Does this dead "laptop" have a gas plasma display? Let's try to revive it to find out! Samsung S5200
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ก.ย. 2024
- I've had this Samsung S5200 laptop kicking around the basement for a year or two now and I've always been so curious to know more about this machine. This particular specimen is dead, so trying to turn it on reveals nothing. It also seems to be totally unknown to the world with no information about it existing outside of the odd eBay listing and a single post on VCF Forums.
Let's see if I can revive the machine so it can reveal some of its secrets.
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"No keyboard present, press F1 to continue" LOL
Sorry to hear the meter is giving problems, what is the serial number? Only the original Kickstarter batch had range switch issues. I'll send you an email.
When I was a pro photographer living in my darkroom in between shoots, producing B&W prints, I had a s/h Toshiba T3200 with orange plasma screen. I had a hunch the orange plasma screen would be bromide safe, and it was: it didn't fog paper even really close up for a couple of minutes. I could answer the phone and look things up, or type notes, or write an invoice without having to panic about the paper safe being closed or turn on room lights. Eventually I kept my developer formulas and process timings in Supercalc spreadsheets. I later gave that machine to the Museum of Computing at Swindon, UK, still working perfectly. And now I am getting quite teary about the wonders of 4DOS and config.sys...
Ah yes, 4dos was good stuff, you could have pretty file names before the invention of vfat...
I can imagine that was an interesting darkroom back then
This is likely completely wrong, but the vertical lines remind me of failing GameBoy screens. Those failures look extremely similar and are caused by the flex cable connections failing. They can sometimes be fixed by heating up the flex cable at the screen edge with a hot air gun.
I used to repair gas plasma TVs. 99% of the time it was the driver connections around the panel itself causing vertical lines,
@Skawo Yes! My same thoughts here, and I repaired such a vintage GameBoy with a soldering iron at just 200°C gently rubbing over the cover thats over the actual contacts. All in all it took 5 minutes...
Wow... I'm a radio guy and one of my favorite models from the early to mid 2000s has the same issue for the same exact reason. The Yaesu FT 857 and 897 develop that problem. If you google the model and "zebra stripes" you'll see what I'm talking about. Funny how that affects so many different types of devices.. and the fix you outlined has been mentioned in a few places on the internet.
@@helloitsme4139 How is that resolved? Or is it?
I was thinking the exact same thing! Can't wait to see if he tries to fix it in the next vid :D
Some people have had success reflowing the pins on the driver chips that are connected to the actual panel via ribbon cable (IBM P70 and Toshiba 5200 use similar panels and there's some content on TH-cam showing). Not for the faint of heart but doable. Excellent work on getting it going!
this^
My first PC was a Toshiba T2100. It doesn't have zebra stripes but a walking and flashing bright vertical lines.
I used to work with plasma displays for a company called Dynapro in the early 90's. Lines like this are almost always a cabling and data line issue - I'd definitely suggest reflow on video drivers and look at the cabling - I think it's totally fixable.
Back in 1990 I was given a PS/2 P70 gas plasma luggable to take with me on a six month extended business trip. The glowing orange screen was quite an eyecatcher around the office, and it felt really cool to be able to pack it up and lug it back to the hotel at the end of the day.
It was certainly among the favorite computers I ever got to use on a regular basis. Shame I had to give it back once I returned home.
We also had a 19-inch flat panel IBM 3290 gas plasma terminal that could display four sessions (2x2) kicking around the test lab, long before big screen LCD displays were a thing. It truly looked and felt like a space-age monitor back then.
That display is theoretically repairable, so I used to repair similar issues on gas plasma tvs. Same basic technology. The displays are segmented with drivers connected to the edge of the panel X and Y axis, Sometimes, removing/cleaning the contacts would make the vertical lines disappear. Provided there is not physical damage to the panel
Clearly nonsense - "Deoxit that panel" doesn't rhyme!
Notice the text is fully driven all the time. Only background is dim (and actually better). There appears to be no brightness change on the text.
If you could fix this by connections I would expect both background and text to have been affected.
sometimes those drivers partially lose soldering connection due to heat over the years. I have been able to fix a big old plasma tv this way. By just soldering those drivers back. However it did not help for a long period of time.
@@iuriigarmash3285 I just suspect broken solder connections would cut the text as well not just change the background color...
The panels are driven by discrete transistors. The most common issue is the HVDC goes too high and the transistors stay on. Simply add a regulator like a zener stack and it works again.
You mentioned that measuring the switching semicondictors (transistors and diodes) is difficult because they may appear to be shorted, which is caused by the fact that they often have a coil in parallel to them. One solution is as you mention to take them out of the board. But there is an other way. ESR-meters are used to measure the resistance of capacitors. They use a low test voltage and a test frequency of e.g. 100 kHz. So this is an AC-test method (not DC as normal multimeters often do). If you use one of these meters to measure the resistance of a semiconductor in a circuit, even if there is a coil in parallel, you will 'only' measure the resistance of the semiconductor because at 100 kHz the resistance of the coil is so large (mega Ohms) that as a parallel resistance it does hardly influence the value of the semiconductor (which is low for DC and AC test voltages). Using this method you can find shorted semiconductors without having to desolder them first.
I always wondered how those worked, thanks! Our test kit in the telly trade was as basic as the gaffer could get away with; we often took in our own.
Your explanation is accurate sir.Using ESR meters with low test voltage and a test frequency like 100 kHz can help measure the resistance of semiconductors in circuits, even with coils in parallel, allowing identification of shorted semiconductors without desoldering.
Good tip! My LCR meter goes up to 100khz, but I never thought of using it to look for shorts on semiconductors.
Wow. Learn something new every day... That's really clever!
Would definitely like to see a part 2 where you look at some of the ideas in the comments here, those displays look awesome when they actually work.
My workplace here in the UK acquired two of these laptops circa 1991, bought very discounted from Morgan Computers in Manchester. They were used by our on-site engineers for setting up and testing new server installations. We kept one for serveral years as it was the slowest machine in the office, and therefore the only one capable of running some old custom GW-BASIC code for cloning dongles.
I've never had my hands on one of these plasma displays. However, it looks similar to the lines that happen on a lot of LCD's from the era. I've seen a lot of them where the ribbon cables are decaying and delaminating. Sometimes using a soldering iron to reflow the ribbon connections can help fix lines in those. Either way, thanks for another interesting video!
Aha! the reflowing trick! I revived a couple of game boy screens this way
I've seen Tech Tangents do it on an old LCD and it worked.
Ooh I can finally answer something! I have two T3100s with similar issues. Took out the plasmas, and they are surrounded by driver chips. Legs rusted through on many. I tried to remove some good chips from one and transplant but soldering skills aren't where they need to be - pulled some traces. Haven't revisited - but for someone with actual talent this might be fixable.
Delicate soldering isn't really my thing either. I don't have much to lose, so it's going to be worth a try!
That Hard disk probably has the most perfect vintage HDD sound!
I love how Adrian says things along the lines of he’s not an expert in this.
If he’s not, who is? Genuinely love the humility here.
It's more likely that the NTE "replacement" transistor is over spec'ed from the original. Replacement transistors often are over spec'ed so they can replace a LOT of other devices.
Send the DMM back to Dave with a letter of complaint!
I remember this style of luggable/portable very well! In their day (in my experience anyway) you'd see accountants lugging these to annual on-site client audits and such, and bookkeepers with multiple clients doing their quarterlies. They were a real game changer for smaller accounting firms now able to take on multiple clients at a time. They'd pay for themselves within a matter of months. I think at least here in the US anyway that was about 75% of the luggable market, accounting.
I love how you went to the boneyard and got this thing running with scrap parts.
Walking into a boardroom with that thing back-in-the-day must have been a power move.
35:34 I wouldn't trust any fuses bought off of Amazon. There are a lot of dodgy sellers on there selling the cheapest no name fuses they could find on the Shenzhen market that day. They may or may not blow at the rated current.
For a safety component like a fuse you're really better off buying from a reputable supplier like Digikey who only sells fuses from reputable companies like Littelfuse and Bussman.
I bet Dave would love to get his meter back before you open it so he can perform a failure diagnosis and then maybe get the supplier to change something so future models aren't susceptible.
I was thinking that myself. Dave is a great guy so he may replace it under warranty even if it's out of its warranty period.
Thinking the same, he’d probably make an interesting video out of it.
Thing is that there are already updates for the switch, so Adrian can just ask Dave for the shim that they use, and install it to fix this problem.
"Collectable" is a relative term I guess? I'm sure someone out there is incredibly fond of these things and hopes to catch them all!
I desperately wanted one of these plasma machines a while ago, bought the first one on eBay, it worked for a few minutes, than didn't. Bought another one, that came with the plasma screen totally smashed during transportation; works with external monitor, but that makes no sense to me. I stopped buying them.
Sadly not all beautiful retro machines are built like a tank or a C64 C. If a C64 C drops to the floor, bad news for the floor.
From where I was sitting it looked like the text was still totally legible, IE: no dead pixels. Sure, the background had dark vertical bands but it didn't seem to affect readability. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You're like a big kid in a candy store. Hehe. Your passion and enthusiasm for old tech is infectious Adrian. Great vid. 😊👍
Nice video as always. I just wanted to mention my EEVBlog multimeter does the same thing too. Occasionally I get odd readings and I have to turn it off then back on. Very frustrating considering Dave Jones is all about promoting a good functioning, quality product.
Check the foil shield on the PCB. Sometime it is missing or disconnected from ground, and the meter front-end picks up the 50/60 Hz noise...
@@rayoflight62 Something to look into indeed but im fairly sure this is the range switch causing issues. Moving it even one position forward and then back fixes the issue after this happens. Doesnt happen all the time and is quite rare when it does play up. Sadly though sometimes its not very obvious it has played up until ive sat there for a minute thinking these measurements dont look normal. Exactly the way it happens in this video for Adrian.
Somebody else said the switch has changed in later revisions and there's a shim you can put in to fix the problem.
I wouldn't call that dead pixels. The ebay posting those lines were dead. Completely dead, but your getting an image. It's just darker in the background. If anything it makes it easier to read in those areas.
My career was and still in retirement is electronics and I tell people how much fun it was and is. I feel sorry for people who work at a job they don't like. I started my career at Digital Equipment Corp in Maynard, Massachusetts in 1969. And it was always like playing, it was never work. With exploding caps and all.
Had one of these back in the 80’s and the display was brilliant compared to LCDs at the time. Yes it was bulky and heavy, but it worked great and offered desktop equivalent performance especially with an internal hard disk fitted in one of the expansion slots.
It makes me so proud to be your Patron every video you do. You work so hard but I always hope in whatever way you are inevitably having fun. I support your happiness and seeing your eyes light up and twinkle when talking about this stuff and working on it is a joy I can’t put into words.
Honestly, I can tell a difference, in the best way possible.
It shows that you are doing what you really love without constraints, and that makes me love it all the more. You don’t seem as stressed about what needs to be done (like apologizing about the unfinished mail call and projects), because you know it’ll be done sooner than later now (relatively, sooner as in you have time to parse it all respectfully and respectively on your time without worrying about the other work).
Keep having fun, even if there are the frustrations of working with old tech, please keep having fun. I’ll support you in bad times or good, but paramount is your joy. You deserve this, and I want you to enjoy it for as long as we all (you being first to be included) will make this last. Cheers, from Technicolor. Howdy from Texas! Yeehaw! *rides into the Technicolor sunset*
Love this video! When Toshiba was starting to put these displays in laptops. I could only dream of them, they looked so cool. Thanks for bringing up some fun old memories.
4.7 K likes. I had the feeling I clicked on a resistor!
Good luck on repairing this lovely plasma screen
Try the 2SC2335 for replacing the high voltage transistor.
2SC2335 is a Sony transistor widely used in the switching power supply of their video recorder (SCL-7) in the '80s. It is in the smaller TO220 case but it has very high voltage, current and frequency specification; it has an ECG Sylvania equivalent...
I was at college in London in the mid '80s and IBM had a big temporary exhibition set up in the front gardens of the Natural History Museum. My 30yo memories of it are quite faded now, but I seem to remember they had a number of plasma screens on show and that they looked so crystal clear compared with, say, the similarly amber coloured CRT terminals I was using on my course.
Seems a shame that so few plasma panels have survived.
I’m also vaguely remembering a review in PCW magazine of a personal all-in-one Unux box with a plasma panel too - although my memories of that are even more hazy. Maybe HP or some such. (A quick search show HP Integral PC pictures matching my fuzzy memory of the review)
Yeah, these days I just swap out switching power supplies with brand new ones, but obviously that's not so easy if you need a 205V rail! The last time I bothered with repairing one was when the bridge rectifier blew in my Tivo (and also my parents', my brother's and my friend's). I spoke to one of the engineers at Tivo and they said it was a pretty common issue and they actually did exactly the same thing with warranty replacements. They had a stack of spares, and every time they pulled a faulty one and replaced it, they just swapped out the bridge rectifier and put it back into spare stock. He also offered to swap them out for their spares if I had any more failures, obviously after I'd already repaired all the Tivos of everyone I knew who had one!
I miss my Tivo, it's a real shame they shut down the service here in Australia, it was such a good product. I actually got mine for free because I volunteered to do alpha testing of their software in the early days of its introduction to Australia, and they just never asked for it back.
LAP-TOP was an acronym for "Light And Portable, Terminal On Processor". Until later years, they were hardly usable on a human lap.
As for the power supply, I'd recommend contacting XP Power for a Solid State solution to your power supply. They make every possible Voltage, Amperage, and other specification input and output wise.
GRiD Systems created the first clamshell design laptop (GRiD Compass) which was initially used for military use. It had a plasma screen and predated all of the laptops mentioned in this video. I worked for GRiD for several years. Their militarized laptops flew on the space shuttle and were also available for commercial use. They were unbelievably reliable.
I remember seeing ads for those from surplus distributors in the computer market magazines in the late 90s.
The first laptops I worked on were GRID 486 with monochrome VGA. They were popular working around hazardous materials and food due to being able to operate just fine in sealed bags.
I had one that the customer called for out of warranty repair. It had been dropped from an oil rig into the Gulf of Mexico. The only thing was that part of the screen was dead (and visibly broken). By that time AST had bought GRID and sold it to Tandy. So I quoted a $1200 repair and they said OK. Still the most expensive computer repair I ever did.
@@mikebarushok5361 I had taken apart most of the GRiD product line when I was a Sr. Systems Engineer... For that era, they were extremely well made... and very repairable. I'll correct you on one thing, though. Tandy bought GRIID in 1988 and then AST bought GRID FROM Tandy in 1993.
Tandy's big mistake was to try and create a store-front version of GRiD. They targeted Fortune 1000 companies but somehow thought that having a retail presence would help their bottom line. They were totally wrong. They bled money with all of that retail space across the nation. They should have just rented office space with a large meeting room in each location. They would have save tens of millions of dollars.
My dad had an electronics repair shop for 30 years starting in the sixties. He used to tape repair trophies components to the ceiling of is shop. I wish he was still alive to watch you videos
The bezel is that way so you can put your post-its somewhere. ;)
I had that thought too, but it would ruin the look.
Can you say "Baby steps through the bootloader... baby steps through the login.." like Richard Dreyfuss in What About Bob? It would be the cherry on top of these videos.
I remember that logo! When Samsung and Goldstar (or Lucky Goldstar) were considered lower-tier, maybe unknown to some, brands. At least, I had a schoolfriend who had a very cheap Samsung 'hi-fi' in the late 1980s and it was the first I'd ever heard of them :)
They still are lower tier brands.
@@chad2787 Depends? LG OLEDs are highly regarded and Samsung's phones are what helped them rise through the ranks - obviously - though they priced their Android phones similarly to iphones in recent years! LG smartphones are no more!
I used one of those orange plasma displays in the 90s, I just remember the screen being very dim and pretty hard to read, it really left a lot to be desired as far as picture quality goes. It did get very hot during a good session of solitaire for sure :-)
I love this era of Luggable Computers, such a thing of their time and just so freaking cool! Love it!
I have a couple of old Toshiba T5x00 laptops with plasma displays. My favorite is a T5200/100: It has a 640x480 VGA greyscale (or, I guess, orangescale) panel, a 386DX-33 processor with the 387 installed, 4 MB of RAM, a 100 MB hard drive and two ISA slots, one 8-bit and one 16-bit. It's become a surprisingly competent DOS gaming machine since I added a Sound Blaster 16 and an XT-IDE card into it. It seems to be fully compatible with every DOS game I've tried so far, at least the ones that can run on a 386. It'll also run an external VGA monitor at the same time (mirrored) which is kind of a neat effect.
I know the older plasma displays with the controls for both contrast and brightness tend to have shitty contrast, but the one in the T5200 has really good contrast. It doesn't get super-bright anymore, if it ever did, but its blacks are very close to actual black.
I hope you tackle this repair some day. I also have a T5100 with the same failure mode on its panel. And I have no idea how to fix it.
I was given a T3100SX (16 MHz 386, VGA, and TWO friggin batteries so that thing could actually be used as a laptop) in the late 90s. It lasted all of three days until it broke without me even having disassembled it yet.
(bad capacitors, but young me had the weakest, crappiest soldering gun and no chance in hell to get those old leaky caps out. I even tried snipping the legs and soldering the new caps onto the stubs, the iron was too weak for that too - so young me gave up, took it completely apart and threw away most of it. Sad.)
Another awesome ps repair as well as the 12v find! 👏 👏 👏
When I was in Europe, I have met quite lot of people from the flea markets that I have visited regularly who are collecting “luggable” (I believe is the correct term to use) computers, the IBMs, Toshibas and some other brands that haven’t made to the US or Canada markets. So, before ranting over some seller on eBay, I wouldn’t scratch out a community of collectors elsewhere having hard time finding these and enjoying collecting them.
Adrian running a vintage computer channel starts criticising people who like vintage computers ! This computer might now be rarer than an Apple 1 but is still affordable to most collectors.
The more I watched, the more I learned! Thanks, Adrian.
very nice repair! The "laptop" is lovely! Looking forward to the next step!
Great to watch these kinda videos 😊
Couldn't put one to my own use but love the old (sometimes a bit crazy) old tech.
In the early 2000's there was this UMPC hype, must admit I liked these little yet very expensive puters.
We used these in the Royal Navy back In the late 80's for running test programs on our ships battle computer.
I have one of these from my dad!!! Thank you for documenting it so well. Mine works fully until I tighten up all the case screws and then it seems to short out ... I also have all the documentation, software and the bag for it
my dad showed me one of those in the 80s in the office, they were expensive as hell, I was fascinated, back then, that was the first laptop I saw in my life!
It's really difficult looking up old parts that don't get made anymore. This is the only description of the part I could find.
PED7491 is a high-power, high-voltage NPN power transistor manufactured by PECOR. Features: High voltage rating of up to 800V High power rating of up to 100W Low saturation voltage High current gain Low noise Low thermal resistance Applications: PED7491 is suitable for use in high-power switching applications such as motor control, lighting control, and power supply circuits. It is also suitable for use in high-voltage, high-current applications such as power amplifiers and audio amplifiers. (For reference only)
Adrian gets everything working... lol. Its nice to see. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
I would say you open that cover from the bottom by prying "catches" on the edge where display cover meets lid. To avoid damaging, try to cut out a prying "blade" of the packaging plastic (that transparent one), that is very thin and not too hard. It can get in the small crack and at least can be used as a "probe" to find where cover is attached to the lid-and it does not damage old plastic.
My dad has an Ericsson branded "laptop" from late 80s if I recall correctly, with a plasma screen looking exactly like that one. It has been properly stored but still the last time I booted it up it had developed the same issue with the vertical bars even though few years ago it was without any issues. Very interested to see if you are able to get it fixed so I could maybe attempt to fix it myself.
I collect old laptops and mobile phones. My oldest working laptop is a Hungarian laptop from 1987, a 286 12 MHz, 2 ISA card slots(8/16bit) under the keyboard, 1.44 MB PC floppy, 3.5 inch PC HDD, and a sealed lead-acid battery that powers my laptop for 20 minutes and it is original :) It has 1MB RAM, in 256k DIP chips, on the bottom. It has a built-in PSU to charge the internal 12V battery, or it can also charge from a car cigarette socket. It has an analog battery meter, and an MDA/CGA LCD screen(switchable).
If the panel is intact, its contacts, like the ribbon cable might need cleaning/replacing, otherwise the MB might need attention. Did play around with the Osborne, which was a heavy "portable" monster too.
Well done, keep going!
Just amazed at the size difference between this, and, say, the tiny Toshiba Libretto CT-100 - in just nine years.
My dad had a laptop with one of those sort of screens way back in the day, the lurid red glow of it stuck with me, it was very memorable.
Hi, Adrian. I thought this video was interesting. And the build up to getting the plasma screen on was exciting. Stay safe to you and your loved ones.
holy smokes, i never thought i'd see a video on this laptop. i got one from a guy on offerup and have never seen anything like it so seeing this video pop up is super exciting. mine works perfect but im scared when it starts to malfunction ill never be able to figure out what's wrong, but i at least have a fighting chance! thank you!
Great video Adrian, thouroughly enjoyable to watch. Awesome diagnosis on the power supply and kudos to you for finding the fault.
Oh come on, Mr. CRT! You can do this. It'll be fixed. I HAVE FAITH IN YOU ADRIAN!!!! 🛠⚡👍
For PSU issues like this where an "odd" voltage is required it might be possible to use a standard PSU and one of the high voltage DC-DC modules which are available to provide the screen voltage, assuming the replacement PSU has enough headroom on one of the outputs to supply the module. As others have said it might be possible to replace the screen with a modern colour LCD which would leave you with a useful PC for say testing cards which require a 286 without the need to pull out and put together a PC, keyboard and screen.
Agreed on the dc-dc boost converters. They're available on the jungle site with inputs of 5-12VDC and outputs of 100-1000VDC. Perfect for supplying gas plasma or VFDs, and unbelievably cheap. I always look to treat things like industrial lego.
@@AbrankodI didn't look but yeah I was wondering if boost converters existed that could output the needed 205-210v. I see lots that go way into the KV range (likely for backlights) Looking around I can't find any... things seem to max out around 30v.
I absolutely loved those ISA slots and how they were implemented inside this
I'd love to see more of this. This was extremely fun and educational. Thank you!
I'd say success. Fixing the panel defect to the extent you did vs what you started with is a major win. I have one of the old IBM Lug-gables with the Red Gas plasmas. They are sharp as heck, but who though Red would be the color to go with lol.
Gotta love that ebay listing, everything is "rare" and "collectable" on there, especially when it's common as muck and cheap to buy... :P
As for the display, the flat flex issues could be "fixed" with passing a flat soldering iron across the flat flex ends where it's bonded on, I say "fix" because from my experience doing that on old LCDs, it's temporary at best, so may work initially, but old glue and time will have made it unreliable, so may come back briefly for a video, but then fail again not long after...
In the same way anything with a vague military connection is described as "used by special forces". Not really surprising as most of the stuff they use is standard issue.
@@NiallWardrop I've an Aladdin 37 paraffin heater that is ex-military, and I didn't know it was such when I bought it, until someone pointed out the "crow's foot" mark on it that the UK militaries put on things back in the day to denote they were MOD property, having learned that I noticed that things with the crows foot were priced much higher on ebay than those without it, even if it was entirely standard off-the-shelf stuff, ebay's a real PITA for overpriced tat, that's for sure!!! :S
The lines in the screen might be fixable in a similar way vertical lines in a Nintendo gameboy screens can be fixed by using a solder iron at the ribbon that is connected. Might want to look at this.
With respect to the eBay listing, and "Very rare and hard to find". Those attributes are not always indicators of value. Tuberculosis is rare and hard to find, that does not impute value.
Well if you are the one single person who is trying hard to find one (in fully working condition), it is of value to you.
Having grown up around those plasma displays, the stripes are a fairly common fault/failure mode.
It is usually the bonding between the flex & the panel that is failing, you can sometimes revive them with some heat.
I have fixed a few switch modes that have failed with the power transistors. Good work getting the thing booting.
Great video! I can't wait for part 2! 🤓
I believe that this is a true Laptop, while Osborne's were Luggables. More modern units are Notebooks due to their form factor similar to a 3 ring Binder. Although some people call Notebooks, Laptops.
I love the spinning pedestal. That sure is handy for making videos.
In the UK/EU, when you get a randomly blown fuse, first you check that nobody has switched it to 110V and then suplied 230V! 😁
Yeah, I worked for IBM in the UK for a few years and our test lab was full of hardware from the US. Not ashamed to say I blew at least a couple of monitors by not checking the input voltage setting before plugging them into the mains.
@@EnglishMike they go bang pretty loudly, right!? 😜
@@m1geo Yes they do. Followed by the slow realization of what you've just done: "Oh, s**t!"
I'm looking forward to seeing you get this back to good as new condition.
I have a NEC PC-9801T F5 (Japanese 386SX luggable) which won't turn on. If you are interested Adrian, would love to work something out for you to work on it.
A quick bit of goooogling suggests that these gas plasma screens are indeed repairable, e.g. here: th-cam.com/video/c71P5KAsxpM/w-d-xo.html
Doesn't look like a particularly great deal of fun, though.
i sure hope you can fix your display like this , adrian :)
One of the companies that I worked for, got one of those Samsung computers for a customer. It was bought as it had a 16 bit slot. We needed to plug an Allen Bradley 1771-KT card for communication to a PLC. We also had 2 models of the toshiba gas plasma display. One had EGA, and one had a VGA screen, still both orange.
In the 90s I had the Toschiba T5200 which was practically identical. It differed only in the slightly larger red phosphor display. It was a 386 with a math coprocessor. I still have his motherboard down in the lab. I was a fool to destroy it. I should have spent more time trying to fix it.
I apologize for the definitely incorrect translation but I am Italian and I used Google Translate.
I always follow you with great pleasure even if I have difficulty with the language but I must say that you speak beautiful English that I can understand even though I am in denial ahahahaha.
I greet you and thank you for your work.
I had a T3100 which I sold for a few £s after the hard drive failed. The hard drive was an unusual one with no separate power cable.
Seeing the thumbnail I thought the computer was a Toshiba T3100. That was actually my first PC, bought second hand for a couple of £hundreds. I eventually sold it for far less when the hard drive failed. Like many parts of the computer (e.g. the pinned memory modules) the hard drive was an unusual part with no separate power connector.
back to live !
great journey and success - some orange display is now really appreciated almost like the amber mono monitors in the late 80s.
Adrian, I just want to thank you for your recent more consistent warnings about the high voltage dangers inside of some machines and of course the tubed monitors. You know, so many people out there these days and while adventurous and brave and good at heart, not everyone is all there when it comes to their wits and self preservation!
"Laptop" in quotation marks was the best caption you could have put Adrian, lol. :D
A great presentation Adrian. I am glad I discovered this chanel.
Then there was Tandy (Grid Sys) 1400LT. It was only an 8-bit XT, with inverted b&w CGA display, and 2 floppy drives (no HDD). Battery was old as dust, by time i got it, so it had to stay plugged into AC. I played King's Quest III on it.
This computer really looks a lot like the Toshiba ones, down to the grey colour.
I used quite a few Toshiba T3200SX and T3200SXC computers. The SX had an amber gas display, the SXC a TFT colour LCD.
One SXC was filled with sniffer cards from Network General for capturing traffic on Ethernet or serial HDLC/X25.
These Toshibas had 2 weak points: the PSU and the power provision to the LCD backlight.
4:45 the Ctrl key up there is also used in many keyboards in UNIX or VMS, in fact Emacs program shortcuts had the Ctrl key in that position in mind when it was created.
One thing you should look into is fully replacing the thermal pads on the backs of those transistors, the old ones are likely dried out and hardly doing their job, my favorite pads are artics tp3,, but are a bit expensive, however artic also makes a cheaper line which are still decent called artic tp1 basic thermal pad TP 1 APT2012 those would be great to have on hand man. They are 0.5mm thick, it is a perfect fit for this type of thing and are easy to cut to size with an xacto knife. Wouldn't want the other transistors overheating, since those might be even more impossible to find subs for. The pads are also non electrically conductive or capacitive.
i saw a lot of videos, and they were awesome, i didn't subscribe yet, so: subscribed. Have an awesome Retro Computers Day ! 🙂
That neon glow is lovely.
Hi Mr Black, maybe change the psu to a Pico, put in a VGA card and LCD display (might need VGA - HDMI conversion). Then have it boot to a similar orange-ish colors. Or try heating the ribbon/flex cable as others have suggested.
Indeed, if I ditch the plasma screen then I don't need that 210v rail anymore. Easy PSU swap at that point. :-)
My first own real (after Oric-1) computer, a IBM P70 (sewing machine form factor) had a similar fabulous display.
It so much reminds me of my first PC, which was a Toshiba T3200 286. It looks very similar but I think mine didn't have any fans or fan-ports. Unfortunately I no longer have it. But so nice to see you reviewing a similar machine!
Well that Samsung certainly looks like the Toshiba T(ank)3100/20 I have, also has that orange gas plasma display and is heavy as heck. Fortunately it works pretty much fine except for the HDD which I might or not get back in working order and that blasted Dallas clock module which I need to replace with a modern coin cell counterpart as there's not much room for a rework. Anyway as a collector of primarily Toshiba's and others from the 80's and early 90's I like you giving some love to "portable" devices and hope you might do more video's about them.
I think this is one of those things if you open it up, and let pandora out of the plasma filled box, the problem will just get worse. But, that is just my guess. Impressed you got the power supply working again by coming up with workarounds on the fly. Was a little disappointed you didn't hook up the SCSI hard drive, via external 12 volts, to see what the computer had installed -- assuming the drive still works, of course.
Yeah, I'd be worried to touch it. Play with that screen cable and you go from a workable screen, to a completely unusable screen.
For the Pecor PED7491 it looks like the NTE2311 is a perfect match. The Vce, current and speed ratings are very similar to the horizontal output transistors normally found on CRT monitors and TV's, so an HOT from a broken CRT monitor would do nicely. -I think this transistor is used for the plasma high voltage circuit.-
The mains filter caps bulging in the power supply is from the soldering process when the power supply was made.
Some caps, mainly larger high voltage ones have a plastic disk covering the aluminum can. This is for electrical isolation, as the cans are electrically active, as they are connected to the power leads via the internal electrolyte. I can't remember if it's the positive or negative lead.
When the PCB is soldered in a wave solder process, the PCB goes through a Fluxing process, then throgh a Pre-Heat process, followed by the Solder Wave process.
The pre-heat process is either forced convection or IR, or a combination of both. The pre-heat temperature gets fairly warm. Usually in the order of 150-180°C. This causes some plastic parts to warp/deform. Namely large electrolytic caps!
I had a couple of plasma Toshibas back in the late 80s, the screen was so much nicer to use than the alternatives available at the time.
Didn't they cost as much as a car at the time? Did you also have a couople of cars? And yachts? :-)
13:16 And more specifically, those old Seagate drives just ending in "N" or "ND" indicates a 50-pin SCSI. "W", "LW" and "LWV" were on 68-pin and "WC", "LC" and "LCV" on 80-pin.
The first number after the ST told you the form factor of the drive; for 3.5" drives:
ST1 = 1.6" high (half-height)
ST3 = 1.0" high (third-height)
ST5 = 0.75" high