Search info on XT 80186 laptop "Olimarck Top 15 / 25"

[1ST1]

Hello I have a XT class laptop with 80186 CPU here, called the "Olimarck Top 15". It is made in Hong-Kong, Model No 9242, serial no 2974 and it has the following FCC Req No:

B478NQ-15668-DT-E

The sticker on the bottom tells also that it complies to part 68 FCC rules if option part BW-29202B-01T1 is installed. Part 68 FCC rules means that the option would be a modem, see here.

Some research on the brand name Olimarck found out that this was a joint venture of Olivetti Belgium with a Mr. Van der Marck for software. And now there is this laptop which was advertized as "Olivetti compatible" in France - compatible to which model? Olivetti M21 / M24 would make sense as it was very popular, but that Olimarck can not support the 640x400 OGC graphics mode. A quite similar looking machine of Olivetti may would habe been the M22 laptop which only has been produced in 6 prototypes, it never came to market. Instead Olivetti then sold the 80c88 based Hitachi HL320 as the M15 which is much more modern design.

Besides the unusual 80186 CPU the Olimarck has two a bit more slim than usual 5.25 inch half height floppy drives and it looks like the lower drive can be replaced by a standard half height 5.25 inch drive. It has a 80x25 CGA LCD in half height (8:3). From a local french vendor I have an advertising of french magazine Micro-Systemes of february 1987 which tells that optionally it could be delivered with a 20 MB harddisk instead of the 2nd floppy drive. There is also a datasheet of Olivetti Netherlands that shows it. And in this data sheet and the french advertising it is called the Olimarck Top 15 / 25, mine is a 15 with dual floppy drive and french azerty keyboard layout.



The machine just arrived today from old owner and as it is cold outside, almost winter, now it needs to warmup after unpacking and protect from the humidity in the air before I can get it here in my room for testing and making pictures. But it should work and I want to find out if it has an ISA slot to insert an XT-IDE controller with a CF.

What can be found out about this laptop, for example with the FCC req number? I am not familar with the search functions on the FCC website.

Ideally we can find technical manual for the system? What is the original manufacturer in Hong-Kong? Has it been sold elsewhere, like in the US? Is there special software for it?

 

[sqpat]

Well I don't see any photos. The system specs are in this pdf but I don't read German:
https://olivrea.de/wp-content/uploads/PDF/Brochures/olivetti-Personal-Computer-Top-Serie.pdf

I doubt there is an ISA slot on the system (especially considering it is a laptop). If you are lucky, there is some sort of expansion slot or connector that exposes most of the same pins of the isa bus. In that case it may be possible to do XT-IDE via an adapter, but who knows if the BIOS of a laptop from that era is even looking for boot ROMs. Of course, you could modify the BIOS too if it did not do this...

 

[Svenska]

That document is in Dutch, not German...

The system runs at 4.91 MHz and comes with 640 KB RAM (and a 32 KB ROM BIOS); DMA is explicitly mentioned. The TOP 15 uses two 5.25" floppy drives, and the TOP 25 uses one 5.25" floppy drive and either a 3.5" floppy or 20 MB hard drive. Expansion capabilities (other than the printer, serial and external screen) are not mentioned, or I have missed them in the text.

Listing both MS-DOS 2.11 and MS-DOS 3.1 as supported operating systems makes me suspect that this computer is not IBM compatible - so an XT-IDE likely won't work with it. If a hard drive controller is integrated, it might be either MFM or SASI/SCSI.

 

[sqpat]

That document is in Dutch, not German...

Whoops, it's all greek to me...

Listing both MS-DOS 2.11 and MS-DOS 3.1 as supported operating systems makes me suspect that this computer is not IBM compatible

As far as French goes... in the original ad posted, I think "LE PORTABLE OLIMARCK L'ORDINATEUR COMPATIBLE OLIVETTI" suggests it is PC compatible.

And as far as German goes... https://forum.classic-computing.de/...187-olimarck-top-15/&postID=506808#post506808 it is also said here it is an XT with BIOS setup.

EDIT: I'm too lazy to make an account to get the hi res pic but https://forum.classic-computing.de/index.php?attachment/214524/&thumbnail=1 that white connector sure looks like it may be a generic expansion port which probably exposes the bus.

 

[Svenska]

Whoops, it's all greek to me...

I am fluent in German, but reading Dutch is hard...

And as far as German goes... https://forum.classic-computing.de/...187-olimarck-top-15/&postID=506808#post506808 it is also said here it is an XT with BIOS setup.

It's said that this is an XT and therefore has no BIOS setup. There's some discussion on whether "L'ordinateur compatible Olivetti" is "the compatible Olivetti computer" (= IBM compatible) or "the Olivetti-compatible computer", but since I don't know any French, such details are beyond me.

As far as I can tell, nothing definitely indicates IBM compatibility. I believe MS-DOS 3.10 and 3.20 were more common on non-IBM clones, while IBM clones ran some form MS-DOS 3.3? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[1ST1]

I summarized already everything relevant in the german thread where I also participate. And no, it has no CMOS setup, it probably even has no battery for RTC. I have to check that, hoping not to find a Varta bomb in there...

One thing I need to correct from above, it seems not beeing really a "laptop", more a "portable" as it seems to be too light to have batteries to run it without using a power socket. So it looks more like more comfortable (lighter) "successor" of the really heavy M21 portable. I don't know enough about the M22, did it had batteries?

What is the really strange is that the french advertising claims it specially as "Olivetti compatible" and not "IBM compatible" what would be the normal scale of that era. For compatibility I think it's just a far east clone of that era as every else, lateron I will create a boot diskette with MS-DOS 5 and start it with that. I think it came with DOS 3.x as that version is just enough for an XT with maximum 20 MB harddisk and that licence might have been cheaper than a DOS 4 or 5.

 

[boggit]

I mean, a 80186-based system would per definition exclude full IBM compatibility, no?

 

[Svenska]

I summarized already everything relevant in the german thread where I also participate.

Understood.

I have to check that, hoping not to find a Varta bomb in there...

You should open the machine and take note of large ICs. That will tell you actual answers instead of guesses.

I mean, a 80186-based system would per definition exclude full IBM compatibility, no?

Likely, but not necessarily. Siemens had some fully IBM compatible 80186-based systems, for example. The 80186 features a full 16-bit data bus, an improved microarchitecture and higher clock rates, leading to substantial performance improvements compared to a stock XT if done well.

 

[1ST1]

So, it has been aclimatisated and now I have pictures of the beast.


Top view


Bottom view. It has no handle. So usually it should have been carried in a bag.




There may have been more than one in the company where it has been used. It has serial and parallel and docking station connector. It also has CGA and a switch to toggle between monitor and LCD.


The right side of the machine, floppy drives closed.


Floppy drives opened. They are the standard 360 kb double sided ones. But their height is lower than the standard half height drives.


Left side with power connector, on off switch and 110/220V DC input selector.


Open!


That's what the BIOS displays. It's not the typical screen that Olivetti POST displays. On the upper right corner it says "C BIOS Rev.7"


The DOS diskette has just a standard Olivetti branded 3.20 version. They used it for all XT class machines inclusive ETV series and Editor 100.

 

[1ST1]

The startup files. It loads belgium keyboard layout. There is one error in the autoexec.bat, one "m" too much in the est_key.com line. I need to check if that anyhow works and what that command does.




As you can see, the Olimarck brand reproduces the style of labels of the italian manufacturer of the same time and earlier. M21: 1984/85, M380 series: 1987.


The Olimarck as successor of M21 and predecessor M15 in Benelux and France, to replace the long waited and then failed M22 design?

The question is still there: Can andybody identify this machine on different brands for example in the US or the original manufacturer in Hong-Kong? Service manual available somewhere? How to search that FCC reg. no. on FCC website?

 

[1ST1]

So basically it works with DOS 5, created using my M21. Currently I have just problems with the keyboard driver. Currently I use a keybgr.exe which works nice on the M21, but I need to use another one, testing now...

 

[Zare]

What would even mean "Olivetti compatible"? Maybe just a sales pitch.

 

[1ST1]

Tested more variations and discovered, that even with empty config.sys and autoexec.bat the keyboard is dead. When I boot the DOS 3.20 disk then it works. Need to find MS-DOS 4.01 disks...

 

[1ST1]

Got it fixed... It needs the est_key.com that it works. And it's also necessary to start guest.exe in autoexec.bat before the est_key.com and the national keyboard driver. Otherwise the keyboard is dead. Instead of keyb gr (dos 5) or keybgr (dos 3.x) I use keyb2 which uses much less memory.

So now I have a set of two diskettes, 5,25 inch 320 kb, booting MS-DOS 5 from a:, loading guest.exe from b: and finally having access to the ZIP 100 drive as drive C:, very slow harddisk, but better that just floppy only...

 

[MennoJoshua]

Quite bizarre - from appearance, it's a standard 84 key AT keyboard, yet it needs EST_KEY.COM which sets the flag that a 101 key enhanced keyboard is attached. And that does nothing except flip a bit used by the BIOS, which presumably would have been under Olimark's control...

I've never used KEYB.COM or KEYBXX.COM much - can someone comment on how exactly it works? Does it replace the BIOS keyboard routines?

 

[1ST1]

Interesting, can this change of the flag have to do with the strange behavior that if I load keyb (any other too, like keyb2 or mkeyb which are much smaller) before guest (iomega zip) that then the keyboard is dead when the autoexec.bat is finished? When doing vice versa, the keyboard works.

 

[MennoJoshua]

I imagine the Iomega driver GUEST.EXE is installing itself as a network drive, sort of like what MSCDEX does. (You can check for sure by running MSD.) But I'm not sure. I'm guessing that KEYBxx hooks something that in turn GUEST also hooks.

 

[1ST1]

I don't have that problem on any other machine, I often use ZIP drives for data exchange with the V20/30...Pentium I class of machines with my Win 10/11.

 

[1ST1]

Ok, some benchmarks on the Olimarck.

Checkit 3.0





Landmark





Comptest





Norton SI



To compare, the Olivetti M21 / M24 is more than twice as fast, specially when the 8086-8 is swapped by a NEC V30.

 

[vengefultacos]

Ha. This looks like it's the same as a laptop I've had for over 30 years that I only knew as being manufactured by IQL. I made a post about it about 9 years ago when I noticed the screen was becoming badly bleached/rotted. Sadly my poking at the screen resulting in the screen dying. Later, I managed to break one of the hinges, so I put it aside "until later" which, sadly, hasn't come around. I doubt highly there's any way to source a screen for the thing now.

The main differences are that my machine is 10Mhz (as stated on the bottom sticker, and confirmed by benchmarking programs I tried on it). Also, it has a 3.5" drive. I suspect that's original to the machine even with the color mismatch, because of the a-b switch installed beside it which lets you swap the order of the drives.

I always wondered about whether there were others like it floating around out there.