The Ultimate 90's Chonk

[@finkelmana]

One of my first IT jobs out of university was working at Zenith Data Systems' QA labs. My job was to test newer OEM hardware on their older machines. For example, ZDS would buy large quantities of OEM parts, like Matrox or ATI graphics cards, to be put in their new machines. Why not sell those cards as upgrades for older machines? Well, someone had to actually test to make sure those cards *actually* worked in the older machines. That was me! I spent my days plugging in and testing graphics cards, keyboards, monitors, mice, sound cards, etc, on older computers and laptops from ZDS and Packard Bell (who owned ZDS at the time). It wasnt the most exciting job. However, the best part about it, was that OEMs would send in free samples of their products. Monitors, graphics cards, all the good stuff. However, unless they were specifically ordered and approved to be tested, they were not allowed in the lab. So what happened to those free parts? Obviously, we took them home! :D All that being said, they werent great computers. Just a hodge-podge of OEM parts. A lot of people only remember Zenith for TVs, VCRs, and various other home electronics. Most people have no idea they had a PC division. While they did have a home consumer market, it was small, as Packard Bell didnt want to compete with themselves. The majority of the ZDS computers were sold to schools, government agencies, and businesses that bought computers in bulk. I dont remember seeing that model there, but I have a feeling that would have been "new" or even after my time there. I also highly suspect that is not a ZDS computer. ZDS computers were not known for innovation. They were designed to be cheap and mass produced. I would bet that was a Packard Bell computer, rebranded as ZDS.

[@AiOinc1]

Interesting! What a dream job.

[@SockyNoob]

Knowing how companies are now, they'd never let you take anything home

[@s8wc3]

These come from a time before ZDS was bought by PB so there's a good chance it is their own design

[@trash_miner]

My first computer in the early 90s was a second hand Zenith AT clone Good memories!

[@caeserromero3013]

Interesting. I had both a Zenith 286 and a 386, through my uncle who worked for British Telecom in those days (1989+). I only had the 286 (1mb ram) for a few months before getting the 386 (with 2mb ram) in a swap + cash deal as I couldn't play Fate of Atlantis on the 286 (I'd got a copy from my cousin and was pissed it wouldn't load due to lack of ram). I think he also sold us an Oki laserprinter around the same time. I had the 386 for about 2-3 years before we got an Amstrad multimedia PC with sound card and CD etc from Dixons just around the time I was starting college. It was like a whole new world. Our family still remember the first time we started it up and slipped Star Wars Rebel Assault (bundled with the PC) into the CD drive and we heard the 20th Century Fox music boom out of the speakers. It was like being in a movie theatre....Dad ended up taking the Zenith to work to use for CNC programming and it was still in use up to the time he retired and the boss sold off the company, though sadly I think the new owners probably threw it out. They also had an old Compaq 286 that I gave to them which I'd acquired a few years earlier (2002) from a place I worked that had been using it as a POP 3 mail server (I kid you not). I used it for retro gaming for a few months, then gave it to Dad to take to work as another old PC there had died. He needed the older PC's to run the ancient dos CNC programming software. The first job I had after college (summer '96) was backing up all his floppy disks of CNC programs on the Zenith and an Olivetti PC he had at work.

[@channelkerr]

"...and I have absolutely no self control, so I bought it" OK, I subscribed

[@SAerror1]

I think you should try creating a memtest86 floppy, some of the weird error messages and freezing makes it sound like it has a memory problem. Did you try it without the extra memory installed?

[@Ghozer]

Came to say this, it's behaving exactly like it has a memory issue....

[@SirenaWF1]

I just thought of that after reading this.

[@InsertGame1]

I'd almost put money on it's a memory issue. Not saying it doesn't have other problems, but pretty sure the memory seems to be one of them.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

Definitely memory related.

[@charleshines8523]

@@EvilTurkeySlices I am seeing all of these comments saying it is memory related and that may very well be the cause of his problems. It would not be a bad idea to test the power supply too. Just make sure the power is clean if you know someone with an oscilloscope

[@jamesburke2759]

There are 2 types of people who watch this channel. The ones who go THATS COOL and the ones that go I REMEMBER THAT

[@TheDemocrab]

It looks like memory to me. Sod's law says it'll be one of the chips soldered on the board to make it hard to fix, naturally.

[@vennin7781]

What a sad truth.

[@Zeon01]

Murphy's Law🤔

[@utfigyii5987]

@@Zeon01 nah, Murphy's law is the one where if you want to know the right answer to a question on the internet you need to say the wrong one, and people will say the right one.

[@Zeon01]

@@utfigyii5987 No that's Cunningham's Law

[@Zeon01]

... wait Deja Vu

[@fsfs555]

Neat. It's always interesting to see bizarre machines like this. PC notebooks have at least one CMOS battery (some also have a separate standby backup battery) and they often get super angry if the battery's missing or dead. Also this was the era of PC hard disk size limitations. Make sure your disk drive is 2GB or under unless you know the BIOS supports a larger drive.

[@SockyNoob]

Even modern laptops have a CMOS battery hidden away somewhere and will pester you if it's somehow dead.

[@fsfs555]

Yep. The big difference is that, on a lot of these Pentium or earlier models, there's no persistence across a reboot and the machine sets very basic defaults and loses drive configurations and such (which usually need to be set manually; they won't auto-detect). So turn it on, it says there's a CMOS error, you set the settings and reboot and... it says there's a CMOS error and lost its settings, and it does this until it gets a new battery. Modern machines usually at least hold settings for as long as power is applied or at least can auto-detect enough to boot somewhat normally.

[@TheJonathanc82]

I remember the days of having to troubleshoot constantly to get anything to install. Hardware used to be so much more of an adventure than it is now. It’s what really taught me about how computers work.

[@thechillhacker]

clean that connector between the monitor and the base really well - deoxit and a toothbrush for finish once all potential corrosion is gone. otherwise, check the inverter board, likely in the monitor assembly - check directly below the lcd under the bezel. Also reeks of ram issues. First run with no modules installed, run memoery tests in checkit or something. if it fails, desolder them and only use modules. check them likewise.

[@dh2032]

the cmos, RTC batteries looks like it 3, in a row on the putout stick to

[@mickeythompson9537]

A lot of very clever ideas in that laptop, but the one I most applauded was the drawer for the bios battery!

[@tobycat7359]

If they released a PC in this exact dimensions with modern specs I would buy it instantly.

[@ibm5155]

nearest option is the gdp win max 2

[@samuelcolvin4994]

Same, I need a portable PC with removable media options and sound options and ports for legacy compatibility, I was thinking of gutting a burned out kaypro or Compaq portable and building my own "desktop-in-a-suitcase" with a long lasting battery.

[@ibm5155]

@@patrickglaser1560 XMG Neo 15 go for it lol

[@cessposter]

​@@ibm5155 most of us only have 2 kidneys to spare

[@ДжованніДжорджіо]

​@samuelcolvin4994 panasonic toughbook cf31 mk5 I bought 1 for 150 dollars and it it the best laptop ice ever had, look it up

[@Bushidounohana]

Your commitment to making it work is unparalleled and appreciated, a very cool little boomboxy situation. I thought sure your power supply swap was going to be the key when the screen didn’t cut out after a directory command. Keep us posted if you get after more shenanigans on it!

[@timmooney7528]

Near the end I recall there was talk of a Z-note variant with a touch screen that could be used as a tablet by swapping the display. I worked back in the service dept on desktop boards, so I never got to see some of the last laptop models made before Group Bull gutted us and merged our assets with Packard Bell.

[@thomassvedin8701]

I had a Simens laptop with removable screen. That screen had a removable backside that also removed the backlight. With the help of a special cable you could put the screen on a overhead projector and show stuff at the meeting. Really cool stuff!

[@ActionRetro]

That's amazing.

[@pgtmr2713]

Well that explains that mystery.

[@thomassvedin8701]

@@ActionRetro I googled a bit and found out that those machines are quite rare. There were a similar solution from IBM with a detachable backside: ThinkPads 755CV/CDV

[@nycreloader]

Ok as a former zenith engineer I can tell you that we made some crazy stuff for some crazy contracts with the federal government. This is an example of a government contract for a laptop and another contract for for a multimedia capable desktop. The contracts was merged and then so was the machine. It competed directly with a Mac duo book that some purchasing agent saw and merged the requirements. It happened all the time. We made crazy request reality more than we should have. Take a look at the zenith EZ pc for an example of this type of thing. We originally made it for western union terminals and OTB betting terminals and stuff like that.

[@OrDuckVet]

This video should have been sponsored by Callahan Auto Parts!

[@littlewillie65]

Way back when, I had EXACTLY that - the p75 notebook and the big clunky dock. I also had a couple of 486 versions with several different types of screens amongst them. In fact when the p75 died, I put it's much better screen on one of the 486 models. I got rid of almost all of it a long time ago (though if I searched in my basement, I think I have one of the smaller docks still packed in it's shrink wrap).

[@MarkParkTech]

OMGosh, it's so beautiful! I'm a huge fan of the chonk look. I wish more modern laptops came in that look, but alas, slim is in. I've contemplated putting a modern laptop innards in a retro laptop case, but I'm not nearly confident enough in my modding capabilities to tackle that monstrosity of a project quite yet!

[@sevzas]

Send it to Adrian's digital basement and he will get it working.

[@Ralph-yn3gr]

This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. I wish modern laptops were like this. Just... you know... more reliable. I kinda want one.

[@pgtmr2713]

You can make one, and it could be awesome. Boombox, Pi4, and accessorize. I put something together back in February, and it's evolved into a Portable DVD player case that docks on a boombox, but could run on it's own. Runs on Milwaukee 12v tool batteries. Laser trackball is a must.

[@MattExzy]

My new laptop bends and clicks the trackpad if I pick it up by a corner... disappointing is the way of modern build quality.

[@pgtmr2713]

@@MattExzy I hate trackpads. They always do the wrong thing. Back in 94 I had a Compaq 486 laptop with a marble size trackball, buttons on the side. I loved. It was actually before we had a single mouse at home. We had a 386 running DOS. Back then even the mice had to be cleaned, so it wasn't even an issue to have to clean a trackball. I usually disconnect trackpads so I can rest my hands anywhere. All wrist issues went away after switching to a modern laser track ball. 5-6 years now.

[@OverDriveOnline7921]

I used to fix these, the screens were upgradable so you could buy a greyscale screen and upgrade it to colour later. The trackball could be upgraded to a trackpad and with a little work, the CPU was upgradable too! The only part I never got to see was the boom box add on, not even sure it was ever available here in the U.K., and all the ones I worked on were in professional environments. There was an upper HDD limit, however you could get bootable utilities at the time to see bigger hard drives, though not sure how easy they would be to find now. Probably as easy as the upgrade cPU boards that we never got to see here. There was supposed to be an OverDrive chip upgrade, but alas I’m not sure it was ever released. The machine was designed and built by Sony for Bull computer group, who owned Zenith and Packard Bell, among others. Excellent machines at the time, if a little overpriced but they were still kicking around in the early 2000’s Zenith didn’t die after the flex, the Z-Note GT was a monster pentium laptop and the had a number of other devices I worked on well into the year 2000 before leaving where I was working to go into consultancy. The z-star 900 was a slimline machine and quite powerful for the budget business range though they were pretty much dead by the mid 2000’s from what I can see. I was no longer a field service engineer by then and had lost contact with most of the companies I used to work in, though I do know many switched to Compaq which was then owned by HP, so the Zenith Data Systems name did die a lingering death which was a shame. Had the Z-Note Flex been more popular, we may well have had more modular laptops today.

[@PirateCat822]

Ah,the laptop to surpass all laptops,the pinnacle of upgradeable mobile computing units.The one thing all PCMR members hope for in a high performance laptop.

[@maxtornogood]

This feels like an old-school Framework laptop, pretty modular for its time!

[@SenileOtaku]

I've thought Framework should do a docking station as well, something that can hold an optical drive and maybe an oversized battery, along with extra module ports. I'd envision it as something that would actually clamp to the laptop through two of the swappable module ports. Lenovo (or IBM) did something similar with the "UltraBase" for one of their ThinkPad models.

[@the-shork]

@@SenileOtaku the amount of people who still need optical drives on the go is very small, and shrinking. Also a USB-PD powerbank is much more practical than some kind of attachment

[@kurtwinter4422]

That monitor's connection might electrically mirrored - the monitor might flip around for the presenter to stand behind the unit, using it for ppt

[@ActionRetro]

Ohhhh I didn't think to check that! That would be sweet lol

[@TH700R4]

Been a fan of laptop docks for as long as I can remember, and this thing is just neat! Hope you can get it working correctly in the future.

[@charleschamp9826]

Unironically think detachable screens like that should make a come back. I've had laptops suddenly become useless for the reason I got them because the screen got damaged one way or another. Being able to just easily replace the screen instead of having to get a whole new laptop would have been great. I know you technically can repair that but I really hate having to unscrew stuff, replace parts, etc.

[@IoIxD]

All that trouble and you didnt even consider a memory test, especially after the mem command gave you that error.

[@msthalamus2172]

Did you try removing the DIMMs one at a time to see if the freezing repros? Bad RAM could be causing that.

[@charleshines8523]

Not a bad idea and as old as that thing is who knows what may be going on inside that thing. I am not sure what it would be like finding that sort of memory these days. It is probably one of those things you would have to call around some computer shops and see if they have it. Of course one chip could render a module useless. If you can get those and find the bad one that is another thing you could try. They are not the BGA type these days that would require a hot air gun to work with. As I write this I see a comment suggesting to try memtest86 and that is also a really good idea because it may just be a bad RAM chip on one or both of the modules.

[@xerzy]

it says it only has 640KB with no extended at all so it *has* to be something RAM-related

[@tomatobros]

he knows but he needs a another video right?

[@PixelPipes]

8:48 He said he tried removing the memory.

[@msthalamus2172]

@@PixelPipes Yes... but that was when he was trying to get it to recognize the hard drive. The video doesn't make it clear whether he put them back in when reassembling the machine. I assume he did.

[@MadameSomnambule]

Just when I think I've seen everything as far as weird computers go, the internet keeps surprising me. I'd like to see this thing working well again.

[@koskey06]

Bro... in 99.....I would have LOVED to have this!

[@startedtech]

Oh cool, this must be from the period in the 90s when some French company owned Zenith Data Systems. I love funky multimedia PCs.

[@KenKeenan1973]

You’re right, that green tree symbol on the customised Windows 3.1 splash screen is the old logo for Groupe Bull, a big French computer conglomerate

[@andrewstones2921]

Yes they were labeled as Zenith Bull in Europe at the time

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@andrewstones2921 ah, an inversion of the “Magnavox Philips” situation! This time a European company hoping to introduce their customers to the American name.

[@SisterRose]

"In 1995, Israeli firm M-Systems set the template for the modern flash-based SSD with its Fast Flash Disk (FFD-350) series, one of the first flash SSDs to ship in the 3.5-inch form factor that most hard drives used at the time. The first FFD-350 models used the SCSI interface and shipped in capacities from 16MB to 896MB. With prices typically in the tens of thousands of dollars per drive, these SSDs found use mostly in military and aeronautical applications that demanded rugged data storage." WHY IS THIS IN A MEDIA LAPTOP I NEED TO KNOW

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Cool!!! I'm sure you will eventually get it all happy again! Thanks for sharing!

[@NijiDash]

What a bonkers chonker. Imagine taking that to your local Starbucks! Does have some pretty neat design decisions, though. Hope you'll be able to get it to work sometime, would love to see that as it's such an interesting system.

[@NCommander]

My stream on doing Windows 98 *from floppies* was intended as a warning. Incidentally, that's why I wrote the disks from under DOS vs. with dd.

[@ActionRetro]

Hahaha I did not see this stream in time lol

[@2dfx]

Sean, we already know you're the ultimate 90's chonk here 😉

[@ActionRetro]

😂😂😂

[@bread9276]

Bruh I love that pfp 2dfx

[@jamesvalentine925]

The CD drive looks like a Mitsumi which will need extra drivers side loaded on the Win98 boot floppy. If you manage to get somewhere with getting it up and running, I have one of the small Zenith LCD's that show the HDD/FDD access status. It's from a 486, but with some luck it may be the same.

[@zarkeh3013]

He doesn't seem to be an edit config.sys autoexec.bat kinda guy coming in from Mac stuff... maybe. in video he mentions loading drivers for the dock from the win 3.1 disks but didn't look for them.

[@RealEpikCartfrenYT]

he should use a different drive then, like a more modern one, which should be Plug and Play

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@zarkeh3013 though he also mained Linux and BSD a while ago, which makes me think he at least knows how to be aware of such requirements (despite the specifics being different)

[@eDoc2020]

@@zarkeh3013 His DOS floppy comes up with LOL USB messages so he's definitely did some system file editing.

[@zarkeh3013]

@@eDoc2020 ah yes! that's right! ... still, show us the edit skills!

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

"That's no moon it's a space station!"

[@livefreeprintguns]

"Zenith... what the FOLLOW ALONG!" 🤣🤣

[@dustinsmous5413]

I had one of these beasts in the early 2000s. It replaced a laptop I had with 2 full size ISA slots... I also have a shirt like yours! I lived in Sandusky, OH for a while, it just made the shirt that much more amusing!

[@OfficialRainsynth]

That's indeed the most bizzare 90's laptop I have ever seen.

[@rhysholdaway]

Saw an amazing IBM Thinkpad 770 from this era with an expansion dock replete with dual PCI expansion slots. Was another chunk of a 90s machine but with 3DFx acceleration.😁

[@rushthezeppelin]

That's a hecking choker....

[@milasudril]

Really cool idea. Add a scanner and a printer, web camera arm, microphone arm, and a mandatory USB controlled workspace lamp.

[@everydayandmonday]

Please make more videos…. Love every minute of them

[@masterspartanchief33]

I called this the "Zenith BoomBook" to a friend!

[@xnetpc]

I remember in 1996, a friend had a Zenith laptop that you could run off AA batteries. It ate those batteries in under an hour, but it was an interesting concept.

[@calzonemaniacsvideocorner0804]

I wonder how long that laptop would last with AA batteries made today.

[@Supadupanerd]

I would love to see you send this to Adrian's digital basement to have it fixed up... I really want to hear that speaker dock sing

[@tableseven8133]

Some thoughts if you still want to get this going. Clean the ram contacts with a eraser and lightly spray the board contacts with contact cleaner. Format the hard drive to less then that amount you saw in the bios, that might be the limit the motherboard sees. Format in fat as well. Yes, as anther person typed here clean other contacts as well.. As in other electronics if they sat for a long time, turn them on with lower voltage for a period of 5 to 60 minutes to possibly reform the capacitors. use a 100 or lower light bulb in line with the 110 house going to the a computer ,or even some other device to cut down the voltage for a while or you can use a varactor o lower the voltage. If you open up the laptop or the adapter box look for any popped or bulging capacitors and replace them. Be sure your 12 volt and 5 volt power rails are close to the correct voltage and steady. I had a power supply having a problem with the 5 volt rail and it was going up to 8 volts and would crash or lock up the computer. Took me a long time to figure that one out. Weird power adapters can often be found at thrift stores in a bin you might have to dig for them or on the web.

[@Brazbit]

My college laptop was a Digital Hi-Note Ultra CT450T from 1994. (486/50-4MB RAM-40MB HDD-9" TFT Active Matrix Display) It had a multimedia dock very similar to this one, however everything was more compact (It was the ultrabook of its time). It also had the LCD strip for status display, but it was located alongside the monitor vertically instead of above the keyboard. The multimedia dock has a CD drive, very nice stereo speakers, and even a subwoofer. It also had a floppy wedge that you could attach to the docking port, unfortunately this meant you had to choose between floppy support and CD support which made programs that required both a bit of a hassle since you had to copy the floppy to the hard drive, map the directory to A or B and then hook up the media dock. The surprising thing with this Zenith is that despite being a full-sized dock it seems to lack both internal ISA/PCI slots and a 3.5" HDD in the dock, both of which were fairly common in docking stations of the era. BTW: I know there is at least one other video that was done recently on this same laptop that went into the various display options. I can't remember if it was LGR or one of the other channels I follow but I remember it was in the last few months.

[@senilyDeluxe]

I have a very similar looking Zenith notebook. It's a beige 25 MHz 486 with Chips&Tech SVGA 512k video RAM (800x600x8 bit). It has a clip on trackball mouse on the bottom left. Got it from my neighbor, it still has the original carrying case and all the manuals! Must've been at least about 5 years that I used it last time, but it was still working. It does have pretty much exactly the same shape. And it has the small status LCD next to the power button. If that CDROM is a double speed jobbie, it's probably still using the Mitsumi proprietary protocol.

[@LordZero666]

Not gonna lie. If they sold something like this today, i would love it. Instead a super slim gamer notebook, what about a chonk that is both a desktop and a laptop at a time, like a PC version of a Nintendo Switch ? That would be awesome.

[@teh_supar_hackr]

It's like a laptop with a mech suit

[@BillLambert]

I have never seen these, and that in itself is an extreme rarity. Nice find!

[@Dex99SS]

Honestly, as far as screen upgrade / replacement goes.... that idea is amazing.

[@SockyNoob]

How Apple thinks all other laptops look to justify making their laptops unusably thin:

[@alfblack2]

Yup, it wins the chonk title over my Data General-One

[@AmstradExin]

These RAM Modules were also used in old Siemens Notebook before they switched to EDO RAM. :D edit: They were up to 16MB in size. Used in the P4D and P5D Notebooks. With 2 slots each. Siemens also produced early pentium based 'luggables', with bigger monitor and better keyboards. These used 4 of these for total max of 64MB RAM. Mine was maxed out already so I know, hehe. Only bought it for the modules since the Keyboard was missing.

[@trajectoryunown]

That removable screen is low-key amazing. That would have been such an easy repair in comparison with modern laptops.

[@kissingfrogs]

I hope whiteboard guys kid gets the hang of it. Nice video as always. flat cmos batteries have given me weird boot/startup behaviour in a laptop one time.

[@KirstynFox]

I worked at a small computer shop in Sacramento in the 90's. We had a couple Packard bell engineers come in and show us one of those and said that the US Military used them as a plug-in command module for TANKS.

[@cobeymyers8116]

One of the better looking PC paperweights I’ve ever seen.

[@thewindows95guy]

I have the Zenith Z-Note Flex model of 1994. I got it at a garage sale for 7$ about 5 years ago. I absolutely LOVED it ! It came from Ford Motor Company and had Windows 95 installed on it. I used to play Doom and Wolf 3D on it all the time. I used to take it all over with me. Later on, I mad another hard drive I made with NT 3.51 and Windows Chicago 189 I'd use in it. Then one day, the hard drive cable went bad. I brought it to my cousin to try to fix it and he lost the power cable for it. I still have the power brick and some compatible cable I found online for what I think was a data cable to an Apple Mac of some sort. But the system won't turn on with that cable; maybe te power supply went bad. My system had the 486 and the 640x480 active matrix screen. If you would like me to send you my power supply and it's "cable" to mess with, go right ahead. I'd love to see if you are able to get my power supply to work with your unit. I tried making a new battery for my unit a few years ago and I'm not sure if I ruined my system. But in any words, I loved the video; it was great to see another person struggle with a Z-Note Flex like I did in it's later years XD

[@TheMalMeninga]

That is a lovely Zenith Data Systems Win 3.1 splash screen!

[@patricktrakzel9657]

Backing soda and superglue are your friend when breaking plastic. Put the backing soda around the broken stud and drop some superglue on it. Torn plastic? Staples and a soldering iron are your mates now. Heating the staples and into the plastic they go, holding it nice and secure together. Hope you get this Zenith running. I like it!!

[@tadams1227]

And I bet if you was a young adult back then and saw this, you'd buy it in a second. 90's tech was awesome. So much evolution and experimentation!

[@madson-web]

I actually like the concept of removable screen

[@tech34756]

‘Took out the power supply which is probably broken’ I’d have checked the output with a multimeter, especially in something like this where there’s always a chance it’s non-standard voltages for a molex connector to supply the laptop.

[@ActionRetro]

Ah yeah that would have been a safer move lol.

[@thorsteinj]

Would probably have to be under load to be sure to get a valid output. Also, those molex (molii?) coming from the power supply might just be that - connectors. The actual rating per connector might be higer than on a standard PSU , meaning that even a beefy PSU might not deliver enough. Lots of spicy stuff in there needing power.

[@tech34756]

@@thorsteinj Coincidentally, today I started having issues with an external 5.25” enclosure. The ODD I have in it just wouldn’t eject although there was some life considering the LED would light up. I opened it, disconnected the power and whilst 5v was fine, the 12v rail showed 14v, now I need to experiment on a ‘throw away’ drive to see if load may be playing an issue. I tested the drive in another system and fortunately it seemed fine.

[@kirkwoodgibson]

This is a very entertaining video! Thanks for making it! I can only imagine the frustration you had to go through in making it.

[@livefreeprintguns]

CHONK STONKS TO THE MOON!

[@andrewstones2921]

In the early 90s I worked In a computer superstore in England, we sold various laptops including AST, IBM, Toshiba etc but we would only ever get stock of a few at a time. Them we started selling Zenith Z series laptops and we appeared to have unlimited supply of stock (these were 386sx and 486 laptops) and we sold hundreds of them, mostly because it’s what we had in stock. I thought they were really nice computers, I bought one myself. For it’s time it was slim and light, and the screen was average.. mostly we sold mono screen laptops at that time. We also sold Zenith desktop computers, which were good. This was the era of windows 3.1 and some systems were still supplied with windows 3.0

[@artseyy]

Mom can we get technology connections? Mom: We already have technology connections at home Technology Connections at home:

[@mrKozmoz]

Man, there is something about that 90s blue plastic used in a lot of tech products, it's that and that granite type of coloration, good stuff

[@iamsemjaza]

I have an old Franklin talking dictionary thing with a screen like that little screen and I left it wrong-side-down once. It got blobby and I thought I'd killed it. Set it aside for a few days (right-side-up) and the blobs vanished. Here's hoping a similar thing happens with your little screen.

[@johnbillings5260]

It's pretty cool how they made it so modular.

[@BrianMartin2007]

ProTip from my experience with Flash memory that's not a full fledged proper SSD - USB thumb drives included - Please do a FULL FORMAT on your CF/Flash media (the one that takes a few minutes, NEVER a quick format) it will alleviate issues. I originally experienced this issue while experimenting with nLite and creating and testing various copies with drivers slipstreamed and started getting "can't find file" or read errors. Figured out that doing FULL format on these flash media seemed to help A LOT...

[@knightcrusader]

The problem is flash media isn't designed to be used in this way, so they don't set up the partition table to support it from the factory. Usually the MBR is missing, but sometimes I have to dd /dev/zero the whole card and create a new partition table to get it going. Both for CF and SD cards.

[@wojtekgame]

Imagine if newer companies made the 90s Chonk, but newer hardware and other specs...

[@Just.A.T-Rex]

You and Cathode Ray Dude give me hope to see some super rare and cool vintage electronics and systems. Thank you!

[@zenmaster24]

MOAR 90S MODULARITY WEIRDNESS PLZ

[@xxdjsolomanxx]

Love the shirt. Tommy boy is one of my favorite movies. Chris Farley was a legend.

[@leilaclarridge5807]

I think my dad has something similar to this. It might be of a different brand, but it’s a modular laptop with a whole set of stuff for it. It sits quite tall on the table it’s on.

[@Problembeing]

I really do not miss the floppy.

[@TheVexCortex]

Man, I miss docking stations, it's too bad no one really does them anymore.

[@iamsemjaza]

Modular laptop was the right idea but the right time for it to be widely accepted has yet to come.

[@livefreeprintguns]

"I have made 38 floppy disks with dd on the command line in Mac OS" Not all heroes wear capes.

[@exinczel1043]

i like 80-90s engineering like this

[@ytmhcubed]

This channel is criminally under-subscribed.

[@Panzerairlines]

Maybe Adrian Black / Adrians Digital Basement can help you fix the machine if more things are broken?

[@ultra98000]

That "what the-" was perfectly edited

[@DanielPishock]

@ActionRetro this reminds of the Google ARA modular project. I thought that project had tremendous potential and wish it saw the light of day. I really don't think mobile phones have been exciting for years and custom hardware modulars on an open source OS would have been a lot of fun.

[@ActionRetro]

Oh yeah I remember that!

[@dermond]

Throwing the screen off it's the ultimate debloat method

[@ogami1972]

system aside, with the right external monitor and sub or wireless keyboard, I absolutely love the form factor of the laptop plus awesome looking dock. Looks like a bookshelf audio system, almost like a nintendo-switch-experience in a laptop. I would love similar for one of my old thinkpads, I wish the dock's style had been more common.

[@ernstoud]

Toshiba had something like that, called the DeskStation IV.

[@orektez]

my nec versa p/75's screen detaches like that as well, it was upgrade-able to 800x600 from 640x480. it also didn't like 90% of the drives i threw at it seems to be something all laptops from that time have in common, anyways one sd to ide converter finally worked though, and it was limited to making 600mb partitions till i used ontrack disk overlay now it has a 64gb sdxc so i have win3, 98lite and graycatlinux on there and a bunch of dos games, midis, mods, etc.

[@michael1234252]

Zenith made computers? I only know them from their VCRs, TVs, and radios.

[@FoxBlocksHere]

What an interesting laptop! I love bizarre little pieces of technology like this! I hope you can get this thing working eventually, and I'd love to see a followup video!

[@XeonProductions]

I'm getting the impression that thing is having some serious issues with its power delivery.

[@UNSCPILOT]

I think your right, probably got cooked by badly filtered power and it's just barely limping along now on half working parts

[@stamasd8500]

This one reminds me a lot of the Thinkpad 755CX, especially when connected to the IBM Dock II. Same chonk form factor, Pentium 75 CPU, up to 40MB RAM (8MB on motherboard plus a special memory upgrade card which could be 8MB, 16MB or 32MB), 800x600 TFT, even the little brightness slider on the side was the same. And the DockII is very chonky with the laptop perched on top of it, makes it weird to use. But the dock adds impressive capabilities, unlike this Zenith dock (3 ISA slots of which one is full size, 2 drive bays for either HDDs/CDROM/floppy, SCSI adapter etc). I actually have one complete with the dock and the 32MB expansion. It's among my favorite retro machines. I played countless hours of Xcom:Terror From The Deep on it.

[@danieldavis2055]

If this is a presentation machine, it makes sense that you could remove the screen. Since you want all eyes on whatever is projected, an LCD shining brightly would just cause problems- so just pop it off!

[@Ryan.Lohman]

The issue your having with the memory could be caused by either the CMOS or RAM (or the actual connectors). It's funny seeing this exact problem happening on an original Pentium. I actually had this issue on a modern system. My power supply extension cables were shorting out the computer I built. The metal connectors on the cable going to the motherboard were shortening the system out which I thought were non conductive.

[@rockyoliver8459]

I actually own a piece of modern CHONK. It's a Getac X500, with two expansion pci slots in the bottom chamber. You can add in hdd's to create a portable server. Whole thing is about 4 inches thick. Very awesome though.

[@f.k.b.16]

Really like the color of it! Thanks for the upload!