Compaq LTE Elite 4/75CX

[Fibonacci]

I was cleaning out my aunt's house yesterday when I ran across this old Compaq laptop shoved in the back of her office closet, crammed underneath mounds and mounds of rat shit and hoarder garbage. To my surprise, it's fully intact.

Top:

Spoiler

Back:

Spoiler

Front:

Spoiler

Keyboard:

Spoiler

CATT:

Spoiler

There were printer ink finger prints smudged all over the keyboard, but I was able to get them off with wet Q-tips; the grey lines on the top are just regular wear-and-tear. So it still looks pretty good. Finding it in my aunt's house, I expected the panels to be cracked/falling/missing, but no. The keys stick just a little but still work, and the computer still has its power plug and original carrying case. More importantly, however, the computer still works. I plugged it in and Windows 3.1 came up with no problem.

I still haven't fully tested the floppy drive. In the carrying case, I found a floppy that I think might have been the boot disk; I can't tell because the writing on the label has faded away. When I put the disk in the drive, the drive starts up like a dremel drill and then a few seconds later the computer says the drive is empty. I have a few floppies of my dad's we've kept stored away that I might try - assuming they're compatible. But from the looks of things, the floppy drive might be damaged.

If I can manage to get the drive working, however, I have the Zork 1-3 DOS executables that I would definitely like to install.

 

[Horse Boots]

That's an awesome find! Finding old technology in relative's houses is always so fun. I once found an old Compaq Portable at my grandparents' place. The thing still turned on, but the boot disk was missing so we couldn't really do anything with it. I also found some Texas Instruments computer in their basement once.

Anyway, back to your find. It's crazy to me that that was supposed to be a laptop back in the day. Look at how thick that thing is, and then turn around and look at, say, a MacBook Air. Crazy how far technology has come.

Keep us informed as to what sort of stuff you do with this thing. I'm excited to hear more.

EDIT: can't believe I forgot to ask, but what model year is this and what are the specs of it? HDD size? Amount of RAM? Processor clock speed? What's the diagonal measurement of the screen and what is the screen resolution? Again, it'll be really interesting to compare that against modern day computer specs.

 

[Fibonacci]

Display: 640x480x256
ROM Date: 07/19/95
Processor: Intel DX4 @ 75 MHz
RAM: 8 MB
HDD: 512 MB extended memory
Pre-installed OS: Windows 3.1 16-bit

Compare that to what I'm using now:

Display: 1920x1080
Processor: Intel i5 @ 3 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
SSD: 256 GB
Pre-installed OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Technology almost 20 years apart from each other.

Also: I tested the diskette drive with my dad's old Kinko's floppies and the computer still doesn't read a disk in the drive. So there goes my plans with Zork. However, batch programming will be pretty fun on this computer. I wrote a simple Hello World batch file to make sure DOS worked and it does.

 

[Horse Boots]

Display: 640x480x256
ROM Date: 07/19/95
Processor: Intel DX4 @ 75 MHz
RAM: 8 MB
HDD: 512 MB extended memory
Pre-installed OS: Windows 3.1 16-bit

Compare that to what I'm using now:

Display: 1920x1080
Processor: Intel i5 @ 3 GHz
RAM: 8 GB
SSD: 256 GB
Pre-installed OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Technology almost 20 years apart from each other.

Also: I tested the diskette drive with my dad's old Kinko's floppies and the computer still doesn't read a disk in the drive. So there goes my plans with Zork. However, batch programming will be pretty fun on this computer. I wrote a simple Hello World batch file to make sure DOS worked and it does.

That's crazy how far things have come. If time travel were possible I would totally want to take a modern computer back to the '90s just to blow someone's mind. Bummer about the floppy drive, though. Are there any ports on it that would let you hook up an external floppy drive? Zork must be played, I say!

 

[Fibonacci]

UPDATE: I'm having trouble finding a manual describing the proper syntax I should use for the Win31-supported batch language; but I found the Qbasic IDE listed in the DOS, so now I'm writing a text adventure programme in BASIC.

 

[The Hunter]

UPDATE: I'm having trouble finding a manual describing the proper syntax I should use for the Win31-supported batch language; but I found the Qbasic IDE listed in the DOS, so now I'm writing a text adventure programme in BASIC.

Sorry, I'm only certified in CATT. I can't help you with anything else.

 

[Arkangel]

Why was DeagleDad banned? Does anyone know?

 

[Surtur]

....what

 

[The Dude]

Why was DeagleDad banned? Does anyone know?

Well played, sir. *Golf clap*

 

[Zim]

Now that there's one of them zombie killin' laptops. I bet it done would bludgeon all real good like!

 

[KatsuKitty]

UPDATE: I'm having trouble finding a manual describing the proper syntax I should use for the Win31-supported batch language; but I found the Qbasic IDE listed in the DOS, so now I'm writing a text adventure programme in BASIC.

post your best SCREEN 12 stick figure of chris's bent duck. i'll go first: