Fwd: compaq's portable computer

From: Scott Stevens <sastevens_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Mon May 3 22:57:21 2004

On Mon, 3 May 2004 13:05:01 -0700 (PDT)
Fred Cisin <cisin_at_xenosoft.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 3 May 2004 MTPro_at_AOL.com wrote:
> > If anyone could help this woman out with the question of memory options for an original Compaq Portable, please do respond directly back to her, as well as to the list. Thanks, David
>
> That depends on what the question is. (NOT included)
> To get up to 640K: use a regular ISA card with memory.
> To get LIM/EMS: use an ISA LIM/EMS card.
> To meet RAM requirements for Windoze 3.10 or above: remove the entire
> contents of the case, and start with a different MB, and consider a
> different case.
>
> 3.00 is the highest version of Windoze that will run with it. But
> recommend switching to the Compaq EGA card for that.
>
 
I ran Windows 3.1 on frighteningly underpowered machines for a long time. My 8088 XT Clone ran Windows 3.1 in several configurations: With a 'hercules clone' monocrhome card, with a Paradise MGA card (cga emulation on a 9-pin mono monitor) and with a 64K IBM EGA card in Monochrome mode (best overall video resolution for Windows of above three configurations). Back then I don't remember _ever_ having a video monitor that actually had a case. I used cast-off monochrome monitors from dumb terminals that I wired 9 pin connectors onto, after figuring out which lines provided the seperate H/V sync. There was a very-slow-green-phosphor tube that I remember being my favorite for a long time. My chosen hardware to run Windows on back then wasn't the norm, nor was I being a good Wintel "wave-plastic-frantically-at-the-store" customer in doing so, but it worked for a long time. For fairly loose defintions of 'worked' of course.

You're likely correct about driver support for the Compaq Portable display. I sold a Portable III recently with a fresh install of Windows 1.03 on it, which suited that hardware fairly well.
Received on Mon May 03 2004 - 22:57:21 BST