Jaye and I were just reminiscing about these.
Instead of posting about any of the lovely gifts I received for Christmas, I am going to write about a piece of garbage I found on the street.
Erika and I were walking down 4th Avenue last week when I spotted a beige metal case with a handle sitting next to some trash bags near the curb. Being ever curious, I had to find out what it was. At first I thought it was a sewing machine; then we found a 'Compaq' badge on it, so we thought it was an ancient word processor. Then I found the releases at the bottom of the case that unveiled the tiny CRT screen.
It was an original Compaq Luggable. Released twenty-five years ago. The first non-IBM PC to run DOS. The first "portable" personal computer, although at a weight of 28 lubs that's a bit of a stretch.
I took it home and plugged it in and powered it on; when I did, there was a loud-ish pop and the smell of ozone, so I may have blown up a part inside. The screen worked, though, in all its green monochrome glory.
My plan is to root out the innards and install a modern motherboard in there. I'll replace the dual 360KB 5 1/4" floppy drives with a slot-loading DVD burner and as many gigs of hard drive as will fit in there, and turn it into The Coolest File Server Ever.
(Hey Linux geeks, I can has drivers for CGA display and 83-key XT keyboard, yes?)
Erika and I were walking down 4th Avenue last week when I spotted a beige metal case with a handle sitting next to some trash bags near the curb. Being ever curious, I had to find out what it was. At first I thought it was a sewing machine; then we found a 'Compaq' badge on it, so we thought it was an ancient word processor. Then I found the releases at the bottom of the case that unveiled the tiny CRT screen.
It was an original Compaq Luggable. Released twenty-five years ago. The first non-IBM PC to run DOS. The first "portable" personal computer, although at a weight of 28 lubs that's a bit of a stretch.
I took it home and plugged it in and powered it on; when I did, there was a loud-ish pop and the smell of ozone, so I may have blown up a part inside. The screen worked, though, in all its green monochrome glory.
My plan is to root out the innards and install a modern motherboard in there. I'll replace the dual 360KB 5 1/4" floppy drives with a slot-loading DVD burner and as many gigs of hard drive as will fit in there, and turn it into The Coolest File Server Ever.
(Hey Linux geeks, I can has drivers for CGA display and 83-key XT keyboard, yes?)