine converted mp3s at 5.0x if i was lucky, now it more like 35.0x, not even my desktop machine can manage that.

I am still using this laptop to work on this site, although it now has two extra screens attached

Acer ES1-512

I acquired this laptop for £12 as it had a faulty screen, keyboard, no internal battery, and a broken installation of Windows 10. Windows was swiftly replaced by the latest Ubuntu 18.10. You can see the screen has vertical lines on it, these will disappear if the corner of the screen is help down, the keyboard has a broken matrix as whole groups of buttons don't work. It's fine for the occasional boot into Linux to fix the problems Windows can't. Now it has Xubuntu installed

Acer Aspire 4552

One of the laptops I received with no PSU, but the PSU from the Acer ES1-512 above fits and works. Currently has Windows 7 installed

eMachines E525

Another one of the laptops I received with no PSU, but the PSU from the Acer ES1-512 above fits and works. Currently has Windows Vista (Yeah I know) installed

Dell Latitude D630

Another laptop I received with no PSU, the PSU from the Latitude C540 above doesn't fit. Originally came with Windows XP, but seems to be upgraded with Windows 7 Premium. I should have an old HP PSU that's supposed to work, but I can't find it

Dell Inspiron 3200

Saw this, though it was another HP Omnibook 3000, it wasn't

IBM (Lenovo) X41 ThinkPad

Found at a local office closure

Lenovo L420 ThinkPad

Another donation, no power pack though

Acer Aspire 5315

Bought from a car boot sale, no power pack though

Dell Inspiron 6400

Another car boot sale find, even had charge left in the battery after I got it home

I hope you all find this as interesting and as nostalgic as I do.

Special thanks to my long-suffering partner Denise for putting up with all this "nonsense".

No cats were annoyed during the creation of this site



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