creepingnet
Veteran Member
So my M/75, despite being the favorite, has finally crumbled beyond usability. NEC Versa are notorious for this. That said, I'm downsizing and focusing my improvements on the 40EC and P/75 from this point on. And the P/75 will become the main FreeDOS system, which oddly, is only crumbling on the bottom plastic, but the top chassis is solid as a rock somehow (save for parts of the palm-wrest). Plus it just does not need that much work to keep going....I might also look into cross-pollinating the 40EC with the M/75 (put the M/75 CPU board in the 40EC) and disguising the cracks with contact paper.....maybe take a note from LGR....Woodgrain 486 Laptop.
I did try out a modern WiFi Antenna on the P/75....and good god my range went up, but still not enough to allow the unit to use my hidden guest SSID for WiFi. So I might stick with the Orinoco for that. Would probably need to amplify the antenna input somewhat.
The HDD for the M/75 was put into the P/75 as well as the CMOS battery which is a barrel instead of a coin cell...so I found a clever spot to stash it below the CPU Board. The P/75 is just in better overall shape, and since I sanded the trackball to 1000 grit, it works like a charm all the time - and I have a spare from the M/75 to use if I need to. The battery life seems oddly better on the Pentium - which makes no sense, since PC Mag's review of the P/75 under 3.1 was like an hour and a half.....maybe exercising the battery in the M/75 helped.
I do need to re-tune FreeDOS though - not enough RAM for some programs. But it runs a heck of a lot better for 95 and Web Access is even faster now that I can use a Pentium, so there's that benefit.
I am toying with downsizing. I really have a lot of overlap....
OVERLAP - I have two 486's and 2 PEntiuums now - an NEC Ready PEntium, the P/75 laptop, the 40EC laptop, and the 486 Desktop....
OVERLAP - GEM 286 and Tandy 1000A - The GEM runs more games, and runs them in VGA, but it does not have the Tandy 3-VOice that enhances stuff that does not support Adlib/Soundblaster. Also, the GEM is bigger, and it's the PC I've had the longest, but I like the Tandy. However, I'm tempted to move away from using using old Microsoft O/S. The P/75 and my DX4-100 would be pretty evenly matched if I put a AMD 5x86 in the desktop - making LAN Gaming a joy.
I'm just wondering what the point is in having all these systems, especially since I don't really enjoy tweaking and tuning as much and don't have as much time for it.
We'll see. I'm mulling it over. I had a big plan for when we got a house, but I don't think getting a house is going to be very possible anyway. COVID-19, Politics, and the industry being tailored to my generation only getting such high level purchases through inheritance of some kind means that were pretty much stuck apartment dwellers.....and that means I don't really feel like owning a bunch of old systems as much anymore.....I'll mull it over more......but I'm just wanting less clutter and more balance in my life.
I did try out a modern WiFi Antenna on the P/75....and good god my range went up, but still not enough to allow the unit to use my hidden guest SSID for WiFi. So I might stick with the Orinoco for that. Would probably need to amplify the antenna input somewhat.
The HDD for the M/75 was put into the P/75 as well as the CMOS battery which is a barrel instead of a coin cell...so I found a clever spot to stash it below the CPU Board. The P/75 is just in better overall shape, and since I sanded the trackball to 1000 grit, it works like a charm all the time - and I have a spare from the M/75 to use if I need to. The battery life seems oddly better on the Pentium - which makes no sense, since PC Mag's review of the P/75 under 3.1 was like an hour and a half.....maybe exercising the battery in the M/75 helped.
I do need to re-tune FreeDOS though - not enough RAM for some programs. But it runs a heck of a lot better for 95 and Web Access is even faster now that I can use a Pentium, so there's that benefit.
I am toying with downsizing. I really have a lot of overlap....
OVERLAP - I have two 486's and 2 PEntiuums now - an NEC Ready PEntium, the P/75 laptop, the 40EC laptop, and the 486 Desktop....
OVERLAP - GEM 286 and Tandy 1000A - The GEM runs more games, and runs them in VGA, but it does not have the Tandy 3-VOice that enhances stuff that does not support Adlib/Soundblaster. Also, the GEM is bigger, and it's the PC I've had the longest, but I like the Tandy. However, I'm tempted to move away from using using old Microsoft O/S. The P/75 and my DX4-100 would be pretty evenly matched if I put a AMD 5x86 in the desktop - making LAN Gaming a joy.
I'm just wondering what the point is in having all these systems, especially since I don't really enjoy tweaking and tuning as much and don't have as much time for it.
We'll see. I'm mulling it over. I had a big plan for when we got a house, but I don't think getting a house is going to be very possible anyway. COVID-19, Politics, and the industry being tailored to my generation only getting such high level purchases through inheritance of some kind means that were pretty much stuck apartment dwellers.....and that means I don't really feel like owning a bunch of old systems as much anymore.....I'll mull it over more......but I'm just wanting less clutter and more balance in my life.