The ONE thing keeping this iconic vintage laptop from working...
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2024
- I haven't been having good luck with old laptop hard drives lately -- and this Toshiba Libretto 50CT isn't helping.
Sources:
"Libretto 50CT good for executives on the go," InfoWorld, August 25, 1997.
Enhanced docking station photos: computermuseum.wordpress.com/...
CF to IDE bracket: www.thingiverse.com/thing:502...
Article about Windows 95 DMF disks: devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnew...
Raymond Chen's blog story about buying an Egghead store: devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnew...
Egghead Software store photos: digitalcollections.lib.washin...
SanDisk ATCFWCHG utility download: vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?...
Transcend industrial CF cards ship in fixed-disk mode: www.transcend-info.com/Suppor...
Libretto RAM module photo: www.carousell.sg/p/toshiba-li...
"New Libretto debuts," Computerworld, November 10, 1997.
Libretto 100CT photo: www.asinine.nz/2020-05-31/Com...
"Libretto, Take III," PC Magazine, May 26, 1998.
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Every time I'm reminded of these machines, I'm reminded how much I have always wanted one.
They are MUCH better machines in your imagination than they are IRL.
I have a decent amount of experience with these machines back in the day supporting them. They were terrible. I had a group of salespeople I supported who had these. There is simply too much compromise in their design. They make HORRIBLE gaming machines. Old LCD screens look horrible in any resolution other than their native resolution.
I've got a similar thing for tiny Sony Vaios!
For me it is the Thinkpad 240x - we supported them for field staff and from what I recall they were actually usable. I used to drool over the form factor and promise of the libretto but never got the chance to have one in my hands to this day. @tarstarkusz I agree - a lot of these old machines were better in our imagination than IRL.
So true i remember fixing a pentium 1 laptop for a friend and falling so in love with the laptop form factor. And feeling it was the absolute peak of coolness haha
@@tarstarkusz actually I disagree. With the exception of the small suite of games included in the Windows distros, most other games inherently needed hefty full sized PC hardware. Expecting a machine like this to cope would always be unreasonable.
Along time ago, I remember an advert showing a Ferrari being used to tow a caravan - crux of which is use the correct tool for the job. For playing high end games, use a high end graphics card machine, for lists, brochures, other documents on the road, use a libretto
I worked for Toshiba’s PC division at the time of the launch of this (and still have a Libretto 30 and 50 in storage). They were as much a technology statement as a solution for road warriors and certain verticals at the time, and got us a lot of attention. Fun times and a great team!
MANY years ago, I used to go to LAN parties to play DOOM and other games. A friend of a friend of a friend brought one of these machines one time! It was a trip playing DOOM and or DOOM II on this thing! We all seemed to take turns giving it a try. The overall tiny size did not slow us down at all. In fact the idea of playing PC games on a "Pocket Computer" was very compelling to me at the time, and fueled many speculative dreams of what we might be able to do in the future. Now that we are in that future it's still fun to look back and see how far we've come!
The steam deck really made a lifelong dream of mine a reality
Yeah, I REALLY want a Steam Deck, just can’t afford it right now! The OLED version looks Amazing!@@onometre
I feel the GPD win devices are more a successor to the libretto than the Steam Deck. Need that tiny kb lol
@@Angultra probably true but a stean deck is like half the price so I can actually afford one lol
You can also play it on a fridge as well..
I had to deal with one of these back in 1998. A Senior VP for a company I worked for insisted on having it for his trip to Germany, but he wanted two PCMCIA modems in it, one that connected to his cell phone and one that would connect to international phone lines. Well, Windows 95 didn't deal with resources very well, and whenever these two modems were in at the same time, they'd come up with resource conflicts. He insisted that he had to have both at the same time. It took me three days to get it to come up with a combo of resources that wouldn't conflict through some manual resource allocation, but Windows 95 would reset those as soon as it booted up without one of those modems, and they'd conflict again.
I told him SPECIFICALLY that it was tricky to do and to NOT eject either of the modems or all the work I did would reset, OR that it could work with EITHER modem installed, but not both at the same time.
What was the FIRST thing he did in getting to Germany? He took one out.
He complains his whole two week trip that he couldn't do his work. Then he comes back, the day he gets back, comes to my desk and yells at me, calling me incompetent and lazy. As SOON as he used the"L" word, I stood up and look him right in the eyes. I don't remember what he was saying during the next couple minutes, as it took me a bit to get my blood pressure back down to be able to hear and talk again. I told this SVP of a multi-billion dollar company, without cursing or threats of violence and without yelling until the very end, that I specifically told him how it would work and how it would be screwed up, and he did the specific thing that screwed it up, and he needed to take his "sophomoric attitude AWAY from my desk NOW." Then sat back down and ignored anything further he had to say.
That job was HELL. ALL the executive management were yellers. They constantly yelled and belittled the IT staff, and pretty much everyone else, while refusing to spend the necessary money to get reliable server hardware and software. They had an IBM AS/400, and 5 developers, but not testing environment, so all changes were done on the live system, bringing it down about 2-3 times per week. They had a Dell Dimension Pentium 133 tower for a Lotus Notes SERVER, and it would hang DAILY because it simply wasn't designed to handle such duties. Yet, they also had one help desk phone person (me), one desktop support tech, and one helpdesk "manager," for 300 people in the company. Whenever either the AS/400 or the mail server would go down, I'd get a ton of calls, most of the people literally YELLING at me to get it going, as if I was to blame for it being down and I was the one to fix it.
In the 6 months I worked there, I broke 5 molars from grinding my teeth in my sleep because I was so stressed. I was the one and only person who stayed there for over a month at that helpdesk phone job, as everyone else walked out because of the treatment. I spent a week in the hospital because of an abdominal infection, presumably because of chip from one of my teeth cut a wound in my intestine. While I was out, the helpdesk "manager" had to answer the helpdesk phone, and attempted suicide in his cube in the middle of the day. Those horrible people left his blood in the carpet of his cube for a MONTH, until the stench reached up into the executive area and they FINALLY paid out to have it cleaned. That job was the final reason I moved away from Chicago and swore I would NEVER return.
It did teach me three things, though: how much I can endure when I need to, how to properly stand up for myself, and how to identify a bad job from the beginning. Those lessons have served me well in my later career, but I have NEVER worked for, or even encountered, management as bad as that again in my IT career.
My god, that sounds awful!
Yikes, that's rough.
This is why hoarding sucks. Objects and their associated mental triggers. It must take everything you got to prevent popping a molar when you see a Libretto! LOL!
Horrifying, I'm sorry that all happened.
why didnt you just like...say no?
I had a 50CT in 1998, was totally satiesfied with it as a student traveling around with all my stuff in a backpack. The main limiting factor was not the CPU speed or the keyboard size but the battery capacity, which barely hold for 1-1.5 hours max.
Ok so your a hacker?
@@AMPProf ?
@@kpbendeguzHe’s probably curious to know what you used it back in the day for and just made an assumption, me personally I’d presume as a netbook.
@@damian9303 At that time it was a "good enough" laptop. Two generations behind (200-300 MHz P2 vs. 75 MHz P1), but still usable for kinda anything with great mobility.
There was a bigger battery!
I worked in a computer shop when these were introduced and they were very impressive. I still think they're extremely cool machines
Fun Fact: Did you know that Toshiba was founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1875! Some of the first products made by Toshiba were clocks and electric lamps. The TOSBAC-3400 was the first Toshiba computer that came with an Operating System. Great video as always!
Noone cares
Did u got any video of first Toshiba computer? i wanna watch it💀🤌
Japan may very well be one of the most well put together cultures on earth. They really seem to care.. the patriotism isn’t taught it’s just there somehow. Maybe the smaller size has some purchase.. cause it’s an anomaly other than that.
@@Grishanof It is no one!
@@GrishanofI do, so looks like one person does
I had one of these in the late 90s and early 2000s - ideal when travelling to work in data centres around Europe - fond memories !
8:30 - speaking of vintage, it's cool to see that people are still using vintage DSLRs like the Nikon D70s. I have a D40 with the same 6 MPix CCD sensor, and the image quality holds up surprisingly well despite the relatively low resolution and the age of the camera.
True... The optical resolution is a very important but often overlooked aspect of cameras. Per (DK)
I remember these things from back in the day! When I was in college (circa 2000) our lab had one.
Excessive use of that nubbin on the bezle led to many cases of what was colorfully referred to as "Libretto Claw" or "Libretto Hand".
I feel this was a neat way for a tiny Toshiba vintage laptop.
1:07 back than... we prefer call it as "VHS size" lol
It's great to see you returning to this laptop. I must admit, the previous video left me somewhat disappointed because despite the shortcomings of this device, it is a unique item that should definitely be on the shelf of every collector.
I myself had been eyeing this laptop for some time, and now the Libretto 70 holds a special place in my collection. Interestingly, my unit originates from Japan, still running the original Japanese Windows, and equipped internally with Toshiba's corporate software, including an address book with all company employees. Clearly, the previous owners had worked at the company. I take good care of the software :)
Well this is unfortunate timing, it's almost like this video was posted mockingly. I just bought a Libretto 70CT yesterday, and while disassembling it I damaged it irreparably. There is a chip underneath the card slot with a black plastic sticker taped to it. The die of this chip is bonded to a heat spreader that is not secured in any fashion to the chip's body. So, by peeling the sticker, it actually ripped the heat spreader and die of the IC out of the substrate. Of course, it was the system ASIC, which is not available anywhere.
So, a word of caution to anyone looking to repair one of these - don't remove the black sticker in the card slot.
Have you tried to find one that is for parts/not working that you could salvage the chip from. I assume the system ASIC is a large Quad Flat Pack or BGA chip?
Ah that's a shame, I've made that mistake on another Toshiba system thinking it was some kind of heatspreader only to discover that was the chip, with flimsy flex pcb & traces holding it in place. That motherboard is probably only good for parts now although there will be other 70CT boards that could be a donor where their PCB has been damaged by the NiMH RTC battery.
The chip itself should be a BGA gate array that's custom to just the 70CT so it's unlikely you could get a replacement that would work
@@simontay4851 Yeah it's a BGA. I could reball one, but the problem is finding a broken 50/70CT that is so far gone it'd be a better donor for the chip compared to a repair candidate itself. I'm sure eventually I'll cave in and do that.
@@brainslay3rI’ve seen a good few on eBay with scorched plastic and hideously yellowed keys, but even the prices for those are quite ludicrous… wish you luck, I took a gamble with an “untested” unit which turned out just needed a hard drive
Seems these show up routinely on eBay with cracked screens and cracked cases that are claimed to still run. May be worth monitoring.
Thanks. I learned something new today. I have watched 100's and 100's of vintage computer videos for over 10 years from dozens upon dozens of great channels. So many of them have used CF cards with adapters to replace hard drives yet I have never heard even one of them before mention the difference between some CF cards being in fixed mode rather than removable. I have seen channels mention that they tested multiple cards to find one to work but this is the first time I have seen an explanation as to WHY! Great to know. I recently went into my garage and pulled out a box full of vintage parts. Many well over 20 years old. I have been thinking of rebuilding some of my old machines. I already rebuilt a 22 old P4 WinXP gaming machine and a 17 year old Athlon 64 5000+ as a Minecraft running server Arch Linux. Next I'm planning on rebuilding my old Super Socket Seven AMD K6-II 500 machine for Win98 and planned on using a CF card for the HDD. This information is DEFINITELY going to come in handy.
I remember shopping for a 50CT back in the earliest days of eBay, hoping to find someone getting rid of one. Active TFT screen, Pentium CPU, and super compact. Heck, I still want one. Very cool to see one in such good condition.
I love vintage small notebooks
I still use a 70CT today to copy and update PCMCIA cards for my Tech-II system for diagnosing Saab ECU's - An amazing little PC.
I had a Compaq Contura Aero 4/25 (greyscale) and it was my daily college driver from 1996-98. It was tiny, had a 170MB HDD and one of those CF Card FDD devices. I copied all the Windows 95 setup files to a parallel Zip drive, booted from a FDD with Zip drivers, and was able to install that way! When I replace the HDD in my Vaio, I used a SSD-IDE adapter and had enough room to dual-boot 98 and XP. Definitely SSD-IDE was so much easier than IDE-CF. I used an IDE-CF in a Mac Performa 640 DOS edition (with a tasty Intel DX2-66) and I had to get a VERY specific sandisk card that would work, AND I went through three different IDE-CF adapters to get it all working. It took weeks to figure it out! Love your videos.
I've got that Performa without the DOS module (actually, a 636).
I have a grayscale Aero 4/25 too, but the FDD is missing. Really should remove the HDD and make an image/clone of it before it fails.
I always look forward to your content and watch them all when they come out.
Whoa, man, that HDD head crash screech! 😯
Once I heard that spin, there was a painful cringe that comes from any dropped laptop owner. The death screech
@@fattestroyal198 Exactly. You know what I'm talking about, and it's a sound that'll make your hair stick up on end. Like nails on a chalk board. That's the sound where you go, "welp, it's over".
Great video, I enjoyed this a lot! On my Libretto 50CT (you know the one), I struggled through a big pile of CF cards, looking for something that was either fixed or could be converted. I eventually gave up and went with an SD card adapter, which was something like $8 on Amazon. I also designed an adapter bracket for it, which is available on Printables.
bro is dr who
Love seeing all these retro PC videos. Awesome work yet again, Colin!
Great job matey, always love to see this old tech re-purposed.
The HP version of these mini laptops was really popular at the Computer City store I worked at in 1997 for playing Solitaire, there wasn't anything else it was really useful for back then.
I lusted after these so much back in the day... like, for what I wouldn't have had a clue, but they were so cool.
Colin no one else makes videos like you do.
My mom went to grad school in 1998 and bought a laptop for school. I remember looking at the Libretto but it was too expensive and she ended up with a Satellite. I picked up a second one, different model, along the way.
I'm lucky my Toshiba paving slabs have functional drives. However, I am planning to convert them to solid state storage. A DOM is the obvious solution here and there are new manufacture ones out there. I got one that is 2GB, perfect for a DOS machine, which the non-MMX one is going to be whenever I get back around to it.
That sound is one I've only heard once. I bought some used enterprise drives a few months ago. One of them got damaged in transit. It was a BB size dent in the top cover. It was enough to contact the platter and made a similar grinding noise. In fact the drive behaved similarly - it would spin up and down, trying to initialize, all the while attempting to self-disassemble.
My experience with Win95 was a pirated late beta which I used for years on my 486 because it wasn't networked. Never had a single compatibility issue. I eventually upgraded to a Pentium and Win 98 and eventually a P120MMX which I used until fall 2001 when I bought a P4 Vaio desktop. The P120MMX just wouldn't run XP. Not really. Not in a useable fashion. I was starting college and being able to run XP was required.
First thing to check with a lot of Toshibas specifically from this time, if they power on but don't POST, is that they have a good hard drive fitted. Quite a few of them won't display anything on the screen without one. It's not a slam dunk, especially since they used NiMH CMOS batteries (and backup batteries as well in the case of larger machines) that will often have caused damage. The other issue with Librettos is that they are getting quite brittle at this point in time - especially Japanese models.
One interesting thing is that it seems to have been possible, back in the day, to purchase a new bottom chassis piece that was extended to accommodate a taller HDD - I found a 50CT from Japan that had been altered in such a way, and it had a different way to release the battery and PCMCIA cards as well. Sadly that one does seem to be dead, and its screen is also faulty.
The brittleness is probably due to a mixture of humidity and heat, the most yellowed plastics I see come from Japan to the point it turns into an uglishly deep orange color. Might also explain the cataracts, if that’s the problem with your particular unit’s screen
Thank you for covering this. I bought a 50CT and a 70CT when they were introduced and this reminded me to dig them out and to my surprise they both still function. I rarely used them except for checking email when I used to fly for a living and was limited on to a single small carry-on when flying jump-seat or comp., and they were (still are?) brilliant devices. They have a most of the accessories and some extras, and for me taking up closet space if anyone if interested.
Great info on the CF cards, that was super helpful!
I remember this kind of thing from when I was a kid. However, I lived under my grandfather's roof, and he was a big tech nerd who steered me towards products that we could work on ourselves (like our desktop) that didn't obsolete so fast. It's crazy how far mobile tech has come, now. I could theoretically perform my job entirely from my phone, if it came down to it. I would *suffer*, but I could do it.
great content as always, thanks dude, loved it
Adjusted for inflation, that's a little over $3900 today. Ouch.
Laptops were NOT cheap back then! Especially small ones.
Some of the higher end notebooks were around $7,000 and that was before accessories. Computing wasn't cheap back then at all.
Man that takes me back. I remember being excited about the 95 release. That summer before release I managed to write 22 floppies at work from the Beta release we had. Took forever to install but I was in love. It was great upgrade over 3.11
Opening TH-cam and seeing a TDNC video feels better than Xmas.
This was an amazing video, thank you so much for sharing!
I repaired quite a few of those machines back in the 90s! They were never fun to work on but they were fairly amazing little laptops for their time.
I mostly used IDE to SD card and it works on most retro laptops. Plus my trusty T430 has SD reader card and it just works out of the box.
Btw, I love your work, man!
My dad got a 70CT if I remember correctly, and I absolutely adore the MIDI sounds it makes. My childhood gaming experience was, although not varied, pretty enjoyable due to this little machine.
Still can’t believe I binned a 50CT about 5 years ago. Mistaken belief that I can’t hang on to every old bit of “junk”. It wasn’t pristine, but it was presentable. Argg…. 😢😢😢
I loved my 50ct and my 70ct both were incredibly tiny for the power. I used to say they were about the size of a VHS cassette, however that reference is becoming less and less relevant. I used to have a tecra 8000 as my daily driver. Even with the libretto and tecra docking stations on my desk it wasn’t crowded. I also remember having a pcmcia cd or dvd drive and watching movies on the libretto. Great video thanks for sharing. It brings back happy memories
I had a 50CT as my workshop PICAXE programming system about 15 years ago, was very cool but yeah, a pain to use for anything serious without an external keyboard and mouse which kinda defeated the point. Back when they were new I managed Toshiba Australia’s ISD (personal computer division) website including weekly updates to their dealer channel pricing system and while they weren’t the most expensive systems offered (Tectras were usually north of AUD$5K) they definitely weren’t cheap here, costing a good premium over the entry level Satellite systems with similar specs. We had a lot of Toshiba notebooks at our company (presumably a contra deal with the company) and my development manager used a maxed out 50CT as his primary system, the full docking station in his office which looked awesome but I wonder how practical it really was. I guess he just lived in Office typing out proposals and looking at spreadsheets. Still amazing to see how far they could shrink down the tech an otherwise full featured laptop… in the end its main compromises were all due to the fact they made it too small 😂
Great video. At different points in time (in the 90's/2000's) i landed a 50CT, a Contura Aero 4/25 and an EEE PC 4G. Wish i could have held on to them, all were lovely machines in their own way. The EEE PC 4G in particular was great for all i needed on the go, only "hard" part was getting an nLite'ed XP on it. But the one i truly lusted after was a client's Vaio PCG-C1. It was so beautiful...
I have a 120CT and its a great little machine. Mine was given to me because it wouldn't startup at all, turns out the CMOS battery was dead keeping the machine from booting. Mine uses the 1.8" ZIF hard drive, and I replaced that with a CF card and adapter, those things are a godsend!
Happy memories! My very first laptop was a used 100CT which I did actually use as my main laptop from 2000-2002! I installed a WiFi PCMCIA card, overclocked the 166MHz CPU to 233MHz, maxed-out the RAM to 64MB IIRC, and I installed a 20GB hard drive - but the BIOS would only recognize 8.3GB, which I decided was good enough. Surprisingly, I found Toshiba's integrated mouse solution totally sufficient once I got the hang of it. We got a lot of use out of that tiny laptop for those two years!
Every video of yours makes me feel old, lol. But, I am also very nostalgic and love looking into my/the past. The early-mid 90's were just an awesome time for personal computing. So many attempts to make a computer smaller and portable. Most were too gimmicky and/or stunk. But we wouldn't have these wonderful video reminders now would we?!
That IO Adapter, and potentially the Libretto itself, must've originally been sold in Australia, as it has Toshiba Australia's ACN (Australian Company Number) on it.
I REALLY wanted one of these after seeing an ad for CompUSA for them. I thought this was the ultimate portability laptop and I thought this was where laptops were going to go. I thought we'd all carry these in our pockets, they would eventually be thin and light and you'd "always have your computer with you". I guess...I was sort of right?
I had the 100 model late in 2002, and I loved it. I swapped out the drive for a larger one from (I think...) a G3 iBook and installed SuSE Linux on it with the Windowmaker window manager for my desktop. I did a chunk of my PhD on it using AbiWord while I was staying in Berlin for about three months with my girlfriend at the time, and what was nice was that I could stuff it in my duffel-coat pocket to go do some work in a cafe while she was studying. I even found a cheap PCMCIA wifi card to send work back to my supervisor.
It got stolen about six months after we got back home, and I genuinely felt I had lost a friend. It was a pain to get set up properly - especially the screen resolution - but once it was there it was more than capable as an everyday workhorse for what I needed. Occasionally I think of getting another, just for nostalgia, but then I see the prices these days and realise that nostalgia isn't worth that much... 🤨
Love your channel!
I bought my first two old macs.
Performa 5200 (80€ for both, I guess 70$).
Both work perfectly. I even got a original packaging with styrofoam inside for one with all the original papers plus original receipts!!
In the price two StyleWriter and a Scanner (cannon) were included. Best buy in my life.
my dad owned one of these. He used it as his main driver. I'd have to dig around, but I'm sure we still have it somewhere!
Daves garage has the interview with Chen about the pickup truck full of software from Egghead. Also thanks for tipping me off to Free Geek Twin Cities - I've donated a ton of stuff, and they hooked me up with a 486 box I was looking for.
My Sony Vaio PCG-C1XN was the best in this class. P1 200 MMX, 64MB RAM, Win98SE and MS-DOS 6.22 dual boot. I had every accessory for it, including USB CD-ROM and floppy drives, docking station, spare removable batteries, and the Sony Vaio leather carry case. The screen was much larger with thinner bezels and a rotating webcam on the top.. It had an integrated SB16 with stereo speakers. It ran Quake and Quake II flawlessly, albeit in software mode.
As a Twin Cities resident, seeing the Free Geek section caught me off guard. Awesome work, Free Geek is an awesome place.
I used one of these adapters but I paired it with a microSD => CF card adapter, which in my experience ALWAYS works in fixed disk mode (not 100% on that but every adapter I've bought has just worked).
Great video. Though I had a surreal moment around the 12 minute mark my ears tuned into the background music...
This thing has saved my butt so many times, especially for 5v Smartcards, as you can find readers that work for it, while modern computers have basically no 5v readers.
That drive sounded like the Tardis.
I loved my Libretto! I was a young network admin back when they came out and used them as my daily driver. If Toshiba came out with a new one I would probably buy one on the spot! 😁
I used to work on these laptops during the late 90's (Toshiba Returns/Repairs) in the U.K. They are brilliant little machines, and I really wish I had kept one of them now.
Love the form factor!
The first time I saw a Libretto, it was running NT server. I ended up getting a 100CT in the very early 2000's and used it for many years. I still have it.
I have 2x 70cts and an upgraded 100ct with a parallel port 'Backback' CDROM drive which is what I used to get Windows running again. The DOS version of Retro City Rampage looks gorgeous on them.
The other option I've used is a PC-card to CF adapter which while it can't boot from them - it can see them in DOS and use that to shuttle data around.
hey Colin, I am a proud owner of a Libretto 50CT, even with azerty-keyboard (for Belgium), which runs Windows 98 on a regular harddrive. I also have the two styles of docking station, although it's a pity that the small one does not have the mouse connection ... I have also 2 floppydisk drives, but unfortunately they don't seem to work. I also own world's smallest printer, the Citizen PN60i, which can print via IR ... these are so fun to use ... if only could find a way to connect the computer to the internet. Very nice video btw !!!
You can use a serial mouse!
I love these tiny things too!
Have a great day, homie 👊
I couldn't tell you where anymore, but I could swear i've seen one or two of these at some point. Probably in the storage cabinet of the classroom I took Hardware and Networking in.
A new option I have found that seems to work good for replacing hdd drives with ssd's in older laptops is a msata to ide adapter, or a m.2 sata to ide adapter.
I put a 32gb msata drive in a old Fujitsu laptop I have and it is insanely fast (for what it is) and works great. I had a cf drive in it before and it was not much faster than a regular hdd.
I also use this strategy, it works well in many applications, including for instance IDE ZIF to mSATA.
Watching this on a Satellite S70-A. My first machine was a 1910CS (486sx-33, win 3.1), and my smallest is a Portege 620CT (P-100, Win95), which still works, but saw little use as it was just a secondhand computer-show novelty I picked up just to play around with (I fired up a session of Jazz Jackrabbit on it just for giggles within the last few years).
The 1910cs might work if I find a working power brick (or universal one that can power it).
This channel is awesome
My colleagues and I fitted dozens of these little babies into out-of-hours Doctor's cars here in the UK, back in the late 90s.
Mobile data courtesy of a Paknet radio pad, and hard copy via a choice of 40 or 80 column printers.
A far cheaper option than a full blown mobile data terminal, with remote screen and keyboard. Plus, the Doctor could take the computer out of the car, enter whatever they needed in comfort, then transmit it when they get back in the car.
The cheapest option was just the radio pad and a printer, with receive-only capability.
I was given an used Libretto 50CT by my uncle when I was in elementary school (before they became collector’s items). I still to this day wish I still had it.
You followed me down the path of putting in a CF card in one of these a few years ago, I had fun with getting a password removed too and no HDD or a CF adapter that would fit!
Great stuff. The only CF cards I've found that work reliably are the Western Digital SiliconeDrive II PATA CF Cards.
I've got two, both with damaged screens, one with a dead power supply. One day I'll get another with a good screen and make one Libretto to rule them all! Lol~
I've always been attracted to small things and when I saw this one day so long ago I knew I had to have it, well it took like 10 years to actually get one. It was just so crazy that this was so small but a full actual computer. Ofc so were DOS Palmtops but to have a full color LCD in a package not that much larger was crazy.
I've seen that copy-to-hard disk trick done back in the day when I found installers for Windows 98 lying dormant on a bunch of PCs at the school my brother and I attended some twenty years ago.
I was always into the Macs back then when I was a kid/teen, but I can definitely remember seeing these in stores when our family would to CompUSA or ComputerCity or Future Shop so our folks could look for new educational software since we were homeschooled. It was wild seeing how small some of the systems got back then but its hard not to laugh now.
I remember manually formatting disks to DMF and then copying the ;CAB files off a CD to make a backup. The disks I worked for installation!
There was soo much innovation and technology advanced at a breakneck pace back then. It was a magical time.
Really love the iconic design!!
Always providing top notch content when I least expect it. I've got my 50CT Libretto that's fully functioning (albeit needs a new nub something fierce) and I'd love to upgrade the hard drive to the one in your video. I'd like to ask, would it be possible for you to share your file for the 3D printed bracket? Alternatively, I've be more than happy to pay for one (including shipping). Thanks for all you do!
Not sure if I'd have a use for this computer, yet it looks awsome 😊
Saw a lot of these when I worked for Tokyo Broadcasting in their NYC office in Mid 90's, also saw IBM Japan only laptops that were similar.
At one time, I had the Win95 Beta floppy disks and then the Win95 release floppy disks. What a grind.
This one sparked a lifelong fondness for super tiny full-fledged PCs in me. :-D
the keyword for findng fixed disk mode CF cards is "industrial CF card" as they're often used in industrial applications as a fixed boot disk.
JUST remembered I ordered one off eBay a few weeks ago...gotta check on that....
love getting new and old pc and others things like this one every time it cost so much now and back then you get these on stores and put them on layway, It way out of my budget thanks god i didn't waste my money now and then i love this guy-DLH
I miss the "hey everyone it's Colin, how's it going"
This is a amazing revolutionaire product for the time!
I had never even heard of this Toshiba
Man, I would have killed for one of these in high school. I was actually the first with a laptop, but it was more of a 'laptop.' An NEC MobilePro 780, which is pretty similar in size to the Libretto, but was lighter, thinner, and had an RISC chip and ran Windows CE. I just needed Word, since I used it for homework and note taking at school, had a cut-down version of Office on it in the firmware.
I feel like a pioneer now, seeing kids with Chromebooks, which are kind of an analog to that MobilePro from my era. Both are cut-down computers with less versatility than a full-fat computer, but are easier to carry and generally do better on battery.
I had to quite literally search through catalogs with slimline hard drive models released by Toshiba, ended up finding an equivalent to what wouldve been in the 70CT (2.1GB) for my 50CT since it was also cited as the max capacity detectable by the BIOS while being the only available for sale at a decent(ish) price during the time I looked. I had the original caddy with its metal bracket I wanted to still use, so CF cards were out the question (especially since the adapter itself would need a pin to be cut-off besides requiring complete disassembly to access).
I recently repaired an HP Mini 110, the 3130 model. It's the first sub 10 laptop I've seen thats actually bearable to work on lol.
I did an mSATA swap with these; the mSATA to IDE adapter from Ableconn worked but others did not and caused odd instability and failures to boot. I recently acquired the dock and can now use my PS/2 KVM to swap between machines. Though there is an odd issue there where the KVM doesn’t like 640x480. Thus it boots to Win 98SE with the display on the laptop and then I swap it to a higher resolution and use Toshiba tools to set the video output to external only. Also if you don’t have a PC Card cd drive you can get models with a parallel port.
Could you please share the updated HD bracket? 🙏
i always wanted one of those librettos with the transmetta chip
I have a 50CT all original with manuals and the larger docking station. There's also a storage palmrest that came with the docking station that I have as well. I would have just given it all to you had I known you'd do a video on it....
The white and blue CF cards from aliexpress work great in Dos, the ones that say "Digital Rerory Card" on the label