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Honeywell Bull AP-L

Hatta

Experienced Member
Joined
May 27, 2010
Messages
314
Location
Omaha, NE
I picked up a Honewell Bull AP-L from Goodwill. It's an old laptop, I really have no other info. Unfortunately, it didn't come with a power supply. There's a little information about what it needs on the bottom.

BATTERY: 12v
AC ADAPTER: 16.5v
DATE OF MFG: 11-14-88
TRACER: HBX-2003-40
IPI: BAPL107B-001

So the way this thing is set up, there's a power jack on the back of the computer. Onto that a battery pack hooks up and there's a secondary power jack on that for the AC adapter. I'm guessing the battery pack needs 16.5V in and outputs 12V into the computer.

A question that arises is whether I can put the same 16.5V directly into the laptop. The ports on the back of the computer are not accessible when the battery is installed, so this must be a supported operation. It just seems like a big difference.

Another problem is that they don't mention polarity. Is getting the polarity wrong likely to hurt the machine? Should I open the thing up and see if there's a voltage regulator inside that I can look up and determine what it expects?

I also have no idea how many amps this thing would draw. I'd expect any modern laptop power supply to have enough, if I hack on the right end.

There's a small port at the bottom that goes to a 40 pin IC socket that's empty. Looks like it's for an 80287 math coprocessor, which would lead me to believe that there's a 286 in this thing. Would this chip work that slot?
There's also 3 jumpers next to the math coprocessor slot, I guess I'd have to set something, but I don't know what.

There's also ports on the back. Most of them are obvious, CGA, RS232, Parallel. There's a d-sub 25 connector labeled "external floppy". Can I rig an external floppy to use this sort of port? There's also a 68 contact card edge kind of connector, I'm guessing that's SCSI?

So that's a lot of questions. There's very little information on the web about these. Any extra thoughts would be helpful. If there's interest, I can take some pictures of the thing. Thanks!
 
I believe the AP-L is just a rebadged version of the Zenith Supersport 286. There should be plenty of information on that one.

scott31.jpg
 
Good morning,

I just picked up 2 of these from one of my clients. Neither has the charger, but the batteries are attached. I've had a lot of trouble researching this laptop make/model, and found one listing on E-bay. The seller is offering it at $100,000. Is this true? Can a vintage computer have that much value?

Any assistance is highly appreciated.

Bill
 
Hi Bill, unfortunately no it's not worth anything near that. I don't recall why they thought they're sitting on a gold mine but either way old laptops really haven't gone up much in value. A lot (Zenith laptops for example) have trouble selling even at the $25 range.
 
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