bob@cs.su.oz (Bob Kummerfeld) (06/02/91)
I have an old Toshiba T1000 (512kb memory, 720kb floppy), bought several years ago it is probably almost worthless now. I use it occasionally and it's still useful so I don't want to junk it. Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade the floppy drive to 1.4Meg and increase the memory size? Any other upgrades available? Bob. Bob.
creasyg@bionette.CGRB.ORST.EDU (Glen L. Creasy) (06/04/91)
In article <2486@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> bob@cluster.cs.su.oz (Bob Kummerfeld) writes: >I have an old Toshiba T1000 (512kb memory, 720kb floppy), bought several >years ago it is probably almost worthless now. I use it occasionally and >it's still useful so I don't want to junk it. > >Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade the floppy drive to 1.4Meg >and increase the memory size? Any other upgrades available? > I've had a T1000 for over 2 1/2 years, and while it's slow and large, there's still nothing like it on the market (when are they going to make us an 8088, 8"x11"x1", 3lb, DOS machine that has 4megs RAM and a 6 hour battery life? Who needs a 386 to tote around?) I remember looking around in magazines soon after I got it, and I saw a write up on a company that would install backlighting ($295) and a battery upgrade ($80 -adds 4 oz. Don't know how much the backlighting adds). 'Course, for that kind of money.....:-) The company is (was): Axonix Corp. 2257 S. 1100 East St. #2C Salt Lake City, UT 84106 (801)466-9797 Have no idea if it's still around. I've often thought of upgrades that I would like (DOS 3.3, 1.44 Mb drive, etc.), but then I think, nahhhhh. Why bother? I really *would* like a memory expansion card bigger than 768K, though. -Glen -purveyor of useless information... I can see myself running, but I'm standing still -(Glen creasyg@ I can hear myself screaming, but there's no sound bionette.cgrb. When I wake up crying, life brings me down orst.edu) But it's not worth losing, until it's found --The Fixx
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) (06/04/91)
In article <2486@cluster.cs.su.oz.au> bob@cluster.cs.su.oz (Bob Kummerfeld) writes: >I have an old Toshiba T1000 (512kb memory, 720kb floppy), bought several >years ago it is probably almost worthless now. I use it occasionally and >it's still useful so I don't want to junk it. > >Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade the floppy drive to 1.4Meg >and increase the memory size? Any other upgrades available? > >Bob. > >Bob. The only two things Toshiba made for it were an internal modem (unique to the T1000, not compatible with any other Toshiba modem slot), and the 768K card. This card has 768K of quasistatic RAM, which can be configured as backfill up to 640K, expanded memory (EMS) or as a nonvolitile RAM drive, or a mix of all three. I found that not having this memory to be quite painful. My system is configured to have all 768K as a RAM drive, it's rather like have a rather small, but fast hard drive. I've seen the card for sale for about $250. Other companies such as Megahertz also made internal modems for it. Personally I use a Novation Parrot 1200 pocket modem when I want to be portable. A third party company had a backlight and battery upgrade. I don't remember offhand who offered it (Axonix?), I can dig it out of anyone is interested. The battery upgrade can be done by replacing the batteries with larger ones from Radio Shark. I've heard that they'll last 14 hours. It doesn't seem possible to upgrade any double density floppy controller to high density, unfortunatly. The next best thing would be to use one of the various data compression programs. Cubit and Stacker are two that use a device driver to up to double storage transparently, these are commercial. Pklite and xeq work on executables to decompress before execution and are shareware. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony Psion Mailing List subscriber submissions psion ----------\ the (human) moderator psion-owner -------+--@csd4.csd.uwm.edu subscriptions and file requests psion-request ----/
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) (06/08/91)
In article <1991Jun03.234250.17177@lynx.CS.ORST.EDU> creasyg@bionette.CGRB.ORST.EDU (Glen L. Creasy) writes: > >I remember looking around in magazines soon after I got it, and I saw >a write up on a company that would install backlighting ($295) and a >battery upgrade ($80 -adds 4 oz. Don't know how much the backlighting >adds). 'Course, for that kind of money.....:-) > >The company is (was): > Axonix Corp. > 2257 S. 1100 East St. #2C > Salt Lake City, UT 84106 > (801)466-9797 > >Have no idea if it's still around. Here's a recent number,800-866-9797. They still make portable, handheld hard drives at least. A review of the backlight upgrade years ago said that you had to send in your Toshiba, and they would use acid to eat off the reflective backing and replace it with an electroluminescent strip. As a result the upgrade may not be perfect, and as with most backlights of this type and age, the display almost requires the backlight to be readable. >I've often thought of upgrades that I would like (DOS 3.3, 1.44 Mb drive, >etc.), but then I think, nahhhhh. Why bother? I really *would* like a >memory expansion card bigger than 768K, though. Toshiba does seem to sell MS-DOS 3.3 for the T1000, it will eat up space on the hardRAMdrive (no ROM upgrade), so I've done without it. It seems the way to upgrade to a 1.44MB drive and more RAM is to get a T1000SE. Although the batteries only last a couple hours, at least you can stick in a fresh one when it runs down. For the moment, I'll wait until I can get a 386 for the same size and *price* :-), as my T1000. When I was shopping for memory for other laptops, I asked about T1000 memory. It seems that the T1000 is just too old, and too limited a market to justify making a larger RAM card for it. Considering the odd size, I would expect that at least a 1MB RAM card could be built. I'd certainly be interested in buying one. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony Psion Mailing List subscriber submissions psion ----------\ the (human) moderator psion-owner -------+--@csd4.csd.uwm.edu subscriptions and file requests psion-request ----/