Exploring And Restoring A "LUNCHBOX" PC

[@dereinzigeweg]

My father had a Portable III for work back in the days. I remember my fascination as a kid for this machine with its plasma screen. It felt like super high tech, and I guess it was. This Compaq was one of the reasons I really got into 'computers and stuff' in the 90s. Thank you for the very interesting, well made video, for saving one of these machines and for bringing back childhood memories!

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome. I love that it seemed really high tech back then like I would imagine.

[@sorcererstan]

We used a luggable like this as our travel debug/development machine for on-site embedded debugging -- we used an ICE (in-circuit emulator) for the V50 chip (NEC version of the 80286?), which required 2 full-length ISA slots in a PC. This kind of machine worked perfectly.

[@RetroHackShack]

Awesome. I love to hear how these were used back then.

[@etgripper]

I bought a few of these while I was still in school and they were still dirt cheap, around the year 2000. I remember hiding my stash in the little isa card slot in the back of one of them.

[@chubbyadler3276]

3:00 The Portable 3's display was NOT an LCD. It was a gas plasma display, which ionized neon gas to emit light. They were quite expensive, though.

[@minombredepila1580]

Very nice video. Thanks for sharing. Love the starting background music too, one of my favourite songs from TD 🙂

[@RetroHackShack]

Thanks!

[@jasonviande5053]

We used to occasionally get some of the "lunchbox" style PCs in our remarket department. They were not marketable at the time, and I was suprised at the variety. I remember (relatively) tiny Zenith that looked more like very early laptops. I remember a Toshiba with some sort of Pentium that accepted full size cards (can't remember the type of slot, but I do remember putting in a Sound Blaster and it working). I even remember some later HPs with Pentium 4 CPUs (which could have been Network Analysis machines). I had a little shop area at work where I kept (hidden) stuff like this, and the Toshiba "lunchbox" and a 486 IBM were my favs. I would play Ultima V on them when I though I could get away with it. Actually beat it that was, which was fun

[@RetroHackShack]

Great memories!

[@SatanicMac]

I've got a Compaq portable III upgraded to a 486 with loaded ram + expansion pack. Love the red screen and CGA out!

[@RetroHackShack]

Nice

[@Squonk06]

5:05 "Why is this a thing now?" For those wondering, I'm pretty sure the playing-sexy-music-while-peeling-off-protective-plastic-film thing started with techmoan. Some viewers told him they were upset he tore the film off too quickly for them to enjoy in one of his videos, so he made a point of doing it slowly and playing music in the background ever since. And of course, since you can never please everybody, he now gets some viewers who are annoyed when he does it and don't understand why it's a thing. The Internet is a weird place. As to why the whole thing got legs and spread to other channels, I would guess it's because a lot of tech YT'ers watch one another, and referential bits are common, sometimes to the point that it's difficult to remember where things started anymore.

[@omidlara4838]

i used to have a Compaq Portable II when a was younger, do so many school task an played out some games i remember the ghosting too. good and sometimes frustrating memories.

[@RetroHackShack]

Cool. Thanks for sharing that.

[@IceManTX69]

I had a Panasonic portable in the early 90s. It had two 5 1/4 floppy drives and a flip top that hid a printer. It weighed a ton.

[@horusfalcon]

I haven't seen one of these luggables in ages. You found this in e-waste? Wow. I'd love to see a modern-day mod of one of these cases with a full LED display and a more modern motherboard and PSU. (There is still a use for this form factor in industrial environments... primarily for data acquisition applications that require full-size hardware.)

[@RetroHackShack]

Yeah. If this thing was totally dead I probably would have done that.

[@Ubermeisteryyy]

Very wellmade and interesting video, as always!

[@RetroHackShack]

Thank you!

[@notneb82]

The right way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is to put peanut butter on each slice of bread and then the jelly between. the peanut butter will prevent the jelly from making the bread slices soggy.

[@wimwiddershins]

Lugging that thing around would have you looking like a fiddler crab, (one beefy arm).

[@DevilsHandyman]

You could really reduce the weight of that thing. I used to have a Compaq portable like that and it was just too heavy to do much with.

[@Jkauppa]

its still the rugged military style suitcase workstations

[@Miles7955]

Measures the thickness of the 2450 with metal calipers, shorts battery out momentarily xD

[@windowsxd83]

Where did you find that manual? I'm trying to fix one of my own and I cannot find anything helpful online.

[@StarlightLumi]

i feel bad pointing it out, as im probably the first person who's heard it, but: there is a ~112bpm high pitched chirping (~12khz -16.5khz?), for whatever background track you used for the History section.

[@RetroHackShack]

Hmm. I don't hear it. Could be my ears are too old. Is it only when the music is playing?

[@jakubpolomsky]

A really nice video, yet the audio is killing my ears and have to turn it off. Maybe it's due to the compression youtube uses, but it is definitely super unpleasant hearing the high pitched noises in the background.

[@RetroHackShack]

Thanks for letting me know. When do you hear high pitched noise. If you can give me a timestamp I can take a look and see what is going on.