• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Mr 'Know-it-all' gets to wrong again....

P

paul.brett

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2007
Messages
376
Location
Wisbech, CAMBRIDGESHIRE, UK
Paul,

Whilst browsing Ebay, I came across an advert for a Toshiba T3200. It said it had two ISA slots, one 8-bit, the other 16-bit. I thought to myself, 'bollocks it does'.

I went to look at my own Toshiba T3200SX, and I was gob-smacked to find I was completely wrong!

The 8-bit slot was taken up with a Sprint Extender card (to run the hard drive). The 16-bit slot however, was free. I decided to shoehorn a 3-Com Etherlink III network card in there, and see if it would work. I had to hacksaw off the BNC connector (so the laptop ISA slot cover could go back on) but after that, everything went smoothly. Nice!

Live and learn eh?

Paul.
 
Picture of the 'mangled' 3Com Etherlink III

Picture of the 'mangled' 3Com Etherlink III

This is the 3Com network card I had to 'fix' so that the plastic cover could still be attached to the Toshiba:

T3200SX.jpg

It's a shame to have to mess-up a perfectly good piece of vintage hardware, but I thought that the benefit of being able to keep the plastic cover in place, outweighed the downsides. For starters, at least I won't misplace the cover, which is sure to happen if I put it somewhere safe. I'm fairly confident I'll never need the BNC connector anyway.

What do you guys think, is it acceptable to modify vintage equipment for the sake of practicality?
 
It depends how uncommon the type of equipment is. As far as I can tell, the Etherlink III is abundant to the degree if you find an ISA network card at a random flea market, 70% probability it will be a 3Com Etherlink III, either with or without the BNC.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top