Recent GET! GRiD Laptop - Obsolete Geek

Facebook! / theobsoletegeek

[@The8BitGuy]

I used to work for AST laptop technical support back in the 1990's. We also did support on all GRiD products as well since AST bought up GRiD. However, it was rare to receive a tech support call on one of these. I probably only answered 2 or 3 on this product the whole 3 years I worked there.

[@screamengine]

I got some lovely AST ascentia j laptops. Well built!

[@8BitKeys]

+screamengine The Ascentia J series was not actually manufactured or even designed by AST, however. It was one of the first outsourced laptops. It was made in Taiwan, I believe. That's actually a good thing, though, because AST's own laptops were horrible quality. The Ascentia J was a good product.

[@TobyReese]

+8-Bit Keys +The 8-Bit Guy Omg I love your videos. Keep up the good work! Wish I could support you on Patreon.

[@obsoletegeek]

If only I could find a GRiD Compass, the original GRiD and first laptop with a clamshell design. Still pretty stoked to have this one!

[@lambertrussell]

+The Obsolete Geek It's such a coincidence that after seeing this video we start doing some cleanup at work and what do we stumble upon but a GRiD laptop model 231.

[@oldgoodrandomroutine]

Im so happy I started watchin you...worth! Warms my heart when y reviewin old stuff :D

[@humble2246]

I myself have a GRiDCASE 1530 I'm thinking about trying to restore it.

[@TipsterLIVE]

The design is very interesting. Kinda reminds me of a smaller version of the Cardiff Giant from Halt and Catch Fire. Very cool...

[@FADE2GRY2048]

Wanted one of these for many years myself. I'm jealous. I used a GRiD back in 1987-88 for engineering/business field work. I thought it was pretty cool back then and I have never seen any other laptop/portable come close to its build quality. 'Mine' had a red/orange gas plasma display. I used HP's first inkjet printer with it - 75(ish) dpi! I have fond memories of the GRiD. This probably explains my affinity to IBM ThinkPads.

[@lukasperuzovic1429]

I think the Rom sockets are often use for military applications, allowing the GRiD to operate in environments where early/easy Hard drive failure is problematic. A Hard drive disk is subject to things such as increased or reduced air pressure, high altitudes and places where the hard drive can't stay still on a stable surface. In 2002 I saw see these machines still in service in the US military.

[@themadmagi]

GRiD produced two types of laptops. Consumer; which was used primarily by fortune 500 companies; and Military or Tempest rated. Those were used almost exclusively by the military. The ROM sockets were custom for each purchaser depending upon need.

[@emmettturner9452]

It looks almost like standard DIP EPROMS will fit in upside-down. My guess is that they map directly to memory so executing the code would involve knowing what memory address to jump to and execute.

[@ObiTrev]

Love that LCD screen, makes me want to program an RPG for it.

[@vwestlife]

There were some serial data transfer utilities for DOS which could copy themselves over to a client machine without needing to install any software first, by using the CTTY COM1 command. If you could find one of those you could use it to copy files over to the Grid's hard drive.

[@obsoletegeek]

+vwestlife Thanks! It's looking like my only viable option. An internal or external FDD will cost me a fortune, and the hard disk is buried under a sea of 30 year old flatflex cables that I am not brave enough to remove (I've had some disintegrate in the past).

[@gf2e]

I had a Zenith MinisPort that used the same serial command to upload the serial file transfer program to another computer. The MinisPort used 2.something inch floppy disks. So serial uploads were a great thing :)

[@ryanwilbur3554]

"The Grid does what Commodon't." Man, I should do marketing.

[@Adam-wl8wn]

My mum used to work for GRiD back in the 00's (before working for Rockstar!), I remember the offices were really cool and they had their own helicopter too. I used their laptops briefly with the Army, you're right, they feel so rugged and well built.

[@themadmagi]

Those models, the parts were interchangeable. So the GRiD techs would carry a laptop as well, if the customer's screen was having problems - the tech would remove their screen and replace the customers. You could also replace a plasma screen with a lcd and visa versa along the model lines. I don't remember exactly how the eproms worked; we had a burner in the office we used to put programs on it. typically it was either GRiDOS programs, or customer specific programs.

[@bigloudnoise]

Boy, do I know that hard drive spin up sound by heart. The Toshiba T3100 uses the exact same model of drive. Glorious thing!

[@youbecha64]

We had a stack of those obsolete computers at my unit back in 2000...we did however pull the modular power supply out and use them in the aircraft for powering modern laptops. (aircraft use 400hz power, and these power supplies were rated for that...according to the label) Rumor was they were meant to be used on the aircraft for mission planning...I never saw them in my previous 10 years of flying. I didn't know there were ROM bays, so I can't tell you if they were populated. I don't remember ours having HD bays...but we did have the floppies for it.

[@Ruinah]

Kinda nice to see a video about GRiD laptops. I was lucky to have one around the house as a kid. It was my dad's from work, but I think I used it as much as he did. I don't remember the model, but I know it had a HDD and onboard VGA still used the monochrome display, you had to hook up to an external monitor for color graphics. Also, it had some kinda external expansion bay that used full ISA cards.

[@dave4shmups]

Great video! This computer was awesome in Aliens, which is my all-time favorite movie.

[@xweert711]

You only have 23,000 subscribers? What? That's a damn shame.

[@MrSEA-ok2ll]

I owned one of those boxes, portable vintage Dolch PC's that even had a fiber optics card installed used to remotely run from extreme environments such as the desert...allowed a student to take it apart and gave the remaining pieces to another...bought it via eBay for literally $50 back in the day and now they are up to $1000. The unit even included an active matrix LCD...I have let so many cool things go to waste....

[@Ttomisabeast1581967]

Dat hard drive spin up makes me happy.

[@PhonicUK]

If you have a USB->Serial cable you can transfer files over serial just using the standard DOS command line.

[@Mrmatteo08]

It's the Cardiff Giant of Halt and catch fire!!

[@hikaru-live]

You can use this laptop as a serial terminal, by burning the software into a ROM chip and run it off that, without a hard drive in it. This will allow you use the keyboard (and the screen) on modern devices to some extent, as even modern UNIX-like operating systems (Linux, BSD, even Apple's OS X) still retains the ability to launch a console session off a serial link.

[@benskitv]

I can't help but see this thing mounted on the space shuttle ceiling. Ahhhh...

[@hikaru-live]

Another idea about using that ROM socket: you can build a conversion module out of some dual-port SRAM, one end in the sockets, the other end to an Arduino. This will allow you to establish shared memory between the two computers. You can inject a kernel into this shared memory, boot the GRiD off it, and then use this shared memory to move data from your desktop to this thing.

[@SpeedySPCFan]

I saw one of these on Craigslist from someone who didn't know what it was a few months back... never picked it up since I'm not a collector of computers this old and it was a few hundred dollars. Still super cool though, and it's interesting to see a video on one!

[@PortfolioPL]

Awesome video! I was always wondering about those notebooks in Aliens.

[@EastAngliaUK]

after seeing this it makes me want to like my 1366 x 768 resolution laptop much more.

[@stephenwalters4798]

You can install software via another PC using LAPLINK III or LAPLINK 3 pro. You will need a serial RS232 cable. Follow the 'REMOTE INSTALL' instructions and you'll be able to put any software you want to your old PC. MUST HAVE A WORKING SERIAL PORT AND MS-DOS.

[@clangerbasher]

I remember when these used to get tested in magazines against Compaq luggables.

[@jaybrooks1098]

Yes you can boot from the rom sockets. Grid roms are built via the rombuild.exe utility. The format was intel hex. Each eprom was limited to 64k. You can’t program through the sockets. You must use an external programmer or buy mask roms preprogrammed by grid (good luck with that). Here is a site with more than enough information on it. stillhekills.io/2018/01/15/self-inflicted-upgrades-rom/

[@KitelessRex]

Sooo cool. I hope you do more videos with this machine. Would love to see it running more software if you can figure out how to get old DOS stuff into it. Could it run DOS 5 or 6.22? Thanks and please keep making great videos. Found you through the 8-Bit Guy's channel when you did your cameo there. -J

[@AdamMontgomery1]

Damn, I used to have two of these back in the day... no idea what I did with them.

[@tschak909]

If you go to the Yahoo Group "Rugrid-laptop" the file section has a ROMBUILD.EXE, which can produce INTEL HEX files that can be dumped to EPROMs. The typical size for these EPROM sockets is a 2764, and you can use ROMBUILD to create a bootable ROM disk containing specifically the software needed for the laptop to function (and I do say specifically, because you have to _really_ pick and choose what you want across your 5 ROM sockets). ROMBuild will take care of splitting them across the different ROM chips.

[@kogdazjasdohnu]

That IS one great old device! I bet one day you find original Compass :)

[@incubus5000]

I'm sure someone could make an app that makes your choice of whirring sound through your pc speakers whenever your SSD is read but that would drive me nuts personally.

[@superbob2]

Love it! I had one of these back in the Day!! Sadly my died when the bracket on the handle snapped and made contact with the motherboard. This of course released all the magic smoke :(

[@Crana]

Reminds me of the laptop John Connor used in terminator 2

[@totih144]

New on the channel, and just saw a lot of videos and subscribed! Retrogeek since I had my Olivetti 286 with a B/W monitor 65.000 shades of grey (before shades of grey was cool)

[@drifter4training]

I know this sounds silly or rad but with modern tech.. it would be cool to have a desktop pc in a suitcase size, TSA approved to have desktop pc hardware inside with space enough to fit a mech keyboard 60/65 %, a mouse, a front io port and screen that is 15 to 17 inches that can either connect to the desktop hardware or not in use to connect with other devices for audio and visual output something that Alienware used to have HDMI in port feature back in the 2010s & Toshiba nb520 for charging and audio output.. that would be so awesome..

[@MarNoWeb]

Oh yeah :-) I also own this GRiD Case 2 Laptop in my Collection. Maybe I should also make a short teardown of this great Machine?

[@mr.cliffordjohnson6304]

Hello, I just found a grid 286 in the trash can....at this very moment it booted into dos..... This machine is build like a Abrams Tank, This grid has a zillion connections on the back, it actually has procomm for the modem.....

[@jamesanakin]

Just need to get the accompanying sentry units.

[@thcoura]

Do we have now jazz music for background? that is classy. I like it

[@Chris_Hetherington]

Actually, it would work great today with online privacy concerns in mind.

[@BoydWaters]

Next goal: the original GRiD, with plasma display and IBM bubble memory modules! (I'm pretty sure that's the setup in the NASA photo.)

[@dowekeller]

Battery life will probably be better than the models with that cool reddish plasma display, but without the cache' of said cool reddish/orangeish plasma display.

[@markinius8866]

Holy Shit, never thought I'd see one of these

[@eggman105]

+Harlan Dy On the internet? You never thought you'd see one on the internet?

[@markinius8866]

+Eggrenade I mean in action

[@104d_3rr0r_vince]

Awesome piece of hardware!!!

[@DanelonNicolas]

hehe nice ! u feel like a secret agent? XD congratulations

[@the8-bitnerd712]

the magnesium is why it was and still is pretty pricey, those things could be recycled for the magnesium for more than what u pay for them on ebay

[@80sCompaqPC]

These things can fetch a pretty penny on eBay in good shape. Are you telling me there is $200+ of magnesium there? Sorry, but I don’t believe that. They are worth far more as a whole.

[@voltare2amstereo]

gas plasma option. the movie one looks like EL

[@Crux161]

Not sure if I watch the channel for the obsolete or the geek lol-- perhaps both :P

[@djurkinthebox]

Love your videos

[@Jimfoxyboy]

Neat little machine. Gets my attention a bit more because NASA had used it. Ended up reading the wiki on it. Does this version use bubble memory like the Compass? It might be a bit hefty by today's standards when you compare it to laptop models out there now. You could say solidly built! (edited) Ok, so the original had the LCD screen, the compass had the yellow light-up version.

[@theneroliveira]

this one really looks cool!

[@ZeroWalker26]

that´s some rely cool laptop.

[@thesnowedone]

Does it have a working serial port? Maybe you could do a laplink transfer if you have the software and cables. From memory you could initiate that without a copy of laplink on the slave PC (in this case your portable) by running a few commands on the command-line to get it to grab a bootstrap program. I couldn't find the details regarding NC but I did find some details about this using a similar program called fastlynx - www.minuszerodegrees.net/transfer/fastlynx33/fastlynx33_serial.htm

[@obsoletegeek]

+Yuki Fox Thanks! I'll look into this

[@Time4Technology]

+The Obsolete Geek Will you do a follow up video on this and show the laptop do some stuff? :)

[@vorkev1]

that was the first thing that came to mind but then I thought it has dos you should be able to hook up a external drive such as a cf to serial adapter witch with if the computer has basic on it you can make a programe to read from it you also could just pull the harddisk and hook it to a computer read the drive and add files to it. th first thing I would do is find a way to get into it and install windows 1.0

[@我-r9t]

+The Obsolete Geek You can try to run it with Windows 1.0.

[@80sCompaqPC]

Thats awesome! I hope i can find one someday.

[@mark879]

Eeprom jacks? On a laptop? Bad ass! I wonder how you access it thru DOS?

[@ToddsNerdCave]

Awesome GET Rob! You love those old portables, don't you?

[@obsoletegeek]

+Todd's Nerd Cave borderline obsessed

[@superandroidtron]

Wow, nice machine! Out of curiosity, where did you hear the Challenger story? I can't seem to find it, and I'd be interested in reading more about the durability of these machines.

[@Lurker1979]

Only modern thing you can still do on this laptop is distraction free writing.

[@Droply...]

Damn you, now I want this...

[@peanutismint]

Another great video! This might sound like an odd request but.... Do you think you could make a decent quality audio recording of the startup boot/hard drive spin up sounds from around 4:06 onwards as I think it'd be an awesome startup sound for a modern PC! :-D

[@obsoletegeek]

+peanutismint Thanks for the feedback! You bet. Give me a few hours and i'll post it in this comment thread.

[@peanutismint]

+The Obsolete Geek awesome! Thanks. It really fits in with the whole lo-fi-sci-fi 'Aliens' aesthetic of the early 80s!

[@obsoletegeek]

+peanutismint drive.google.com/file/d/0B0rYuZzM6c8dNW9hNl8xaDh3dWM/view

[@peanutismint]

The Obsolete Geek That is beautiful!! :-D Thanks mate! Keep up the great videos!!

[@8BitKeys]

+The Obsolete Geek Wow.. I'm surprised that came out so clear!

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

Nice get.

[@MaskedGEEK]

I always wondered what the machine was in Aliens. I love that movie. Do you know which model has the black and yellow screen as featured in Aliens?

[@Matlockization]

Hay man, that piece of hardware looks real dam expensive. Why don't you tell me how much you bought it for ! And I was thinking that if you were a software developer you might be able to upgrade to a more recent OS, which might open the door to more functionality ???

[@EvertvanIngen]

Sony BVM spotted!

[@Wacypro]

I found a early model (1101) in my grandpas garage

[@shawnerz98]

If it needs a new home, I'd be interested in taking it. :) Thanks.

[@Wacypro]

I can’t part with it though... sorry

[@kimchee94112]

It won't run without the battery even it's connected to the power supply? Was wondering if that was the problem with mine.

[@ukeyaoitrash2618]

how the hell does a battery still work after 3 decades??

[@uselessDM]

So, how would you get data into the machine? External floppy drive?

[@shreeharibharadwaj9531]

you are awesome

[@ilcool90]

Yeah no, no hard drive noise simulation please.

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

What are your plans for it?

[@fixman88]

That GRiD laptop has a hard drive? I thought those had Bubble Memory (one of the few computers that did).

[@themadmagi]

The early models used GRiD OS with the bubble memory. As IBM compatibility became more of a thing, we switched to MS-DOS and eventually MS-DOS with Windows. The GRiD II almost always had a 10 or 20meg hard drive in it.

[@fixman88]

Oh ok.

[@bonkdor_2187]

Could you replace an 8086 like that one with an "upgrade"? I've always wondered.

[@ProjectPenguinNetwork]

Nice one, How much did you pay for it ?

[@macieksoft]

Does it have any ports like RS-232, LPT and so on?

[@MRooodddvvv]

i got more recent one with 486 processor. guess it's less valuable ?

[@rickyvinh2765]

does anybiody know the value of the gridpad

[@JaesadaSrisuk]

How much did it retail for thirty years ago? Sorry if I didn't hear if you mentioned the price during the video.

[@RonJohn63]

A *lot*. As in $5000. Even more with a plasma display.

[@muddi900]

A matrix lcd

[@brickman409]

what kind of I/O does it have?

[@nonaak]

do you know games for a grid compass 1011?

[@ringlerum]

I think the case can be gutted and a raspberry pc installed.

[@mattafaak]

I do hope you're the only one thinking that.

[@skyhawk470]

my grid have the low d floppy

[@zacharyschwanke7080]

can't you modify the keyboard and use it on a normal computer?

[@Diggnuts]

+zach “techy guru” schwanke A programm that maps the keys to serial and use an Arduino Leonardo or some other micro with a serial in and HiD out to send keystrokes over USB. It is possible.

[@lillydoye7418]

+Diggnuts If you were willing to sacrifice the laptop (PLEASE find a dead one if you must try this) then it should be reasonably easy to rewire the keyboard with something like a teensy.

[@Diggnuts]

Samuel Doye I'm not suggesting to sacrifice the laptop at all. I am suggesting to use a dos based serial terminal program to send the keypresses over serial to a micro-board that, in turn, acts like a USB HID. Also the teensy does not have USB HID functionality, that is why I thought a Leonardo or similar would be a better choice.

[@lillydoye7418]

Sorry, should have been more clear. Your option is definitely possible, I was just suggesting an alternative method that could be used to salvage just the keyboard without the need to power up the laptop for typing. Your idea and my idea were separate ways to reach the same goal. Also, Teensy can do USB HID, hence why I suggested it. www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_keyboard.html I love my Leonardo as well, but Teensy is smaller which can be helpful for a keyboard.

[@MaximNightFury]

WAR EAGLE!!! GO AUBURN!!!

[@mensb1936]

my dirt 3 laptop is better

[@Authoratah]

lol....you keep citing NASA and their phoney space program.....hilarious.

[@offensivejerk]

shame it doesn't have the EL screen

[@bosybert2999]

Am I watching these vids in the right order? Its 8 Bit Guy, Obsolete Geek, then LGR?