Ep04. Toshiba Libretto 70, the Tiniest Pentium 120MHz DOS gaming laptop !

[@retrotomat]

Great video! Most DOS era games actually use a 320x200 (not 240) resolution which explains the black bars on the top and bottom and the slightly stretched picture (more visible with circles such as the Test Drive wheel). This is because despite being in a 16:10 resolution, these games were designed to be displayed on 4:3 CRTs, hence produced non square 5:6 pixels. LCDs cannot reproduce that ratio perfectly unless you scale up to 1600x1200 (obviously not possible on a 640x480 screen). I think you can also stretch the image to take the full 240px height with some utils but this may alter the image quality.

[@retrobecanes]

Thanks for taking the time to watch the video and for your insights. Indeed, there’s a utility called VEXP by Adrian Gradwell, written specifically for C&T 65550 & 65554 chips, that stretches the image to the entire display. In any case, it’s hard to beat CRTs tho.

[@retrotomat]

VEXP indeed! That’s the utility I was thinking about. Some Toshiba can scale directly through BIOS as shown in your video for the Satellite Pro 4300, though there are still black bars on the top and bottom with that one. More recent models such as the 2805 (considered as one the best DOS gaming laptop on Vogons forum) can stretch to fullscreen with acceptable artifacting.

[@Thedoomslayer2029]

I have the 50ct and 110ct. My 110ct came with the 32mb ram module, and I just found the 16mb ram chip on eBay for my 50ct, so I'm maxing both systems. I'm glad to have them.

[@retrobecanes]

I’m so envious that you got the ram module! Congrats for getting that. I’ll keep my eyes peeled. I hope to get lucky too, sooner rather than later. Thanks for taking time to leave a comment and watching the video. Cheers!

[@mariobrito427]

Such a nice laptop, now i feel tempted to see if i can find one :) Another tiny one (and my personal favourite), is the eeepc, it runs dosbox just great (it's no bare metal, but it'll do), and if you install XP on it it got decent performance for games like Freelancer or Warcraft 3. Anyway, love your videos, cheers!

[@Sb129]

I always loved mini stuff like that~

[@PixelReality1]

Groovy

[@Russell970]

66 subscribers? dude remember me when you a become big KZbinr.

[@retrobecanes]

:) I’m writing this down. Russell970, subscriber 67.

[@Redmage913]

This machine is in amazing shape. I have an early win95 laptop with a frame so brittle that the screen chassis is no longer connected to its hinges and the battery clasps are broken. I haven’t tested it in years, and I just now realized I can’t find the power cord.

[@retrobecanes]

Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, almost all the Toshibas from this period with the light gray plastic shell tend to crumble like biscuit. Regarding the power supply and cord, fortunately they are plentiful and can be found for under $10. www.ebay.com/itm/294562537939?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=dx9zlH_GS8u&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=Y4lE3n81Qx6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[@neilwoodman61]

I used to have a libretto T100 IIRC it was awesome really loved it, came with a carry case, two docking stations, the docks had usb on them and I was able to put a 20GB hard drive into it, great machine, I really loved the mouse, compact size and even the keyboard. I found the whole unit fascinating and a joy to use on the move. Totally unique with nothing really like it seen since, yes smartphones and tablets sorta cover it but the libretto is just one of those amazing items that only come around once.

[@retrobecanes]

Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment and I really appreciate it that you watched my video. Indeed, i agree with you, the libretto is a very unique piece of hardware.

[@greenerell484]

cool little laptop

[@HikingFeral]

Now we have "Smart Rings" 1,000,000 times as powerful as the most powerful gaming laptop ever from the 90's

[@sluxi]

hard drives used to come with software you could use to circumvent the bios capacity limitations if your system refused to boot with one installed, I guess by lying to the BIOS about the capacity somehow. Wonder if there's anything to do that with the CF adapters

[@retrobecanes]

Yeah, EZ Drive and Ontrack were very popular in the days. You are right, Dynamic Disk Overlay software basically acts like a middle man, "fooling" the OS that the BIOS can handle a larger drive. They do work with the CF adapter I have, unfortunately the disk may become unreadable across multiple systems. For instance when I tried using a CF with overlay (created on a Toshiba laptop) on my Compaq Armada, I was unable to create the Diagnostic partition. Had to reformat everything. Luckily, flash cards are quite cheap and I just carry a bunch of them.

[@mael6830]

Je découvre cette belle chaine ! Super contenu :)

[@retrobecanes]

Merci! N’hésitez à me le dire si voulez que je couvre d’autres aspects qui sont importants pour vous dans mes futurs revues

[@sideburn]

What’s a good case for it that will hold the libretto and the a/c adapter and maybe the floppy / pcmcia cards

[@retrobecanes]

Hello, this is what I’m currently using. It’s not perfect, you’ll need to add extra foam blocks around the libretto, but it gets the job done. a.co/d/h95jkeT

[@XArtNews]

Yo consegui la misma y original con manuales y su hasta su mochila transportadora. Por 25 dolares en un tianguis que vendia ropa vieja.

[@retrobecanes]

¡Ese es un precio increíble! Es una gran computadora de colección. Gracias por ver mis videos.

[@fcf8269]

Does any pcmcia floppy and cd rom works with it or only the ones that came with it? Also there is no usb pcmcia card that works with it? you could use that to add USB to W95 technically, but it need to be supported

[@retrobecanes]

Hello, I managed to test with the Toshiba floppy only. As for the optical drive, I tested with a Sony cdrom which came with an Adaptec SCSI card without any issue. Your PCCard/USB proposition is an interesting one that I didn’t think about. I tend to think it should work if there’s Win95 drivers. I’ll dig into it. Thanks a lot for your insight.

[@jusun2009]

I once tried to use Panasonic PCMCIA CD-ROM before and it works under Windows 95. As for the PCMCIA floppy situation. I’ve read the original manual that it only works with the original one that it came with.

[@jusun2009]

Hi there, do you know how to adjust the volume of it under the DOS? It was quite loud when I was loading the DOS game with it.

[@retrobecanes]

Greetings, adjusting the audio volume requires the SETUPSA utility from Yamaha. Additionally, certain games also provide volume settings within their setup menus. Personally, I use an external mixer which allows me to manage in-game volume without having to run the utility.

[@jusun2009]

@@retrobecanesGood to know, thanks!

[@pentiummmx2294]

my 50CT seems a bit crumbly but it seems to work good, it looks ugly since it is just super glue/baking soda combo fixes to the various areas and i added a SD to IDE since the original HDD was dead.

[@retrobecanes]

I'm unsure about the material Toshiba used for this laptop generation, but the plastic quality is notably poor. It appears to degrade more significantly compared to even some older laptop models. Anyway, thank you for watching and taking time to leave a comment. Much appreciated!

[@pentiummmx2294]

@@retrobecanes my IBMs and Dells and Gateway seems to be holding up better than my Apple or Toshiba laptops though

[@pentiummmx2294]

@@retrobecanes my Satellite Pro 480CDT though seems to be holding up the best among my toshibas i got.

[@xuchao9098]

Test thinkpad Please. IBM thinkpad 560E this is the best Dos game machine.

[@retrobecanes]

Thank you for watching, and for the suggestion. The 560E does have great specs indeed. Pentium MMX, ESS1688 sound. I don't have one on hand at the moment, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for any opportunity that shows up. Hope you seeya soon in my next episode.

[@xuchao9098]

@@retrobecanes that's right, You will have MMX cpu(without fan, totally silent), Trident video and es1688 audio. and You will able to boot from Pcmcia CF card.

[@edwardfletcher7790]

I almost bought one of these 20yrs ago, but it couldn't even play low rate real media video files 😩 It's fine for DOS games 👍

[@retrobecanes]

Thanks for tuning in and sharing. Indeed, business oriented computers used to be "boring". Video playback was generally a no no then, likely because multimedia features were considered distracting from productivity :-)

[@JAM35_]

are you still planning on releasing a third episode

[@retrobecanes]

Yeah, I’m thinking about a 3 way Pentium 3 face off for my next episode.

[@dkhl02]

Cachanga 😅