Does this dead "laptop" have a gas plasma display? Let's try to revive it to find out! Samsung S5200

[@Pallethands]

"No keyboard present, press F1 to continue" LOL

[@MrShadownoise]

When I was a pro photographer living in my darkroom in between shoots, producing B&W prints, I had a s/h Toshiba T3200 with orange plasma screen. I had a hunch the orange plasma screen would be bromide safe, and it was: it didn't fog paper even really close up for a couple of minutes. I could answer the phone and look things up, or type notes, or write an invoice without having to panic about the paper safe being closed or turn on room lights. Eventually I kept my developer formulas and process timings in Supercalc spreadsheets. I later gave that machine to the Museum of Computing at Swindon, UK, still working perfectly. And now I am getting quite teary about the wonders of 4DOS and config.sys...

[@freeculture]

Ah yes, 4dos was good stuff, you could have pretty file names before the invention of vfat...

[@ast3663]

I can imagine that was an interesting darkroom back then

[@BeniD82]

Some people have had success reflowing the pins on the driver chips that are connected to the actual panel via ribbon cable (IBM P70 and Toshiba 5200 use similar panels and there's some content on KZbin showing). Not for the faint of heart but doable. Excellent work on getting it going!

[@IndianaDipper194]

this^

[@cebruthius]

My first PC was a Toshiba T2100. It doesn't have zebra stripes but a walking and flashing bright vertical lines.

[@johnnymorgansynthdreams]

I used to work with plasma displays for a company called Dynapro in the early 90's. Lines like this are almost always a cabling and data line issue - I'd definitely suggest reflow on video drivers and look at the cabling - I think it's totally fixable.

[@EnglishMike]

Back in 1990 I was given a PS/2 P70 gas plasma luggable to take with me on a six month extended business trip. The glowing orange screen was quite an eyecatcher around the office, and it felt really cool to be able to pack it up and lug it back to the hotel at the end of the day. It was certainly among the favorite computers I ever got to use on a regular basis. Shame I had to give it back once I returned home. We also had a 19-inch flat panel IBM 3290 gas plasma terminal that could display four sessions (2x2) kicking around the test lab, long before big screen LCD displays were a thing. It truly looked and felt like a space-age monitor back then.

[@masterhand03]

Would definitely like to see a part 2 where you look at some of the ideas in the comments here, those displays look awesome when they actually work.

[@Skawo]

This is likely completely wrong, but the vertical lines remind me of failing GameBoy screens. Those failures look extremely similar and are caused by the flex cable connections failing. They can sometimes be fixed by heating up the flex cable at the screen edge with a hot air gun.

[@helloitsme4139]

I used to repair gas plasma TVs. 99% of the time it was the driver connections around the panel itself causing vertical lines,

[@katho8472]

@Skawo Yes! My same thoughts here, and I repaired such a vintage GameBoy with a soldering iron at just 200°C gently rubbing over the cover thats over the actual contacts. All in all it took 5 minutes...

[@douglofreddo7886]

Wow... I'm a radio guy and one of my favorite models from the early to mid 2000s has the same issue for the same exact reason. The Yaesu FT 857 and 897 develop that problem. If you google the model and "zebra stripes" you'll see what I'm talking about. Funny how that affects so many different types of devices.. and the fix you outlined has been mentioned in a few places on the internet.

[@erroneus00]

@@helloitsme4139 How is that resolved? Or is it?

[@jakint0sh]

I was thinking the exact same thing! Can't wait to see if he tries to fix it in the next vid :D

[@helloitsme4139]

That display is theoretically repairable, so I used to repair similar issues on gas plasma tvs. Same basic technology. The displays are segmented with drivers connected to the edge of the panel X and Y axis, Sometimes, removing/cleaning the contacts would make the vertical lines disappear. Provided there is not physical damage to the panel

[@stevehorne5536]

Clearly nonsense - "Deoxit that panel" doesn't rhyme!

[@1kreature]

Notice the text is fully driven all the time. Only background is dim (and actually better). There appears to be no brightness change on the text. If you could fix this by connections I would expect both background and text to have been affected.

[@iuriigarmash3285]

sometimes those drivers partially lose soldering connection due to heat over the years. I have been able to fix a big old plasma tv this way. By just soldering those drivers back. However it did not help for a long period of time.

[@1kreature]

@@iuriigarmash3285 I just suspect broken solder connections would cut the text as well not just change the background color...

[@christopherleubner6633]

The panels are driven by discrete transistors. The most common issue is the HVDC goes too high and the transistors stay on. Simply add a regulator like a zener stack and it works again.

[@josbouten]

You mentioned that measuring the switching semicondictors (transistors and diodes) is difficult because they may appear to be shorted, which is caused by the fact that they often have a coil in parallel to them. One solution is as you mention to take them out of the board. But there is an other way. ESR-meters are used to measure the resistance of capacitors. They use a low test voltage and a test frequency of e.g. 100 kHz. So this is an AC-test method (not DC as normal multimeters often do). If you use one of these meters to measure the resistance of a semiconductor in a circuit, even if there is a coil in parallel, you will 'only' measure the resistance of the semiconductor because at 100 kHz the resistance of the coil is so large (mega Ohms) that as a parallel resistance it does hardly influence the value of the semiconductor (which is low for DC and AC test voltages). Using this method you can find shorted semiconductors without having to desolder them first.

[@BG101UK]

I always wondered how those worked, thanks! Our test kit in the telly trade was as basic as the gaffer could get away with; we often took in our own.

[@johnnyreb280]

Your explanation is accurate sir.Using ESR meters with low test voltage and a test frequency like 100 kHz can help measure the resistance of semiconductors in circuits, even with coils in parallel, allowing identification of shorted semiconductors without desoldering.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Good tip! My LCR meter goes up to 100khz, but I never thought of using it to look for shorts on semiconductors.

[@marblemunkey]

Wow. Learn something new every day... That's really clever!

[@desktopg]

Ooh I can finally answer something! I have two T3100s with similar issues. Took out the plasmas, and they are surrounded by driver chips. Legs rusted through on many. I tried to remove some good chips from one and transplant but soldering skills aren't where they need to be - pulled some traces. Haven't revisited - but for someone with actual talent this might be fixable.

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Delicate soldering isn't really my thing either. I don't have much to lose, so it's going to be worth a try!

[@rillloudmother]

I love how you went to the boneyard and got this thing running with scrap parts.

[@EEVblog]

Sorry to hear the meter is giving problems, what is the serial number? Only the original Kickstarter batch had range switch issues. I'll send you an email.

[@SlCKB0Y-sb1kg]

Love your work Dave, from Stuart in Dover Heights (fellow Sydney man).

[@Morphling92]

I love how Adrian says things along the lines of he’s not an expert in this. If he’s not, who is? Genuinely love the humility here.

[@whosonedphone]

That Hard disk probably has the most perfect vintage HDD sound!

[@Unfinished80]

I've never had my hands on one of these plasma displays. However, it looks similar to the lines that happen on a lot of LCD's from the era. I've seen a lot of them where the ribbon cables are decaying and delaminating. Sometimes using a soldering iron to reflow the ribbon connections can help fix lines in those. Either way, thanks for another interesting video!

[@ytvandre]

Aha! the reflowing trick! I revived a couple of game boy screens this way

[@The1RandomFool]

I've seen Tech Tangents do it on an old LCD and it worked.

[@KennethScharf]

It's more likely that the NTE "replacement" transistor is over spec'ed from the original. Replacement transistors often are over spec'ed so they can replace a LOT of other devices. Send the DMM back to Dave with a letter of complaint!

[@SilverCymbal]

Love this video! When Toshiba was starting to put these displays in laptops. I could only dream of them, they looked so cool. Thanks for bringing up some fun old memories.

[@mrlox9576]

You're like a big kid in a candy store. Hehe. Your passion and enthusiasm for old tech is infectious Adrian. Great vid. 😊👍

[@hardlyworgen71]

Walking into a boardroom with that thing back-in-the-day must have been a power move.

[@Drmcclung]

I remember this style of luggable/portable very well! In their day (in my experience anyway) you'd see accountants lugging these to annual on-site client audits and such, and bookkeepers with multiple clients doing their quarterlies. They were a real game changer for smaller accounting firms now able to take on multiple clients at a time. They'd pay for themselves within a matter of months. I think at least here in the US anyway that was about 75% of the luggable market, accounting.

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

5:52 That was always one of the primary big Plasma Screen issues - that glass was commonly thicker than in a CRT, so the weight of a big screen got SERIOUSLY heavy.

[@blueredbrick]

And power hungy, despite the for the time (almost the latest generation that got to market before lcd took over) amazing great colors and brightness and contrast, it got baking hot to. Usefull for heating a room of drying laundry ;) .I kinda miss that beast but I remember sore and painfull hands and back when I finally got rid of it, and that was with help from a friend even. Don't even want to remember what the municipal recycler/waste billed me. Chemical disposal waste is free, I should have placed it there ihindshight lol. Good days. rember those projector CRT bigscreen tv's ? Basicly a crt beamer via a mirror and fresnel lens and difusser in a enormous wooden and plastic cabinet. That fresnel lens I kept for a decade after dismantlig it, it would set fire to wood intstandly and with good weater and dry sand and focused on the spot for long enough it actually smelted/melted the sand into crude glass. Since it was made of acrycil is wat rather fragile and it got some damage after a few years and finally I simply lett is shatter by accident. But I had so much fun with that enourmous lens. The crt module I damaged and never got it to work again, alas. It's great fun dismantling old equipment and save the few gems in there. To get back on topic: CRT's are wonderfull; I fell like I had my own particle accerators. espectically those monochrome ones used in oscillopes with adjustable focus spot and worked with electric fields xy steering rather then a magetic field in the TV's versions.

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

@@blueredbrick Plasma? Power hog? That's like calling the ocean damp. The heat wasn't a major issue though for what was in essence a fancy neon tube. And a LOT of O'Scope tubes also used magnetic steering - but mostly the larger ones.

[@blueredbrick]

@@bricefleckenstein9666 It was a power hog yeah but I loved the thing; to make my wife happy happy I got rid of it but miss the Beast. And lol yeah that ocean is quite damp humid and wet and what not 😄 What I'm really looking forward to is an affordable laser beamer of enough oomph to project an image or video onto a wall sized aeres; since there is no focal point the image is sharp everywhere so at one moment it's can be the television screen and on another moments a mood light. I would mind i tiny laser beamer from my phone either; instant work place when combined with bt keyboard. I've no we experience with wearables vr or augmented glasses either and maybe that's more efficient I dunno. Plasma is super interesting from a physics perspective and I still giggle when playing with a plasma globe while understanding the science behind it quite well playing is good for ones health. The real solid holographic displays that are now still in early phase bit are awesome but you can order those online it's a small community working with these, it's way over my budget to begin that hobby because I'm sure I'll love it.

[@blueredbrick]

@@bricefleckenstein9666 yeah the electric field steering is only for the tiny ones,so nice to see the workings of it

[@Bushougoma]

35:34 I wouldn't trust any fuses bought off of Amazon. There are a lot of dodgy sellers on there selling the cheapest no name fuses they could find on the Shenzhen market that day. They may or may not blow at the rated current. For a safety component like a fuse you're really better off buying from a reputable supplier like Digikey who only sells fuses from reputable companies like Littelfuse and Bussman.

[@werpu12]

my dad showed me one of those in the 80s in the office, they were expensive as hell, I was fascinated, back then, that was the first laptop I saw in my life!

[@DardeeChar]

"Laptop" in quotation marks was the best caption you could have put Adrian, lol. :D

[@cheeseparis1]

4.7 K likes. I had the feeling I clicked on a resistor! Good luck on repairing this lovely plasma screen

[@rpk5568]

My career was and still in retirement is electronics and I tell people how much fun it was and is. I feel sorry for people who work at a job they don't like. I started my career at Digital Equipment Corp in Maynard, Massachusetts in 1969. And it was always like playing, it was never work. With exploding caps and all.

[@arongooch]

Nice video as always. I just wanted to mention my EEVBlog multimeter does the same thing too. Occasionally I get odd readings and I have to turn it off then back on. Very frustrating considering Dave Jones is all about promoting a good functioning, quality product.

[@rayoflight62]

Check the foil shield on the PCB. Sometime it is missing or disconnected from ground, and the meter front-end picks up the 50/60 Hz noise...

[@arongooch]

@@rayoflight62 Something to look into indeed but im fairly sure this is the range switch causing issues. Moving it even one position forward and then back fixes the issue after this happens. Doesnt happen all the time and is quite rare when it does play up. Sadly though sometimes its not very obvious it has played up until ive sat there for a minute thinking these measurements dont look normal. Exactly the way it happens in this video for Adrian.

[@eDoc2020]

Somebody else said the switch has changed in later revisions and there's a shim you can put in to fix the problem.

[@TheEPROM9]

It is usually the bonding between the flex & the panel that is failing, you can sometimes revive them with some heat. I have fixed a few switch modes that have failed with the power transistors. Good work getting the thing booting.

[@lyledal]

"Collectable" is a relative term I guess? I'm sure someone out there is incredibly fond of these things and hopes to catch them all!

[@NuntiusLegis]

I desperately wanted one of these plasma machines a while ago, bought the first one on eBay, it worked for a few minutes, than didn't. Bought another one, that came with the plasma screen totally smashed during transportation; works with external monitor, but that makes no sense to me. I stopped buying them. Sadly not all beautiful retro machines are built like a tank or a C64 C. If a C64 C drops to the floor, bad news for the floor.

[@linuxplays24]

Hi Adrian I do the exact same thing with the Power supply When I do repairs on them .I also found it's a lot easier to take the Mosfet out when doing testing.

[@davidkane4300]

I bet Dave would love to get his meter back before you open it so he can perform a failure diagnosis and then maybe get the supplier to change something so future models aren't susceptible.

[@1Walrus23]

I was thinking that myself. Dave is a great guy so he may replace it under warranty even if it's out of its warranty period.

[@SpaceSquid420]

Thinking the same, he’d probably make an interesting video out of it.

[@SeanBZA]

Thing is that there are already updates for the switch, so Adrian can just ask Dave for the shim that they use, and install it to fix this problem.

[@insanelydigitalvids]

The more I watched, the more I learned! Thanks, Adrian.

[@TechnicolorMammoth]

It makes me so proud to be your Patron every video you do. You work so hard but I always hope in whatever way you are inevitably having fun. I support your happiness and seeing your eyes light up and twinkle when talking about this stuff and working on it is a joy I can’t put into words. Honestly, I can tell a difference, in the best way possible. It shows that you are doing what you really love without constraints, and that makes me love it all the more. You don’t seem as stressed about what needs to be done (like apologizing about the unfinished mail call and projects), because you know it’ll be done sooner than later now (relatively, sooner as in you have time to parse it all respectfully and respectively on your time without worrying about the other work). Keep having fun, even if there are the frustrations of working with old tech, please keep having fun. I’ll support you in bad times or good, but paramount is your joy. You deserve this, and I want you to enjoy it for as long as we all (you being first to be included) will make this last. Cheers, from Technicolor. Howdy from Texas! Yeehaw! *rides into the Technicolor sunset*

[@KelvynTaylor]

I had a couple of plasma Toshibas back in the late 80s, the screen was so much nicer to use than the alternatives available at the time.

[@NuntiusLegis]

Didn't they cost as much as a car at the time? Did you also have a couople of cars? And yachts? :-)

[@tony359]

very nice repair! The "laptop" is lovely! Looking forward to the next step!

[@michaelkaliski7651]

Had one of these back in the 80’s and the display was brilliant compared to LCDs at the time. Yes it was bulky and heavy, but it worked great and offered desktop equivalent performance especially with an internal hard disk fitted in one of the expansion slots.

[@McTroyd]

Oh come on, Mr. CRT! You can do this. It'll be fixed. I HAVE FAITH IN YOU ADRIAN!!!! 🛠⚡👍

[@martyatwork2521]

I bought one of these from future shop in 1991 - 1992 when I worked on the D.E.W. line. I moved around a lot up notyh and wanted a computer to play games on (leisure suit Larry, TRACON II and the first SimCity) so this was portable and all in one. back then the screen was crisp red on black, and I think was $2000 Cad. I had forgotten the model number. I did upgrade the Ram to I think 2MB which was I think around $600. The machine was a beast but the laptop form factor was pretty great. Really fun trip down memory lane!

[@Bellthorian]

I love the spinning pedestal. That sure is handy for making videos.

[@retrozmachine1189]

Keep an eye on the 205V supply for the panel. These machines, and some Toshibas too, were known for problems with the HV supply going over voltage as the power supply warms up and killing the drivers on the panel assembly. Put a new panel in, then 3 days later dead again. Not a lot of fun, been there done that once. Always test ran the power supply with a resistor load after that just to be sure and repair if need be.

[@aguiristante]

My dad had an electronics repair shop for 30 years starting in the sixties. He used to tape repair trophies components to the ceiling of is shop. I wish he was still alive to watch you videos

[@NuGanjaTron]

It's the same plasma display used on the Toshiba T5200. Had one of these in the late 90s but got rid of t after my collection grew, and I decided to forgo everything PC-related. I think I actually tossed it, something I now regret. The display was really cool,. ditto the keyboard, but it was ridiculously heavy and very loud.

[@suzynekochan5534]

I have one of these from my dad!!! Thank you for documenting it so well. Mine works fully until I tighten up all the case screws and then it seems to short out ... I also have all the documentation, software and the bag for it

[@Mordecrox]

This is the kind of machine that fascinated me as a kid, the thing a movie villain or head of estate pulls up to activate nuclear launch codes or wiring 100 billion dollars to their swiss account.

[@richardkelsch3640]

The flex cable is always a problem for both LCD, VFD and gas plasma displays. The adhesive that connects to the display and the flex cable deteriorates and it begins to lift. Usually pressure on the connection point should make it obvious if this is the issue, once you have it out. If you are lucky, and it's only a plug in, then unplug and clean it.

[@johnanon6938]

Connect external display if same lines then try replacing cable or check gpu to fix. If no black lines on external then likely plasma display is done, but can remove display to check horizontal driver ICs for gunk, defects, clean those ICs isopropyl/CCleaner and see if fixed. Last resort can try to isolate and replace individual IC driver chips, but replacing screen is normally the next step if one can be found but that probably means taking a chance with another dead S5200 and it might be easier to fix that one instead and keep this one for parts? Enjoyed the video time machine, took me way back!

[@boardernut]

4:45 the Ctrl key up there is also used in many keyboards in UNIX or VMS, in fact Emacs program shortcuts had the Ctrl key in that position in mind when it was created.

[@jasmijndekkers]

Adrian gets everything working... lol. Its nice to see. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@nmgefun872]

At the end if anyone noticed he said the famous A team quote “I love it when a plan comes together”

[@frosthoe]

back around 1987-90 I knew a friend that was designing a video game. He had a portable computer the size of a suitcase with a red glowing screen and would code endlessly on it at work. Im going to say it cost over $15,000 because his parents got a mortgage loan top buy it. It was a huge deal in our neighborhood with all the kids. He said the pc couldn't even run his code properly, but he could write on it just fine. he also said in a couple years, the pcs would run it just fine and hed be rich! Oddly enough , it came true and you ALL know the name of the game and movie with the actor that signature lifts his eyebrow...sadly I moved away by then so never got to see his face filled with glory.

[@MonkeyUnit]

From where I was sitting it looked like the text was still totally legible, IE: no dead pixels. Sure, the background had dark vertical bands but it didn't seem to affect readability. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[@rod370]

Hi, Adrian. I thought this video was interesting. And the build up to getting the plasma screen on was exciting. Stay safe to you and your loved ones.

[@chrisrose_krii_lun_aus]

I remember having I can't remember what brand right now but it'll come to me that had a display like that and a built in dot matrix printer in one piece. It was huge but it made typing so much easier back then when you go from a electric keyboard if you were lucky.

[@viperbono]

❤ the ATeam reference! "I love it when a plan comes together!"

[@revy1063]

That looks like an awesome terminal like laptop, an dam that space bar is HUGE 😅

[@rootbrian4815]

Glad to see you got the old glorious bastard working, however the display is the next thing to fix. Same for the little components of the motherboard that prevent the 12 volt rail from working.

[@gaming_coffeebean]

Hey adrian love you're videos alot ! I have seen many capacitor in old devices that have does bulging type of capacitors those are just lids with a serial number only used for old heavy duty capacitors you can just remove the bulging cap on the capacitor and see a normal capacitor head so thats nothing strange or important. Btw keep up the great content .

[@jamesearl5071]

Great diagnosis/stand in part's repair video .. even sparks ✨️ are welcome lol

[@cybermaus]

I seem to recall no-one used "laptop" for these, but "portable". Not unlike the commodore SX-64. I had one very similar to this Samsung, but some house-brand. Not unlikely OEM'ed by Samsung, as Samsung was still considered a B or even C class brand back then.

[@timothyp8947]

I was at college in London in the mid '80s and IBM had a big temporary exhibition set up in the front gardens of the Natural History Museum. My 30yo memories of it are quite faded now, but I seem to remember they had a number of plasma screens on show and that they looked so crystal clear compared with, say, the similarly amber coloured CRT terminals I was using on my course. Seems a shame that so few plasma panels have survived. I’m also vaguely remembering a review in PCW magazine of a personal all-in-one Unux box with a plasma panel too - although my memories of that are even more hazy. Maybe HP or some such. (A quick search show HP Integral PC pictures matching my fuzzy memory of the review)

[@radio-ged4626]

Never worked on the Samsung plasma portable PCs but I did work on the Toshiba versions in the early '90s such as the T5200/100 and the plasma screens often use to fail in the way yours has. We would just replace the screens as there was no viable fix at our facility. The switching transistor was probably over-spec'd I would trust the overall rating as 400v at 12A continuous c to e. Any high speed switch transistor around those tolerances would probably suffice. As you've seen it works with one at half the ratings of the equivalent and even protects itself when it finds an output short.

[@UpLateGeek]

Yeah, these days I just swap out switching power supplies with brand new ones, but obviously that's not so easy if you need a 205V rail! The last time I bothered with repairing one was when the bridge rectifier blew in my Tivo (and also my parents', my brother's and my friend's). I spoke to one of the engineers at Tivo and they said it was a pretty common issue and they actually did exactly the same thing with warranty replacements. They had a stack of spares, and every time they pulled a faulty one and replaced it, they just swapped out the bridge rectifier and put it back into spare stock. He also offered to swap them out for their spares if I had any more failures, obviously after I'd already repaired all the Tivos of everyone I knew who had one! I miss my Tivo, it's a real shame they shut down the service here in Australia, it was such a good product. I actually got mine for free because I volunteered to do alpha testing of their software in the early days of its introduction to Australia, and they just never asked for it back.

[@rayoflight62]

Try the 2SC2335 for replacing the high voltage transistor. 2SC2335 is a Sony transistor widely used in the switching power supply of their video recorder (SCL-7) in the '80s. It is in the smaller TO220 case but it has very high voltage, current and frequency specification; it has an ECG Sylvania equivalent...

[@mickeythompson9537]

Well done, keep going! Just amazed at the size difference between this, and, say, the tiny Toshiba Libretto CT-100 - in just nine years.

[@StevenS757]

I've seen people fix lines in Gameboy LCDs by turning up the contrast to full and running soldering iron quickly over the flex ribbon display connector. It can reflow the connection.

[@Hiraghm]

The nice thing about my T5200 is that the screen clips on/off for when you us it with an external display

[@jcwspoon]

Great video Adrian, thouroughly enjoyable to watch. Awesome diagnosis on the power supply and kudos to you for finding the fault.

[@vanonderen9702]

i saw a lot of videos, and they were awesome, i didn't subscribe yet, so: subscribed. Have an awesome Retro Computers Day ! 🙂

[@jimwinchester339]

I recognize this machine! I think it was called a T5200, and it was indeed a gas plasma display (orange), OEM'd by IBM Advanced Display Systems in Kingston, NY.

[@jimwinchester339]

[Update:] OK, I see the 'S'5200 on it. But my memory of a 'T' is not faulty: it was probably the Toshiba 5200, which preceded it.

[@mrdan2898]

Of course there's a plasma display. Also an engine, and turret, as it's surely is a heavy TANK! I LOVE the look of it!

[@kowoba]

Ctrl located where it is supposed to be, and caps-lock moved far out of the way is a good thing, not bad :)

[@Mash333]

My 1990s Never VSP had plastic,a display meters each of its 96 channels and center section. Finding replacement displays and boards was a full time job.

[@Karl_Kampfwagen]

LAP-TOP was an acronym for "Light And Portable, Terminal On Processor". Until later years, they were hardly usable on a human lap. As for the power supply, I'd recommend contacting XP Power for a Solid State solution to your power supply. They make every possible Voltage, Amperage, and other specification input and output wise.

[@alanlewis1455]

Hi Victor, long time no chat. Managed a huge number of Proliants back in the day, mid-to-late 90s Rock solid bullet proof servers. So, hot-plug was intended to reduce risk, not improve resiliency. All of our servers then were PPro, and not just were the PCI cards hot plug but also the CPUs, and allegedly RAM. we tested NICS, HBA, RAID SMART2-DH and CPUS, without issue under Netware 4. When production uptime was critical, hotplug was vital if one of those components failed. What would require a power off, component swap out, reboot, could be addressed without incurring business loss. In regards to SCSI, ‘SCSI Al” needs to educate you when I near a real keyboard not this pigging ipad.

[@RobertKraig]

back in say.. 1990, my father worked for Diamler Benze of North America, and he had one of these, I believe it was to access internal mail, and some accounting software.

[@c.m.1537]

I'd say success. Fixing the panel defect to the extent you did vs what you started with is a major win. I have one of the old IBM Lug-gables with the Red Gas plasmas. They are sharp as heck, but who though Red would be the color to go with lol.

[@MatSpeedle]

I love this era of Luggable Computers, such a thing of their time and just so freaking cool! Love it!

[@chadhartsees]

This sort of reminds me of the hypothetical computer they made in the AMC Halt and Catch Fire TV show - the Cardiff Giant, which was a portable clone with some sort of flat screen.

[@BokoMoko65]

That second machine with the plasma kind of working has an SCSI Board !! And a SCSI disk attached! Looks pretty serious bad ass machine for that time. I wonder how large the HDD was.

[@paulmcgrath2175]

Picked up one those used back in college. Had a 286 and 287, also had a GPIB card. Now that I look at pictures on the web, mine might have been the toshiba t3200 instead. I remembered mine had a carry handle.

[@Le_Petit_Lapin]

My dad had a laptop with one of those sort of screens way back in the day, the lurid red glow of it stuck with me, it was very memorable.

[@thirdrailer5659]

We used these in the Royal Navy back In the late 80's for running test programs on our ships battle computer.

[@gabrieldesantelmo]

Great video! I can't wait for part 2! 🤓

[@bricefleckenstein9666]

Possibly the brightest computer monitor of all time was a Zenith plasma display. Though I'm not sure if it got brighter than the MilSpec terminals I worked on for SAI Technology in the early 1980s (but those were orange monochrome, hard to compare to a color display like the Zenith). Probably anyone that was a tech on those displays can tell you it's plasma - by just looking at it closely even when it's off or dead.

[@kevincozens6837]

The images at 9:40 showing orange text on an orange background is an indication that the brightness was turned up too high. The background should be near black.

[@hahnfelt]

I have one of these at home in working:ish order (my first professional computer), with some differences - the package is the same, basically, but it’s a Toshiba T5200 and it has a much larger, amber screen - which I do believe is gas plasma. It is a true 386. The issues are mainly software (have not got all the diskettes), but it boots with dos and although it still has windows, and excel with embedded windows, these don’t start.

[@waxore1142]

That thing is in phenomenally great condition

[@NuntiusLegis]

You mean after the repair? But it still has the damaged screen and the yellow space bar.

[@jayhenry3044]

That looks like my old Toshiba T5100 I would cart that thing with me to all my nightwatchman jobs and write essays and articles on it... when I had it in 1999, it was already ancient...

[@benbaselet2026]

I used one of those orange plasma displays in the 90s, I just remember the screen being very dim and pretty hard to read, it really left a lot to be desired as far as picture quality goes. It did get very hot during a good session of solitaire for sure :-)

[@Wallcraft_Official]

Can you say "Baby steps through the bootloader... baby steps through the login.." like Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob? It would be the cherry on top of these videos.

[@wizzywizzcat7005]

i have an old vintage toshiba t3200sx in the original bag case, works fine and in real good shape, i loaded dos 6.22 and windows 3.1 on it, 40 mb hd, it came from a friend of mine that worked at progressive insurance. would be intrested in selling it for the right price. has all the manuals and cables, and some other misc stuff that hooks up to it.

[@-martin-higgins4656]

Thoroughly enjoyed, Plasma display, go for it

[@flipheijnsbergen]

I have a exact same unit, its working its a really cool thing

[@snakefriesia6808]

i remember.. yeah i used to work with a similar type of 'laptop' in the days.. aah.. so nostalgic

[@michelvondenhoff9673]

Great to watch these kinda videos 😊 Couldn't put one to my own use but love the old (sometimes a bit crazy) old tech. In the early 2000's there was this UMPC hype, must admit I liked these little yet very expensive puters.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Yup I've seen plasma screen laptops, they are orange with neon/argon gas filling. That beast is an old one.

[@GianmarioScotti]

I hope you do try to fix the plasma screen. We would all learn a great deal out of your (hopefully successfully) effort.

[@donkeytrousers]

A great presentation Adrian. I am glad I discovered this chanel.

[@johnathanjamesjohnsonjr7408]

... that thing looks so cool. Imagine building a sleeper out of it.

[@shmehfleh3115]

I have a couple of old Toshiba T5x00 laptops with plasma displays. My favorite is a T5200/100: It has a 640x480 VGA greyscale (or, I guess, orangescale) panel, a 386DX-33 processor with the 387 installed, 4 MB of RAM, a 100 MB hard drive and two ISA slots, one 8-bit and one 16-bit. It's become a surprisingly competent DOS gaming machine since I added a Sound Blaster 16 and an XT-IDE card into it. It seems to be fully compatible with every DOS game I've tried so far, at least the ones that can run on a 386. It'll also run an external VGA monitor at the same time (mirrored) which is kind of a neat effect. I know the older plasma displays with the controls for both contrast and brightness tend to have shitty contrast, but the one in the T5200 has really good contrast. It doesn't get super-bright anymore, if it ever did, but its blacks are very close to actual black. I hope you tackle this repair some day. I also have a T5100 with the same failure mode on its panel. And I have no idea how to fix it.

[@senilyDeluxe]

I was given a T3100SX (16 MHz 386, VGA, and TWO friggin batteries so that thing could actually be used as a laptop) in the late 90s. It lasted all of three days until it broke without me even having disassembled it yet. (bad capacitors, but young me had the weakest, crappiest soldering gun and no chance in hell to get those old leaky caps out. I even tried snipping the legs and soldering the new caps onto the stubs, the iron was too weak for that too - so young me gave up, took it completely apart and threw away most of it. Sad.)

[@fusi0nn]

My honest to god reaction at seeing the keyboard was "Holy Space Bar Captain!!!!!"