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Amrel 386DX Laptop with Marstek M-105 Hand Scanner - free - pay shipping

G

GeoNomad

Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2016
Messages
31
Location
Santa Cruz, CA for now
I still remember my excitement when I ordered this computer. It was sooooo powerful and with the added bonus of a hand scanner interface. A lot of money, though!

The HD has been upgraded to 140 MB (Toshiba MK2124FC).

Amrel Ad.jpgMarstek-M-105.jpg

I fired it up and it looked good. I saw some things in the directories that were of interest. And then the LCD died - I suspect in the drivers as it still flickers and lights up, but looks like a TV out of sync.

So, I thought I would simply pull out the drive and use a USB to IDE adapter to grab the data. Hours of unscrewing later, I had the drive out - I had forgotten that it wasn't so easy back then.

But, for some reason, my USB to IDE adapter failed to work with any of my newer notebooks with this drive. No idea why.

So, I put it back together (sort of - leaving out many screws as I was in a hurry) and used the laptop with a monitor, which worked fine. So the computer and hard drive are working.

Found Windows 3.11 on there as well, which also runs.

Long and short, if you want this for parts, to repair, or just to experiment with, you can have it for shipping cost, about $20 in a large flat rate box.

The hand scanner is also available in its original box. Looks like it was never used. I would sell that separately if nobody wants it all together.

PM me if any interest.

Peter

BEAM.JPG

My old BEAM program running again.
 
Lol @ the scanner. "Marstek" is a whole new level of copycats. Not just that the name and package design is similar to Mustek - also the name is phonetically IDENTICAL. I wonder how many people went out being like

"My son wants a Mustek scanner".

"Ah yeah we have the Marstek M-105"

"That must be what he meant"...
 
1992: WEVE CHANGED OUR NAME BUT NOT OUR IMAGE Marstek Inc. is now Mustek Inc. But our high standards of quality and commitment to innovation remain unchanged.

https://goo.gl/4O227i

Marstek changed their name to Mustek.

I am thinking that Marstek was actually spun off from Mars (the same company that makes candy bars and used to make vending machines and gas pump computers), but that might be a foggy memory. My DRAM needs a refresh.

It seems logical as Mars Electronics also made dollar bill scanners, so they had the IP. Mars Electronics was sold by Mars Corp in 2013. Candy to vending machines to scanners and specialized computers. Interesting case of vertical integration.
 
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That explains a lot. For a long time I wondered why a company would want to identify with weasels (Latin "mustela", hence the family "mustelidae"). Makes more sense when viewed from the candy-bar aspect.
 
Oh wow, i really would not have expected that. Well i guess we can discuss about how clever that name change was. Bt yeah from Candy bars to scanners is quite a stretch, so maybe the company name was not top priority.
 
GeoNomad said:
So, I thought I would simply pull out the drive and use a USB to IDE adapter to grab the data. Hours of unscrewing later, I had the drive out - I had forgotten that it wasn't so easy back then.

But, for some reason, my USB to IDE adapter failed to work with any of my newer notebooks with this drive. No idea why.
Click to expand...

Most USB to IDE adapters are LBA (logical block addressing) only, not CHS (cylinder / head / sector), which your old hard drive is. The IDE controller on a motherboard would likely read it OK though, and there are some USB to IDE specifically designed to read CHS drives.
 
HoJoPo said:
Most USB to IDE adapters are LBA (logical block addressing) only, not CHS (cylinder / head / sector), which your old hard drive is. The IDE controller on a motherboard would likely read it OK though, and there are some USB to IDE specifically designed to read CHS drives.
Click to expand...

Yes, I suspected something of the sort. But not having any working hardware with a secondary IDE slot, there was nowhere to go. I also couldn't find jumper and CHS information the first time I looked, but I did find it on a deeper search. If there had been something important on the drive, I might have tried harder, but was really just curious before disposing of it all.

Thanks for the info!
 
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