I have one of these here in the UK. Most of them were sold to BT (British Telecom) and used by their diagnostic telephone system engineers. Mine is an ex-BT system with a BT badge on it. Still works fine - but I may open it up to remove the CMOS battery after watching this 😬
I got a pile of these laptops from Computer Reset in Dallas. That is the explanation of the storage conditions for this laptop. There were dozens of these things there. Personally, I gave up on the ones that I bought and sold about 9 of these to Sean (Action Retro) when I saw him at VCF East 2023.
You were dead-on with your analysis of that weird drive connector. The controller was on the board there, I have a drive of that same weird “bucket” form factor, a CP321, but mine is standard IDE. The controller board hooks right into that connector on the drive that you pointed out. Also, that seized spindle issue is incredibly common on this style of Conner drive seemingly. Mine has the same problem, I’ve seen another on TH-cam that did, and yours of course. It will likely come back at some point if you leave it to sit for long enough, it did on mine. Not sure if it’s stiction or the spindle motor. My drive worked for a while after I freed it up but then eventually entered a different failure mode where the head would go crazy when trying access certain parts of the disk. I wonder whether magnet degredation caused that now after seeing this. Good work on the fix!
I have one of these - still in working condition, though the HD needs a bit of a tap every now and then to overcome stiction. Very yellow and brittle plastics so I doubt it'll last any major deconstruction, but it is used pretty frequently since the keyboard is remarkably good!
the connector *almost* looks JVC, but it isn't. I have one of these drives from a Supersport 8088 I seem to have lost the IDE board for. when I find it next, I'll be able to back it up, hopefully.
I have the same laptop but mine was stored in a hot building too long. The screen delamiated and the plastic is brittle. The motherboard works and it still boots when connected to a CGA monitor or adapter.
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Mind sharing where all the screw locations are to open one of these up?
STK770 seems to be an DC to DC power converter with variable output voltage, so maybe STK7703 may be a newer version of it. Maybe try to reverse the schematic and compare the two?
Yes, someone put the wrong power adapter in the computer and the laptop failed to work. Zenith did like use proprietary parts. I was a Zenith computer technician for 12 year.
Amazing! What on earth is an hideous STK doing in a power supply!!! :D And that super-cute HDD!!! This is so cool!
Professional Write - now that is a blast from the past!
I have one of these here in the UK. Most of them were sold to BT (British Telecom) and used by their diagnostic telephone system engineers. Mine is an ex-BT system with a BT badge on it. Still works fine - but I may open it up to remove the CMOS battery after watching this 😬
I got a pile of these laptops from Computer Reset in Dallas. That is the explanation of the storage conditions for this laptop. There were dozens of these things there. Personally, I gave up on the ones that I bought and sold about 9 of these to Sean (Action Retro) when I saw him at VCF East 2023.
Nice job on the power supply! Neat drive in there; looking forward to seeing if you can run an IDE in there.
You were dead-on with your analysis of that weird drive connector. The controller was on the board there, I have a drive of that same weird “bucket” form factor, a CP321, but mine is standard IDE. The controller board hooks right into that connector on the drive that you pointed out.
Also, that seized spindle issue is incredibly common on this style of Conner drive seemingly. Mine has the same problem, I’ve seen another on TH-cam that did, and yours of course. It will likely come back at some point if you leave it to sit for long enough, it did on mine. Not sure if it’s stiction or the spindle motor.
My drive worked for a while after I freed it up but then eventually entered a different failure mode where the head would go crazy when trying access certain parts of the disk. I wonder whether magnet degredation caused that now after seeing this.
Good work on the fix!
I have one of these - still in working condition, though the HD needs a bit of a tap every now and then to overcome stiction. Very yellow and brittle plastics so I doubt it'll last any major deconstruction, but it is used pretty frequently since the keyboard is remarkably good!
the connector *almost* looks JVC, but it isn't. I have one of these drives from a Supersport 8088 I seem to have lost the IDE board for. when I find it next, I'll be able to back it up, hopefully.
I have the same laptop but mine was stored in a hot building too long. The screen delamiated and the plastic is brittle. The motherboard works and it still boots when connected to a CGA monitor or adapter.
Mind sharing where all the screw locations are to open one of these up?
STK770 seems to be an DC to DC power converter with variable output voltage, so maybe STK7703 may be a newer version of it. Maybe try to reverse the schematic and compare the two?
Yes, someone put the wrong power adapter in the computer and the laptop failed to work. Zenith did like use proprietary parts. I was a Zenith computer technician for 12 year.