Grimjaw
Member
I joined the forum a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had time to introduce myself. A big thanks to the several of the moderators and admins who helped me with problems I had registering.
I have a couple of Compaq Portables (the original XT clones at 4.77 MHz) that I'm restoring. One I bought from the original owner, a friend. I'll call it #1. He had done a few upgrades on it, and I did more. He bought it with 256K of RAM and one 360K floppy, but eventually added a 2nd floppy, increased the RAM to 640K, and a BreakThru286. I added hard drives, an Inboard 386, VGA, and other upgrades.
I purchased the second one really cheap ($75 US) at a salvage store for parts. It booted up at the time, but that's the extent of my use of it. I'll call it #2.
I have completely disassembled both, all the way down to the metal cages, and thoroughly cleaned all the case components, boards, etc. I have replaced the foil and foam pads in #1's keyboard. #1 is assembled and running. #2 is still in pieces.
The IO board I had in #1 did the old flash-bang-puff of smoke thing when a capacitor blew when I fired it up after cleaning. So far, no other fireworks.
In my spare time for the past month or so, I have been testing old hard drives and boards in #1. Many of my original disks were destroyed or no longer viable, so it's been slow going finding and downloading installation discs and drivers, determining jumper settings, etc.
I will start a thread and post my progress going forward on the restorations. I will have some questions and requests, but I think I have some tips that I can post that may help others.
I have a couple of Compaq Portables (the original XT clones at 4.77 MHz) that I'm restoring. One I bought from the original owner, a friend. I'll call it #1. He had done a few upgrades on it, and I did more. He bought it with 256K of RAM and one 360K floppy, but eventually added a 2nd floppy, increased the RAM to 640K, and a BreakThru286. I added hard drives, an Inboard 386, VGA, and other upgrades.
I purchased the second one really cheap ($75 US) at a salvage store for parts. It booted up at the time, but that's the extent of my use of it. I'll call it #2.
I have completely disassembled both, all the way down to the metal cages, and thoroughly cleaned all the case components, boards, etc. I have replaced the foil and foam pads in #1's keyboard. #1 is assembled and running. #2 is still in pieces.
The IO board I had in #1 did the old flash-bang-puff of smoke thing when a capacitor blew when I fired it up after cleaning. So far, no other fireworks.
In my spare time for the past month or so, I have been testing old hard drives and boards in #1. Many of my original disks were destroyed or no longer viable, so it's been slow going finding and downloading installation discs and drivers, determining jumper settings, etc.
I will start a thread and post my progress going forward on the restorations. I will have some questions and requests, but I think I have some tips that I can post that may help others.
