Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 laptop

[krebizfan]

I recently picked up a Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 laptop and rather to my surprise it all works (except for the battery). Anyone have any tips or care techniques for it?

I know the CD-ROM drive is weird and can not be replaced with anything standard. Is the floppy drive also unique to the design or is a normal floppy drive hidden inside the special plugin module?

 

[JDallas]

...picked up a Gateway 2000 Solo 2100 laptop...works except for the battery...any tips or care techniques for it?

I have one that still runs - originally bought mine in 1997. It runs the factory Windows 95B. I bought a second set of battery chargers and a battery pack. One battery pack stopped working but I just stored it away to fix another day. I have the docking station for the Solo too. I have all the documentation and CDroms for it... may take awhile to inventory what I have but I have the hardware and CDroms handy - documentation is in a folder at one of two locations.

I used LAPLINK (included) to connect it to other computers and to thus backup everything on that drive. I bought a PCMCIA card, ~33K baud modem in the left back card slot (two slots for PCMCIA cards available).

My CDrom drive (modular insert) stopped working and just the floppy works. Makes it mostly useless. I've used it as a Serial terminal for testing development projects. The hard drive is still good.

I suspected the CDrom failure was due to the connector but I haven't opened it up to take a more serious look. Being on VCF has changed my perspective as in the past I thought of PCs as disposable tools. Now perhaps I'll open it up.

I know the CD-ROM drive...cannot be replaced...Is the floppy drive also unique...?

Yes, unique.

I've been thinking about getting a PCMCIA Ethernet card for the SOLO; a USB card would be nice for external CDrom/Drives but Windows 95 pre-dates USB. That doesn't mean a PCMCIA card couldn't offer USB, but buying anything today supporting windows versions no longer cashing in for MS, is rare.

I'll put some Solo 2100 stuff up on one of my websites if you're interested. I'm going to document my computer inventory anyway, no harm in doing the Solo now. Eventually it will be on a new web domain.

 

[krebizfan]

Mine has a (dead) battery pack in the left bay and the right bay is swappable between floppy and CD-ROM. I have swapped them and proved both still work. I lack the external parallel port to floppy converter cable but I have several Backpack drives which I will use instead. Hard drive works. I was very surprised that such a nice system wound up out here.

Anything you can provide about it will be greatly appreciated. I did find an online manual for the Solo 2200 which is almost identical. But almost can still lead to unfortunate surprises.

 

[KithWinter]

JDallas, if you wouldn't mind sharing those discs via disc images, I would really appreciate it

I also have the Gateway 2000 Solo 2100. Got it from a friend that had it sitting around for close to ten years. It's in near mint condition, everything works, but I can't find an OS that will do everything Win 95 can do.

krebizfan, I'm noticing irregularities in the CD-ROM functionality on this laptop, especially when rebooting. I'm not certain, but I suspect it has problems from time to time with burned (CD-R) discs, which is fairly common on older CD-ROMs. Also, the CD-Rom and Floppy are not hot swappable, and require the system to be powered off to change the drive.

So far, the only site I've found with any helpful information on installing an OS was here;
http://www.buchanan1.net/w98_on_solo.shtml

And here is the manual;
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2gMbC4OxGlSZ3Eycnc2d0hyTUk/view?usp=sharing

Also, I noticed after installing Linux DeLi(cate), a reboot didn't clear the system enough to detect the new OS, and it required a cold boot to continue. Probably because of the Grub boot loader.

 

[KithWinter]

Also, this is the floppy caddy, and the drive inside is 10mm tall, and approx. 10cm x 10cm. Mine is a Mitsumi D353G;