Looking for the perfect laptop

[Robuck]

Hello everyone,

My name is Mark Robuck. I am 16, and very new to the world of vintage computing. I may be in the wrong genre, but I am looking for a good laptop to buy. I want something that runs windows 95, has a floppy disk port and can connect to the internet. I travel a lot, so I would like to be able to work on school or something in style! It can't be massive, it has to be small enough to fit on an airplane tray table. Also it has to be beige/white so that it looks vintage and not like I'm super poor haha.

Thank you!

 

[Sandisk78]

Hi, Mark ! I think it's the IBM Think Pad 755CD, which is the ultimate 486 laptop. It has a TFT color screen, Sound Blaster, an optional CD-rom drive and a MIDI/Joystick Interface.
If speaking about later laptops - I'd advice Compaq Pentium-1 machines. Many of Compaq 486/P1 laptops are beige or white - like ELT/ELite or some Armada machines. Many P1 IBM's don't detect external keyboard in PS/2 slot. Many toshiba laptops up to P-II have a passive matrix.

Also there's very succesful line of HP subnotebooks - the OmniBook series... They are very compact - not as the Libretto - but can easilly be fitted on an airplay table and also are quite comfortable for typing. I have the Omnibook 800 - P1 machine... But maybe the Toshiba Libretto can be a solution for you - as it's the smallest 486-p1 series of laptops, ever....

And my favorite series are 486DX4-100 Compaq 430cx Contura machines... I like it's keyboard, screen and how they look, in general...



Also one tip - for a 486-P1 laptop you can order from Internet or buy a PMCIA->CF/sd adapter so use a CF/SD flash to transfer data in/out of it, if it has Win95/98 installed. I use it with 16GB CF and all but one my laptops see the whole 16gb partition in win9x. (only Compaq ELT/Elite 4/50E works with a CF no more than 2GB)

One thing to be sure - you have an ACTIVE TFT matrix on the laptop you buy - as DTSN(Passive), the other type is useless for gaming, photoshop and is a disaster for your eyes.

If there are two sliders to controol bright/contrast on the screen for sure it's a DSTN(passive matrix).

If one slider - just brightness - for sure it's TFT (active, which can be both color or grayscale, as well)

- I like to amuse modern people, showing DooM1 on a grayscale active matrix laptop, on retrocomputer exhebitions - )))


a boy plays DooM on a Compaq ELT/Elite50E with active grayscale screen.

Also... why not to try a macintosh PowerBook, like 540c... but maybe you don't like old macs(((...

regards, Iakov Khalip Jr...

 

[homeline]

My first real laptop was a Toshiba 2150CDT. Should meet your requirements. Great machine it was. Long gone now but I prolly still have docking station around here.

 

[tblake05]

I was gonna suggest the IBM Thinkpad 380 series (380D, 380ED, 380XD) until he mentioned it has to be white. I had a 380D I wish I still had to this day, Very good machine. Had both CD and Floppy built in and 2 PCMCIA slots for network card/modem. I sold mine for dirt cheap when it was obsolete. D'oh!