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Compaq Portable III

R

rumbadumba

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Sep 5, 2009
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6
Just got one of these, superficially not in great condition - the keyboard cable insulation is disintegrating for a start. But the PSU works and the system tries to boot. Opened it up and it's spotless inside. Has the orange plasma screen. Also has a boot problem I am looking into.

But there is another problem - the plasma screen has two horizontal lines [ie. orange lines] running across it [and some dark mark in the middle at the top - not sure if this gives a vertical dark line and the machine is put away right now]. Wondering if these lines could be caused by something simple that could be fixed? Anybody know? Have seen it suggested that some contacts might need cleaning - is that likely to be true?
 
To get it up and running,you need the Compaq Setup Disk.It's available on the net,just Google.
I too have the insulation problem.My first try to deal with it involved using "Heat Shrink Tubing"I got from Radio Shack.It works but I know there has to be a better way(I just haven't found it yet).
cgrape2
 
Well I eventually got a system disk and booted the machine into DOS. I've had a look inside and it's a Type 2 drive, but the drive makes a repeating whirring sound like a car trying to start and the computer never registers it. The screen is also a bit worse than I thought, it's got a column of letters more or less missing down the centre. The motherboard doesn't have the ds1287 I was for some reason expecting to find [must have read it somewhere] but what seems to be a huge lithium battery about 1.5" square, soldered by 4 pins one in each corner. I'm guessing that's dead but with the hard drive dead anyway...

Not really sure what I'll do with this. The floppy drive has a nice mechanism and can be re-used, as can the RAM I guess. With the screen gone I'm tempted to put the motherboard and PSU into a PC case and have it plugged into my KVM switch. So I've a few questions:

1. The Setup utility has a long list of hard drive types it appears to accept [not just the 10/20/30mb I saw somewhere] and there's an indication that more types may be defined by manufacturers. Anyone know - does that mean it will accept more modern drives? Or would that only work if they have a corresponding entry [that presumably indicates geometry] in the setup program [and hence maybe are somehow listed in the bios?].

2. The keyboard cable ends in a large 5-pin DIN like an older AT keyboard. Anyone know if this is AT compatible, or is it likely to adhere to a different standard? I don't want to blow anything connecting the socket to my KVM. And I like the small keyboard so I could end up using that in the KVM if it's compatible.

3. Sames goes for the "RGB" output - it looks like a VGA socket but is there any risk it's actually something else?
 
I have a Portable 386, which is very similar.

The keyboard is AT compatible. I've used mine on a couple of computers with no trouble.

The RGB port on the back is a 9-pin CGA port, so you'll need a CGA monitor. You won't be able to connect a VGA display directly.

As for the hard drive where does it say "Type 2"? If it's on the drive itself then be aware that Compaq didn't use the same drive type numbers as everyone else, so it might be set to the wrong type. I can probably dig up the list of Compaq types from somewhere if you can't find them.
 
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The drive types in the BIOS of the Compaq Portable III are listed on page 431 of the PDF book at flammingfiles.tripod.com/files/biosdl.pdf
If you suspect that yours (for whatever reason) may be different, run the DOS program View attachment AT_FDPT.zip. It will list what is in the BIOS.
 
Wow, many thanks for all the information!

No point rehousing the boards if I can't use a vga monitor, so I'll scratch that idea. Interesting about the keyboard, I may have a suitable adapter somewhere.

The hard drive says it's type 2, and there is a "Type 2" sticker on the front of the machine, but I get a disk failure message still. The sound the drive makes is like I've heard other dying or dead drives make before, so I'm not hopeful. maybe will try it in a more modern PC later. That's a long list of drives in the pdf :). I tried a lot of other settings but no joy.
 
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