vengefultacos
New Member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2012
- Messages
- 4
So, I've had this MS-DOS laptop for the past 25 years. I got it as settlement for back pay from a VAR I worked for in the early '90, so I don't know much about its origins, other than it was called an "IQL." It was only recently I noticed on the label on the bottom of the unit (pic enclosed) mentions an "International Quartz Limited" which turns out to be a company in Hong Kong. Google doesn't turn up anything of use on this beast. Anyone have a history of this thing? Are there other examples of it out there?
Brief specs are: 10Mhz 81086, 640K, CGA Graphics, Blue/black monochrome backlit (although very dimly now) display. 720K and 360K floppies. It also has an RTC, but the battery is long since dead and I haven't opened it up to see what replacing it would entail.
It has an external 12v adapter (that has an annoyingly loud fan in it). It use to also have a separate lead-acid battery (a motorcycle battery I think) in an enclosure. You'd daisy chain the adapter to the battery, and the battery to the laptop. The battery was recycled ages ago... I may still have the enclosure hiding some place.
The machine works pretty well... I just brought it out of storage to read some data off of some 360K disks, since that's the only functioning IBM 5-1/4 I have at the moment. The real issue is the screen. It seems to have some sort of bleaching around the edges, which has been going on now for years. It makes that already hard to read display pretty much unusable. Fortunately, there's a composite and RGB out, so I can still fire it up and use it with an external monitor. Obviously that's a bit clunky.
I had the idea to try to find a modern LCD panel that could replace the screen. I haven't found anything exactly that size, but things that could probably be hacked into the case. Given that I haven't done this sort of thing before, I'd likely end up butchering the thing. If this laptop is rather rare, I'd hate to do that.
As an alternative, is anyone familiar with the issue I'm seeing in the screen? I basically assumed the thing is just dying of old age, but maybe there's a fix?
Thanks.
Brief specs are: 10Mhz 81086, 640K, CGA Graphics, Blue/black monochrome backlit (although very dimly now) display. 720K and 360K floppies. It also has an RTC, but the battery is long since dead and I haven't opened it up to see what replacing it would entail.
It has an external 12v adapter (that has an annoyingly loud fan in it). It use to also have a separate lead-acid battery (a motorcycle battery I think) in an enclosure. You'd daisy chain the adapter to the battery, and the battery to the laptop. The battery was recycled ages ago... I may still have the enclosure hiding some place.
The machine works pretty well... I just brought it out of storage to read some data off of some 360K disks, since that's the only functioning IBM 5-1/4 I have at the moment. The real issue is the screen. It seems to have some sort of bleaching around the edges, which has been going on now for years. It makes that already hard to read display pretty much unusable. Fortunately, there's a composite and RGB out, so I can still fire it up and use it with an external monitor. Obviously that's a bit clunky.
I had the idea to try to find a modern LCD panel that could replace the screen. I haven't found anything exactly that size, but things that could probably be hacked into the case. Given that I haven't done this sort of thing before, I'd likely end up butchering the thing. If this laptop is rather rare, I'd hate to do that.
As an alternative, is anyone familiar with the issue I'm seeing in the screen? I basically assumed the thing is just dying of old age, but maybe there's a fix?
Thanks.