Trash Picked RETRO Laptops - Lucky Finds or Complete Junk??

[@nonsuch]

Only once in my life about 10 years ago I got lucky like that. Driving down my street I saw that a neighbor had thrown away 2 huge desktop PC towers. I slammed on the brakes (exaggeratingly) got out and put them in my car. These were P4 era PCs and were in great shape. The best part to me were the cases. They are heavy gauge metal that are built like tanks which I gutted and put modern components in them. I still use them today.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love hearing stories like this, thank you for sharing! I'm pleased to hear you are still using them today, great job!

[@Jannis1999original]

Old Laptops are always nice to look at. Its also good that these were saved from being scrapped.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes! So pleased they have been saved :)

[@bcupp15]

I had that same Dell laptop in college. Mine was sold as a C510 with an Intel Celeron but dropping in a Mobile P3 makes it a C610. I installed a Dell TruMobile Mini PCI card which actually added internal Wifi. The antennas are already built in and it utilizes the Ethernet Status lights when Wireless is connected. Very stable machine. In its later years in life for giggles I even installed Windows 7 on it. Not the best performance there but it worked. The video out port actually supports S-Video directly and with an adapter can use Composite. When I was working for Disney I was able to acquire the C-Dock which included PCI slots. The more I see in your video I can see the subtle changes from the 600/610. I had Crystal Audio and 16MB Ati Graphics.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome! All of these little quirks, nuances etc of these old machines kept them interesting. What could you do to upgrade them, etc was part of the excitement!

[@DatSun.]

i still don't understand why people throw out computers when there are so many better options nowadays

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!!

[@peterpramshafer933]

Exactly. I have a dell latitude e5400 that works just fine. Got a new battery for it and put a SSD in it. I have it running Linux mint

[@dizwell]

Well, that first machine is 32-bit only and it's only got 64MB of memory. Megabytes. Which means finding anything to run on it that isn't contemporaneous with the machine would be a bit of a problem. Apart from retro gaming, what practically would you do with these sorts of machines? I still have my first ever Nokia mobile phone ...but I keep it for sentimental, museum curatorial reasons, not because it's of any practical use.

[@Holycurative9610]

They don't have a use case in today's internet unless you're going the retro route and most people don't. I love these old Thinkpads but what can you realistically do with them nowadays, if it's web surfing there are cheaper, better, faster machines you can use. These old machines are only good for the nostalgia value and are a great talking point if you're a hobbyist...

[@peterpramshafer933]

@@Holycurative9610 I have Linux on it and can still watch KZbin on it. I was still able to get a new battery for it

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

ThinkPad 600 series is soooo familiar to me! They came in 3 different configurations, basic 600, 600E and top-of-the-line 600X as yours! 600 and 600E had only Pentium II processors, 600X had Pentium III. You can also recognize these from audio jacks, 600X has those 3 audio jacks, 600 and 600E only had 2. Those also have easily replaceable CMOS battery, just follow that little wire under RAM door and you'll find that familiar yellow wired battery.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome and thank you!!

[@TheDuumiMuumi]

@@TheRetroRecall Thanks to you for awesome content! My 600E had it's retirement years on my father's house logging temperatures from One-Wire sensors, worked flawlessly till hard drive gave up :( By the way, those machines also support 512MB of ram if you get just right memory modules! It truly is very picky about RAM.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha most of these retro systems are lol! I'm always fighting with the ram, it's a full time job 😂

[@simtitan1]

Quite a few years ago I was given a 380XD. Still works to. Old Thinkpads are very, very reliable.

[@TheRetroRecall]

They are, I live Thinkpads, they seem to last forever!

[@melterofsnowflakes]

I wish I had be able to keep all of my ThinkPads. Awesome laptops. Just ran out of room.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes 100%. I've been fortunate to locate these systems. Very happy to bring them back to life!

[@branscombe_]

as you know, ,computers can certainly fit into both categories! 😂

[@TheRetroRecall]

Lol!!

[@DigitalPhreak765]

Love Old PCs and 💻😊😊😊

[@TheRetroRecall]

Likewise!! These were an awesome find!

[@aarong9378]

Found a HP workstation laptop at the second-hand store. According to the people, it had been purchased and returned twice. I booted it up with my handy Ubuntu thumb drive, and the only thing wrong with it was a failing hard drive. I did look through the drive and found some nudes of the previous owner! Replaced the hard drive and the computer still works today.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahahahahaha yea, it's crazy the things you will find on these systems. Happy to hear you got it working!!

[@mackjsm7105]

Just came back from doing a big I.T. job... this made my day. ty

[@TheRetroRecall]

You are welcome. What kind of IT job??

[@mackjsm7105]

@@TheRetroRecall We networked/wired, and installed 20 workstation for a construction firm here in S. Florida.. stared at 7am.. just got home. Was fun.. but I'm burned out for today!! lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha yes I remember those days of networking and tight deadlines. Fortunately I don't have to experience those anymore. As an aside, great work! We often go unrecognized yet we are the backbone of the organization :)

[@mackjsm7105]

Bingo Good to know folks like you. @@TheRetroRecall

[@maxtornogood]

If you don't find the retro the retro seems to find you! The 1st one is probably the 'worst' off with the backlight & a (slightly?) flaky hard drive. Definitely happy that they are all still viable. I never really got to use Pentium II / III laptops back in the day, wish I could've!

[@TheRetroRecall]

You're right, it's going to be a lot of fun to get these restored!

[@Biaanca5036]

it was so nice 👋👋. mobile p2 and p3 were when things were getting past 400mhz and into ghz almost. So win98 and winme ran stupidly fast and it was so great to finally have ridiculously fast laptops

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!!! It was an exciting time to see what kind of hardware was coming out and what you could run on them!

[@frozendude707]

26:05 If you look at the model number on the external sticker for the 3com LAN/modem, it is the same as the one visible trough the white sticker on the square card in the Mini-PCI slot, on the left side with a bar code next to it. So you can safely say that is the LAN/modem combo card. And the model is a PP01L, which in Dell speak translates to "Dell Latitude C610". The label with the model number and Express Service code etc. is only obvious to service techs that work on Dells, so don't feel bad about not noticing it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Appreciate the insight, thank you!!

[@i80386sx]

The screen issues are common on those 380Z systems. Don't rule out a bad flex cable.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks, even for the backlight? I can see the image, just very faint.

[@i80386sx]

@@TheRetroRecall yup. Of course do the standard stuff before exploring oddballs.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!

[@jwoody8815]

Owned several of these Thinkpads (My favorite model being my 512MB- maxed out, Pentium III-600 modded, and wireless upgraded x300 running Windows XP, circa 2005) back in the day; great, super reliable and rock solidly built machines, used a few in the rain no problem. They generally arent broke, and its usually a pretty simple fix getting them to run properly.

[@TheRetroRecall]

They are built pretty tough and last a long time. Most times I can get them restored.

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

About that proprietary port - you ARE correct!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

:)

[@englishrupe01]

Amazing find and fun video. Thanks.

[@TheRetroRecall]

You're welcome, thanks for watching!

[@mattelder1971]

I'd love to have a copy of that tropical wallpaper from the third system.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I'll see if I can export it and send it to archive.org, assuming it's not a personal photo :)

[@lawrencecavens5760]

On that Dell running Windows XP the start up sound was from windows 7 - where XP had a more musical sound ...

[@TheRetroRecall]

I think it was 7 or Vista, but yes I stand corrected haha.

[@kloroformd]

I got me a Dell C610 from a thrift store in a town with a single stop light. Fully loaded 1.2GHz PIII with the 1400x1050 screen. Power plug is broken and it doesn't look easy to fix as it snapped the board, so I got a dock for cheap and that's how I use it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice work! What's great about laptops is that you can find work arounds to keep them going just like you did. Awesome!

[@3lectr1c]

Screen damage on the C600 looks like it may be vinegar syndrome just starting. Breakdown of the polarizer layer. Very difficult to repair but possible, will be easier to just source a replacement panel instead though. Keep that one away from other laptops - I’ve heard that the fumes let off from the breakdown of the PVA film can cause the issue to spread to other nearby panels!

[@TheRetroRecall]

I vaguely remember reading something about this. Will do, thanks for the tips!

[@bobamu]

Is anyone else intrigued by the best waffles ever?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Maybe I should post the amazing recipe in the community section

[@lawrencecavens5760]

The one thing I have found with Laptops is the internals must be kept clean from dust as static can be a killer and re pasting of the CPU must be done from time to time - - and airflow is the life line of these units They'll go forever as software allows...

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes!

[@LJfromWV]

Awesome video with some nice, classic laptops. For that Dell, it's of the era of my first laptop, an Inspiron 8000. I'm willing to bet the nub is disabled in the Windows driver. My old 8000 nub would drift really bad, and that keyboard looks identical to the one I had. It should have a thermal pad and heat pipe under it to help cool the discrete graphics if that's the case. The graphics may also be upgradeable. My 8000 came with a GeForce 2Go, but had an ATI option as well. (Edit - Looking it up, the 600 series Latitudes didn't have the upgradeable graphics, but I'm still willing to say that nub may have some drift issues if it's disabled in the Windows driver.)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you, I'll check it out!!

[@lttbriantheelectrician]

Oh man, those are some great systems you found there! I've wanted a late 380 for a long time and with a backlight repair/hard disk yours looks like it'll make a great vintage system. Another option for the hard disk is a 2.5" CF adapter. I've gotten my hands on a couple and as far as mounting they directly replace a 2.5" ide hard disk, and are typically available with either one or two CF card slots (Master and Slave in the dual slot version). The 600X looks like a great machine too! I had one once that I got from a local recycler but it was rough and had... issues lol. Wound up trading it for some other retro tech. I also have a Dell C610 and a CPi and the batteries/bay devices are indeed inter-changeable. Even the power supply from the C610 works for the CPi. I imagine the same would be true for your C600 and your CPX. I can't believe you found those at the side of the road. That's an amazing find and I'm glad that you were able to save them! I didn't realize you were also in Canada! Where are you located?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely, these systems were a lucky / awesome find especially in their condition. A little TLC and I think they will make a full recovery haha. Eastern Canada here! Yourself?

[@lttbriantheelectrician]

@@TheRetroRecall For sure! I'm out in BC, in the Shuswap.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!!!!!!! Hello fellow Canadian!! :)

[@Natures_Intentions]

Great finds!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!!

[@jamesevans3492]

Absolutely Amazing . . . ;-)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you!! They were great finds!

[@alexiekola]

ooo another Dell latitude

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's amazing!!!

[@BRBTechTalk]

12:43 The bottom docking station port was also bad if someone was a klutz and knocked over drinks frequently. I am not a klutz but I have killed my own computer with a glass of wine, over the years I have spilled more than one cup of coffee on my desk. I have fixed many computers that have a distinct smell of coffee and cream odour as well as 7 & rye once you get them open.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha!!! So true... Maybe the engineers discovered it first hand lol!

[@SidneyCritic]

They give you a foam keyboard sheet these days, but thankfully the keys didn't rub on the screen and mark/scratch the screen.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I forgot about those, yes you are correct. I'm happy that there isn't anyt damage (wear) from the keys to the LCD.

[@AmazedStoner]

I have a dell d610 that I still use for certain things. I recently restored it to factory fresh as I could manage. Been using the machine to play music from KZbin. For a laptop that was given to me I've fixed everything that stopped me from using it. Some of the parts I installed happen to be NOS. I can even get up two hours on the replacement battery I have in it. I delt with the dead backlight issue on this laptop as well. You could tell it was going to happen with the weird color the display would show as the bulbs warmed up. Eventually the bulbs would only light after a cold start up and only last about ten minutes before going dark. The display was a marked factory reject though I'm struggling to find said flaw despite it coming circled in sharpie. For a display that had less than an hour on the backlight it looks great and even has a higher resolution than the original. I've used the IR port on my machine though I've never tried it with a second laptop just my palm pilot. I also have a ThinkPad R51 I recently found a set of recovery discs for, so it now has a factory fresh image for the first time since owning it. Despite being from 2002 the main battery does surprisingly hold a charge.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome, thanks for sharing this!! I have a D630, great machines! Near about the Ir use with a Palm, I've never thought about using it like that before as i always used the dock.

[@jeremiefaucher-goulet3365]

I've never had any issues with bottom docking connectors on any of my Dell laptops, so I'm not sure that worry is warranted. At the bottom is the best IMHO, makes for even easier/natural docking working vertically against the desk. Back docking I've often seen it require a two hands operations, needing to hold the dock and the laptop, pushing them one against the other. Small detail I know, but docking is all about convenience. That's why I hate we've moved to USB-C/Thunderbolt docking in modern times. Not as convenient as old docking like Dell.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I agree on the USB-c docks - I'd rather go back to the old docks!

[@laurencejohnson4106]

Your luck was in that day!👍👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely!

[@mistie710]

I used to work a lot on old Dell laptops, mostly from the Latitude range. I liked that C600 as I would often be working on S500, S505 and S600 machines which were a lot like that. I spent some of my latter days at that job cleaning up machines like that, DBANning the drives and installing Linux for later sale. Never really ha dmuch to do with Thinkpads but I still have aan HP6730b from around the Vista period.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome! I bet you came across all kinds of systems and found a lot of issues you had to fix. Hopefully you got to keep one or two of them haha! What version of Linux did you install on these?

[@marksimcock8453]

Can't believe all of them booted considering you found them in the trash well done to you sir 👏 wish I could find something like that knowing my luck I'd find some cheap and nasty laptops 😅

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha yes, I was floored. But hey, lucky! Now the mission is to try to get them restored.

[@marksimcock8453]

Are you going to post videos of the restoration process would be great of you could get the screen working on the first IBM thinkpad 👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

I am! Well that's the intention lol

[@miguelque9102]

Recently I picked up a slightly battered ThinkPad X100e for around 12 USD on the local auction site. Despite the missing hard drive and battery, the rest of the hardware was intact. Took a while to put things together with some "new parts" like a fresh CMOS battery, an aftermarket battery and most importantly, a SSD. Put Windows Embedded Standard 7 on and the underpowered laptop is ready to play some old games! Even NFS Most Wanted runs at a playable framerate🤣

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice work!!! I'm very pleased to see this machine saved and restored!!!

[@lukedavis436]

You uploaded this the day I found an identical Dell Latitude C610 in E-waste (I went back today for the accessories, the hard drive was trashed. But I found a Nintendo Gameboy DMG in the same bin so that made up for the lack of a hard drive. It does work but the Power button is very finicky, I also picked up another laptop from E-waste an unbranded machine with the model NB7D

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's awesome, happy to hear some of these are getting saved!!!

[@lukedavis436]

@@TheRetroRecall the unbranded machine happens to also be a Cyrex 486 DX2 V66

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ohhhhhhh now that's interesting. I don't believe I have any Cyrix CPUs.

[@MIJ-Tech]

I recently trash picked a Dell Dimension XPS Gen 5, very similar to a Gen 4 I was given a few years ago. It's mostly intact, but missing a hard drive. I figured at the least that one could provide spare parts for the other. Congrats on your haul!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thank you and congrats on yours!

[@2xtreem4u]

Laptop time!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yup!!

[@2xtreem4u]

@@TheRetroRecall i only find trashed laptops where the only thing worth taking is the ram

[@doodles113]

Both ThinkPads have Keyboard/Mouse capabilities via a Y/Splitter cable (proprietary,because IBM...) plugged on the PS/2 port...

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I seem to remember that now!!! Thank you!

[@boot-nr7jn]

Great find! Absolutely love the 600 series, I'm using my 600 and 600X on a daily basis. Which CPU do you have in the 600X? If you have the 650MHz one your machine's got speedstep, so it can lower the clock speed of the CPU depending on usage!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Good to know, I'll check it out.

[@stevenchristenson2428]

The 600x is a very sought after system by both Linux enthusiasts and retro guys. Damn what a nice find for you and its even in perfect working condition. I really wonder why it was tossed..

[@TheRetroRecall]

I do plan on doing a proper clean up on it and possibly updating the memory and changing out the HDD to an SSD. Sometimes the original owners just don't see the retro and nostalgic value :)

[@I401]

My question is, with machines like these, what actual effective use would they be good for today? That's what i'm curious about. I have an old intel atom n270 laptop that i got laying around but i unfortunately have no idea how to make any form of use for it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Atom CPUs are much weaker intended for netbooks or lower end laptops (basic web surfing at the time). So the uses are very limited compared to that say of a P4, Core2 or Core2duo cpu. Restoring these systems you can relive the past on genuine hardware with various software / games.. Or throw on a modern Linux distro using modern browser. Besides all of that - it's fun! :)

[@michaelwood9866]

that 3rd laptop is the one i had back in 2006 when i was still learning the ropes.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice!! Work, school, home use?

[@michaelwood9866]

home use@@TheRetroRecall

[@aarontrupiano9328]

system 3 also had the best waffles ever. i really want to get one of these old chunktops one of these days

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha yes! I really should post the recipe lol.

[@rbus]

I *love* old laptops. 2004-2015 is my sweet spot, like the weirrd 19" models from HP & Dell and thick Toshiba Qosmios "media centers" as well as some of the funky Sony Vaio Duos and military laptops (Getac, etc). Of course every generation of Thinkpad is fantastic. Still buy a new gaming laptop every few years but for coding, I can't even used my razer blade pro (KB controller crashing is a known issue, aluminum case gets too hot and kb just sucks) but a 10-15 year old bulky Lenovo W520 is pure joy as all I need is vim or sublme edit or vs code. At some point, I'm hoping to get a Xeon P-model.

[@TheRetroRecall]

I love everything about this comment! Man, the w520, now that's a memory for me! Had a couple back in the day. Those Qosmios machines - another memory as well!! Thanks for this!

[@Holycurative9610]

I always buy pc's and laptops that are easy to upgrade. I don't buy anything that has soldered on ram or storage because if it goes wrong you're screwed unless you can repair BGA chips, I can and have done but it isn't my favourite job. I much prefer just to swap out ram or a drive and my Acer Predator is great for that, 11 screws and you can upgrade the ram, 1 screw to upgrade the 1TB M.2 drive and 4 screws to install a 2nd drive (I've got a 1TB Crucial SSD), so easy to work on.. I have a Dell AIO that is similarly easy to work on although getting the back off is a PITA, my desktop is 2 thumbscrews to access everything so you don't need to go the crApple route if you shop around and do some research before you buy a PC of any flavour..

[@TheRetroRecall]

For sure. Unfortunately the newer systems today (which will eventually become retro of course) have mainly a combination of soldered and user accessible components. I think we had it pretty good for many years with business and even home bases systems being so easily upgradable. Today, that luxury is slowly fading away :)

[@sbhinze]

How do you know what power adapter to use?

[@TheRetroRecall]

On the bottom of the laptops there is usually a power input rating. You have to make sure the voltage lines up. The amps can be higher, but the voltage needs to be the same. As for the end of the adapter.... I have a universal unit that has multiple tips.

[@Marrianne415]

I have a C600, it was my 2nd laptop. Sadly it has issues with freezing and crashing now and I haven't been able to pinpoint the cause...

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's unfortunate. Depending on what you are doing, it could either be a driver issue or the RAM most commonly. If you are comfortable, do a fresh installation first then try it out. If it is still causing issues, reduce the installed memory, try it, then swap the memory - rinse repeat! Generally that's a good starting point :)

[@Marrianne415]

Yeah, sadly I've done all that... I think its a deeper issue, but not certain

[@Marrianne415]

The hdd died before these issues, so the OS was still pretty fresh

[@TheRetroRecall]

It's possible the bad HDD that was on the way out could have caused the locking up. Did you try a fresh installation with a new drive?

[@Marrianne415]

Yeah, I replace the hdd and made a fresh install, then months to a year later it started freezing and crashing and I tested the ram but to no result

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

My dad’s old college laptop is almost the same as the Dell except it had a 750mhz cpu and a 10gb hard drive. I replaced the keyboard, hard drive, and screen assembly(to replace the broken hinges) As for the card, there was an option for a modem only card, a modem combo Ethernet card, and a Wi-Fi card. With the modem only card the Ethernet port doesn’t work, and with the Wi-Fi card I’m pretty sure the modem and Ethernet jacks don’t work. I would share a link to a page I found that shows the original options, but my comment has been removed twice because of the spam filter already.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Send it to me via email [e-mail].

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

Had both D600,and D800. The D800 i still have, with a bad touchpad.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice, great machines. As you know, I have the D630

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

@@TheRetroRecall Nope,I didn't knew 8)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Oh, cool. Go check out the video on it!

[@abcd1239me]

I have a IBM Thinkpad R31 it turns on and it has a lock on the drive and the bios I think

[@TheRetroRecall]

Time to work in getting it unlocked! :)

[@abcd1239me]

@@TheRetroRecallI want to get rid of it. I don't need it

[@Pulverrostmannen]

as of previous story I have the IBM600E (PII 450) that got all tacky from the melting rubber that looks exactly like your 600X, I can see your rubber hinges are starting to give up, hint, they be rubber and yours also have started to deteriorate. You even have the exact same problem with the hard drive controller as I do on mine and it is somehow conflicting with itself but this driver is the only one I have gotten the DMA to work on the hard drive with on mine and the drivers I been able to get from IBM. in a way it seems it is the only way to get the controller mostly working but with resource conflicts or you get no DMA speed on the hard drive. if you fix this issue I be all in for the solution as I not been able to find any properly working drivers for my computer either. I do have the sound and graphics drivers for it that likely work on yours too however. I be happy if you could solve this computer and make it fully happy with 98. I kinda think if the Dell screen is possibly starting to get the Vinegar syndrome? maybe the screen is deteriorating on it, then I think they should smell a bit like vinegar too, you even see the color in the picture have changed where you have this damaged area

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, someone else mentioned the vinegar effect and to keep it isolated from other machines. Also, I will let you know how I make out with the 600x and report back if I am able to get it all working.

[@Pulverrostmannen]

@@TheRetroRecall I look forward to it

[@kjur18]

About batteries swelling, they are made from 18650 cells. As far as I know, they don't swell at all.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's possible as I'm sure they changed compositions over the years. In my experience, I have come accross some batteries that have expanded in older machines.

[@MusicHavenSG]

That Dell would make a very nice Windows 98 machine!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed! We also have to get that screen repaired :)

[@FlyboyHelosim]

It's crazy what people just throw away these days.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Agreed!

[@Xcile92-PX]

i played sims on one of the ibm's back in elementry school.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha awesome!!

[@Xcile92-PX]

what is your opinion on building a AMD FX8350 with a MSI R7 250 2GB OC in a fractal core 1000 to use Windows XP Pro x86 to run 16-bit Windows 95/98 games. my stupid win 11 cant run classics like discworld noir and MSCFS3. @@TheRetroRecall

[@faqihudinn]

Nice video!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@johnmay4803]

but then again i do like tower pcs because of the cards inside

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes, always fun surprises!

[@Eyetrauma]

802.11n compatible on a PCMCIA card? What the hell? *Edit:* Did some research and they're exceedingly common. I would have figured PC cards had stopped being made well before that standard came about. Guess there's still a lot of hardware floating around that could use them.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes I was equally surprised haha.

[@milak111234]

Again I would do bios update plus CPU,HDD and Ram update to the max!!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yup, restorations will definitely be on the menu for these in the future :)

[@EastAngliaUK]

good finds

[@TheRetroRecall]

Thanks!

[@caffeinatedhuman4035]

Pentium 3 laptop with 256mb and modern Linux please 😊 I assume USB speed 1.1 Install plop to boot to access new settings Test new Linux from there... Maybe Puppy Linux or antix...

[@TheRetroRecall]

My Ubuntu video did quite well, it seemed people really enjoyed it. I plan on doing more Linux vids, so this is a great suggestion!

[@johnmay4803]

yay my fav old laptops

[@TheRetroRecall]

Fun!

[@larrylee1412]

max out each one with the most memory biggest hard drive and the most updated operating system you can get on them

[@TheRetroRecall]

I suppose I could put a decent distro of Linux on them after being upgraded - they would definitely benefit from the upgrades!

[@RetroReviewYT]

I have the drivers for the Pentium 3 based systems that Dell and others made archived if you need it.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

I have the original driver disc for it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Awesome!! Are you able to upload to archive.org?

[@TheRetroRecall]

Nice. On archive.org?

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

@@TheRetroRecall I’ll have to see if it’s already on there, if it is I’ll tell you the disc number. I’m not home at the moment though. If not I’ll upload it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Many thanks!

[@ZeroWalker26]

Awesome video as always. I need to get my hands on an old IBM think pad for some mobile old school gaming but I never seen one for sale here in Sweden only Lenovo think pads which are way to new.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Keep your eyes open to online market places! There has to be some hiding somewhere in people's homes haha!

[@dawn1berlitz]

i have no idea if the hp pavilion 8766c from my firends hosue works well what was my friends house after he passed it was just his mom there i rescued this one from ending up in the landfill im fixing up a AGP card for it as the one that was in it had all its caps bascially failed

[@TheRetroRecall]

Sorry to hear about your friend. Great work saving the machine and no doubt, a memory of your friend and the family lives through the machine that you have saved.

[@dawn1berlitz]

@@TheRetroRecall he passed away unexpectedly in 2013 i have a compaq from the iwn95 days i dont know when i will mess with again but i know last time i tried to boot the system it wouldnt post likely due to the dead cmos

[@TheRetroRecall]

Best of luck I'm confident you will get the system going.

[@kidboo377]

i kinda wanna see the best waffles ever text document lol

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha!!! I should post it in the community tab 😂😂

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

What, don't you ever used some pda, with it's IRDA capability?😅

[@TheRetroRecall]

😂😂😂 Nope! Isn't that what the dock was for lol!

[@DuneRunnerEnterprises]

@@TheRetroRecall Noooooooo. Nope 8)

[@mercuryvapoury]

I don't care about data protection or whatever you called it. I really wanted to know what Shawn thought were "the best waffles ever".

[@TheRetroRecall]

Hahaha stay tuned!!! There has to be a community post making the big reveal!

[@1993MAZDAMIATA]

You are one lucky guy loo

[@TheRetroRecall]

Haha, I'm always on the hunt and I have great supporters who donate items to the cause and support my bad habits :)

[@thefanmanSixtyFour]

uhhh... i dont think that was the windows xp startup sound...

[@TheRetroRecall]

At which moment are you referring to in the video?

[@thefanmanSixtyFour]

30:48

[@TheRetroRecall]

Seems to be the windows Vista Startup sound, indeed.

[@rmcdudmk212]

Anytime you can get a PC for free and put little to no work on them to get it running is a win.

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely, it was a steal of a deal haha!

[@TheRetroRecall]

Absolutely, it was a steal of a deal haha!

[@rmcdudmk212]

​​@@TheRetroRecallthat Pentium 3 Thinkpad was in pretty good condition. 👍

[@TheRetroRecall]

Yes! I was quite pleased. A little plastic fix, a good scrub and a restoration, this would be a great windows 11 machine!! 😂😂... Ok, ok... Windows 98.

[@rmcdudmk212]

@@TheRetroRecall pretty sure both those Pentium 3 could run Windows XP. But it might take some work.

[@scottharvey-davies1607]

Dell looks like a C400 if memory serves me correctly

[@scottharvey-davies1607]

not a bad guess...;)

[@TheRetroRecall]

Ha! Yes!!! You're good! C600

[@TheRetroRecall]

Almost!

[@JohanlastZa]

One word: lucky

[@TheRetroRecall]

Indeed!

[@alanbranscum4594]

I used to have the dell laptop it was a dell windows 2000 but it had no picture or sounds card installed so couldn't do much with it.

[@TheRetroRecall]

That's unfortunate. The good thing about laptops you can connect a VGA monitor to the laptop and get a little more life out of it haha.