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My T6600C Arrived!

Raven

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Joined
Mar 7, 2009
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DE, USA..
This thing is gorgeous. For those of you who haven't heard me ranting about getting it soon, it's a Toshiba luggable that's part of their T series of laptops, but without battery, and using an AC adapter. It has dual 16-bit ISA slots, full length, in it, type III PCMCIA (I'm getting WiFi - I've done it b4 on win311/DOS), 486DX2 66mhz (will look into upgrading to Am5x86-130), up to 72MB RAM (I had two 4MB ram cards, it has 16MB atm), internal and external SCSI, a 5.25" bay for CDROM/etc., 1.44mb floppy built-in (ofc), and more.

This machine cost around $9000 when it came out in '93. It's a super-luxury decvice, detachable keyboard and such. I love it.

It works great, has all original software (I'm backing it up to ZIP disks first thing, right as I type), and built-in speakers/sound... I LOVE IT!!! AHHH!!!

Anyway, I'm going to be posting here with any cool info, and eventually pictures, but for now this is it, because I've got to go watch it backup, and then play with it for hours.

Edit #1: The thing has FLOPPY IMAGES on the HDD for everything, Win311, DOS, etc., all the drivers. This backup is gonna be quite thorough.
 
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I have one of these but unfortunately the LCD screen has failed. I agree it is a very nicely-build machine. Here are a couple more highlights and oddities:

- The BIOS only supports one IDE HD geometry, 540 MB.

- If you want to use the external SCSI port you need to remove the terminators hidden behind the rear panel. That panel "unplugs" as a unit if you remove certain screws.

- The video chip is a Diamond SpeedStar 24X
 
I have one of these but unfortunately the LCD screen has failed. I agree it is a very nicely-build machine. Here are a couple more highlights and oddities:

- The BIOS only supports one IDE HD geometry, 540 MB.

- If you want to use the external SCSI port you need to remove the terminators hidden behind the rear panel. That panel "unplugs" as a unit if you remove certain screws.

- The video chip is a Diamond SpeedStar 24X

Also, I believe that the T4400C uses the same LCD panel, and I'm selling one with a working panel for parts at the moment, see the Selling section if you're interested.
 
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Update:

Got sound working under DOS as Adlib, Sound Blaster, or Microsoft Windows Sound System, as well as of course PC Speaker. I have a DSS (Covox-compatible) if that is necessary too. :)

I installed a SCSI CDROM burner that my Dad got years ago and never used, then it sat in a box for 10 years, then I had it and it sat in a box for about 5 years... now I had a need, broke it out of the SCSI enclosure, and installed it in this thing using a SCSI cable I wild-guess modified that worked beautifully. My T6600C can now burn CDs - woot.

The only thing I don't understand is how to open the panel under the keyboard, where I beleive the processor resides. It looks like you just pry it up, but there's a plastic bar keeping you from doing it properly, and it's resistant enough that I don't want to force it.

Anywho, overall things are good. It's half an hour until Christmas here, so Merry Christmas and happy whatever-you-have to anybody else. :D
 
Where is the CPU, and is it a standard desktop socket (I assume it is, since the T4400 series laptops by Toshiba were)? If so I'd like to put one of my Am5x86-133s in there, made even more convenient since it's already at an x2 multiplier and that's what it looks for to run at full 133.
 
It's next to the memory card slots. You need to disassemble the machine almost entirely to access it, and its a standard ZIF socket with a desktop CPU and low-profile passive heat sink. The machine is easy to take apart, just a lot of M3 screws.
 
It's next to the memory card slots. You need to disassemble the machine almost entirely to access it, and its a standard ZIF socket with a desktop CPU and low-profile passive heat sink. The machine is easy to take apart, just a lot of M3 screws.

I've had it pretty far disassembled in order to add the CDROM drive (I put an RCD5054 in it, which is a really old SCSI CDROM burner - probably cost a fortune when my Dad got it in like '94. I took it out of an external enclosure, it's nice.

Do you have manuals? I haven't found any documentation except a few little PDF files with very scant information. Do you disassemble it from the bottom to get to this? How DO you open the panel on the top anyway, the plastic bar blocks it, which I couldn't figure out a way to get all the way off..

Thanks.
 
I have no docs, the machine is disassembled from the bottom and rear, and I don't know about the bar blocking that cover but you probably don't need to open it anyway.
 
I got it on eBay. It was up for $200USD, and I only had $43 to my name. I offered $43, and he counteroffered $50. I borrowed some money from my parents (who decided to let me have it for free since xmas was in about 2 days then) and got it. It's fantastic. The MS sound system is compatible with adlib and soundblaster, and Windows ofc. It has dual RAM slots, which I happened to have dual 4MB sticks for (gonna get dual 32MB sometime), and the replaceable processor which Toshiba did on most if not all of its 486 laptops is a great feature. I'm going to slap a Am5x86-133 in there in a day or two.

BTW paul, I have all of the original software and such, so if you need anything ask.
 
Thanks ... FYI, I paid $100 for mine about 10 years ago. A guy at the Santee, CA electronics swap meet had four of them and I picked out the best one but had to add my own SCSI CD drive and fabricate brackets for it. It still works via the external VGA port and I have DOS and AutoCAD on it. I also have a 32 MB ram card that I bought from Kingston for well over $100. It runs OS/2 Warp quite well too.
 
I put my own SCSI CDROM in mine as well, but I didn't have a need for brackets..? Perhaps we have slightly different revisions, or you had a different sort of SCSI CDROM? I actually put a SCSI CDRW in mine - a rarity of that particular era. ;)

I have been having trouble with some software strangely not functioning, but I think it's due to me putting dos 7.10 on the box. Most stuff works, but I think some software (later stuff) detects it as 95 or 98 DOS and malfunctions. I'm going to wipe and redo the machine today with DOS 6.21 (was what shipped on it, plus its teh same as 6.20 or 6.22 but w/o compression anyway), Wfw311, and when I get more RAM and upgrade the proc Win95 as well. I plan to get dual 32MB cards, I have dual 4MB cards in it ATM - you're lucky to have found a 32MB card already - they're rare.

Sidenote - I found the DOS VESA driver for the machine, so if you (or anyone else) needs it just ask. It's VESA1A1B.COM by WD - detects a 256K PVGA1A when run. (I realize that it's supposed to be a 1MB card, if memory serves, but this is the only VESA driver that works - universal ones cause the screen to go black)

Is it really so much to ask, a portable 486 that runs era-appropriate titles with no trouble? I mean really, I've invested $300-400 in this project over several laptops and parts so far, and I'm getting little headway. :(

Will Windows NT3 run better than Win95 on a 486-DX2-66 w/ 16MB of RAM (or more RAM, same proc)?
 
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I put my own SCSI CDROM in mine as well, but I didn't have a need for brackets..?
Or the previous owner didn't simply discard them as mine had.

you're lucky to have found a 32MB card already - they're rare.
Well, I didn't really "find" it - the card was a current product on Kingston's site at the time and I paid full price for it. BTW, according to the specs, 40 MB is the maximum memory the T6600 will support.
 
Yes but that's false. It's just because they didn't have 32MB cards when the machine came out, only 16MB ones. I could be wrong, but my research lead me to this conclusion.
 
I.. am so frustrated with this thing... It won't run MOO2, it won't run Jazz Jackrabbit w/ sound - these are two games I want on there badly, especially MOO2.

I try to install 95, it's too slow to play games in - OK, thought I - I'll upgrade the processor, and get more RAM later. I spent hours disassembling the beast and prying the original CPU off of the heatsink to find out that it is incompatible with Am5x86-133 chips. I then dig around my boxes for my IBM DX4-100 chip, find it, and install that. It works. I notice that the lights for power/hdd/fdd aren't working, but I figure I'll tackle that later. I close it all back up, and try running Jazz Jackrabbit - it spits a bunch of gibberish then reboots itself. This is bullshit, I thought, and rebooted it. I go find my win95 upgrade CD, and try to install that. First the CDROM drive won't open - then I pull it open, apparently it wasn't locking and the button wasn't working. I reboot with the CD in the drive and tray closed and it spins up (I find this out as I pull the tray out, so have to reboot again). I start Win95 setup, and it hangs on copying files, no activity light on the CDROM. It was at this point that I realized that while this is loads better than other 486 machines I've tried to get up to par, my patience is growing quite thin. I will have to fully disassemble this machine, put the 486-DX2-66 back in it, fully reassemble it, and then I'm back to square one.

Things like this make me consider abandoning vintage PCs and sticking to Commodore and the like. As much as it bothers me to leave this machine in such a state, I will let it sit until tomorrow, when I will disassemble, replace CPU, and reassemble... again... and hopefully the CPU and indicator lights will just magically work again, otherwise I might lose my mind.

Edit: what I really want is a fully modern machine in a case such as the T6600C's, capable of emulating whatever older system I want, or playing the latest games. I wish I had some mechanical ability to pull something like that off.
 
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Big Update:
I decided the WSS was a pain, and put a Sound Blaster 16 in there. I wired the speakers to a cable that plugs into the speaker out and has a L-plug so it fits with the door to the ISA brackets shut. This works nicely.

I found an official Toshiba VESA driver, which works better, and figured out that UNIVBE needs you to run UVCONFIG first, personally not knowing what I'm doing with it, I run UVCONFIG, MKACCEL, and then UNIVBE from my autoexec.bat. I tried the official VESA driver (VESA 1.2 btw) with MOO2 and found it to lag horribly, as well as having screen glitches, where the bottom third of the screen would mirror the top half every few frames. I am going to investigate this again now that I've got UNIVBE working. Also, the lag makes little sense as it ran smooth on my DX-33 T4400C, and this is a DX2-66 T6600C.. similar but superior hardware.

Stuff is going more smoothly now, but I still have some issues to work out. I need to get a replacement rechargable li-ion battery for the CMOS (so I can boot w/o nagging and having to disable WSS every boot). I also need to wire the volume wheel into the speaker wire - but I'm holding off on that since I don't know how to do it and I dont want to open it again (so many screws..).

Also, a note to others: The WSS's MIC port isn't amplified, so is unusable for chaining sound cards. The line-in port is, but would require a special cable as it only wants sound on the second channel, i.e., stereo cable works partially inserted, mono cables don't work. Pretty fail if you ask me. This is part of the reason I wired it directly instead of chaining cards, but if you'd rather make a more complex cable than I felt like and would rather not re-wire the speakers (I felt it was easier), then this is another route you could go to get SB.
 
The status lights have a short cable that you must have left disconnected. It's next to the display cable in the attached pic.

I don't know where to source the cmos battery, but I took a pic last time it was out but didn't write down the p/n.
 

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I would have PM'd you instead of bumping my two-month-old thread, but there doesn't appear to be a way to PM you for some reason, and I need some more help with my T6600C.

I never found the connector for the indicator LEDs, nothing is left unplugged as far as I can see.

In order to take the motherboard out of the machine, the panel on the top MUST be removed, otherwise you can't access the plugs on the other side of the motherboard to disconnect them.

Mine is also not playing PC speaker sounds. Is this normal? Does it have a PC speaker in some nook I haven't found? If it goes through the WSS, I devised a solution to that by re-enabling WSS and routing it into a CD-in on my SB16, which worked, but no PC speaker sounds still.

Ideas?
 
I would have PM'd you instead of bumping my two-month-old thread, but there doesn't appear to be a way to PM you for some reason, and I need some more help with my T6600C.
A PM will not document the help provided for future reference.
I never found the connector for the indicator LEDs, nothing is left unplugged as far as I can see. In order to take the motherboard out of the machine, the panel on the top MUST be removed, otherwise you can't access the plugs on the other side of the motherboard to disconnect them.
Well, then pry out the two rubber bungs with an Xacto or sharpened screwdriver and remove the screws holding it in place.
Mine is also not playing PC speaker sounds. Is this normal?
Mine doesn't either as far as I recall.
 
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