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Monorail 7245 All-in-One

C

[Chris]

Experienced Member
Joined
Nov 8, 2013
Messages
83
Location
Corona, New York, United States
This is the third of recently acquired vintage computers from my workplace, a Monorail 7245 all-in-one. It used to be a rental prop as my workplace used to have a prop rental service until COVID-19 clusterf**ked our e-waste program (and the current location is in the process of being vacated, and us being furloughed for the time being until we find a new location and funding). This was the first that I brought home.

It was originally equipped with an AMD K5 75MHz (labeled as 5k86-P75), upgraded that to a 133MHz Pentium. Sports a 2GB Quantum Fireball HDD (thank god I had the HDD imaged with the factory Windows 95 install during its prop rental days in case someone needed to rent it as we had to sanitize the HDD whenever it returned), 48MB EDO RAM. The CMOS battery is pretty much non-existent (did it use a Dallas clock chip? I don't see a CR2032 battery holder). Has a quad-speed CD-ROM drive and a 3 ½" floppy drive, as well as an ISA ethernet card.

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It has its OEM Windows 95 "B" installed, uses an STN LCD panel with a native resolution of 800 x 600, Chips & Technologies 1 MB graphics, Crystal CS4232 audio chipset with a Crystal FM Synthesizer for MIDI. It had a pair of SAMSUNG 1W, 8 Ohm speakers but those were completely shot and sounded horrible anyway, so I replaced that with a pair of Harman-Kardon drivers which makes the sound more listenable. Here's the insides of the Monorail.

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[Chris] said:
The CMOS battery is pretty much non-existent (did it use a Dallas clock chip? I don't see a CR2032 battery holder).
Click to expand...

From: https://www.fixya.com/support/t8156990-monorail_model_7245_computer_from

"The Monorail PC is a compact all-in-one unit that was never designed to have user servicable parts. having said that, it has a very small 1/4 inch diameter battery that is soldered into the motherboard in the upper right corner, just on the other side of the microphone. The battery should be wrapped in a small yellow plastic shrink wrap."
 
Looks like it has an option for 512k more of video RAM via the holder above the SIMM slot.

Also looks like it had an option to install a COAST slot for COAST modules. I wonder if the slot was soldered on the board if it'd work. COAST modules give a modest performance increase, especially the 512k variant.
 
GiGaBiTe said:
Looks like it has an option for 512k more of video RAM via the holder above the SIMM slot.

Also looks like it had an option to install a COAST slot for COAST modules. I wonder if the slot was soldered on the board if it'd work. COAST modules give a modest performance increase, especially the 512k variant.
Click to expand...

I'm on the hunt for the slot as I have a 512K module. Also, the original HDD died and swapped out the speakers from one that came out of a dead beats pill speaker and it improved the sound fidelity significantly. A 1GB CF card now takes the original HDD's place. Also gonna try to add another 512K of video ram. Upgraded from the original K5-75 to a Pentium 200MHz (underclocked to 180MHz though)

 
LOL, I acquired 10 of these beasts back in the late 90's from someone who traded them for a 19" aluminum rack mount unit I had. I thought I was getting a good deal ... oh boy. As I remember they were very heavy (all metal construction) and a PITA to upgrade, but at least you could a little. I really did like the design of the unit for its space saving advantages but the thing that killed these little guys for me was the screen. Dual scan (passive matrix) screens were never the best but these used the bottom of the barrel LCD screens. I could never just get the brightness/contrast levels to work well with each other and the light bleed was horrible.

HOWEVER ... I would love to have another one today. I wish I would have held onto at least one. I remember selling them for around $150 a pop at the time so it wasn't a complete loss.
 
This has been on my shopping list for a while, before COVID. I have one of the Netpliance iOpeners that was converted to a full PC that I picked up cheap on ebay several years ago, and that got me looking into other computing devices with similar configurations.
 
I'm working on fixing up one of these right now. Do you know if 48MB is actually the max RAM the system will support? I have a couple of 32MB EDO SIMMS, but they're double-sided, and the way the slots are canted against the board I can't physically slot them in. Looking to see if I can arrange a swap for some single-sided ones. :)
 
Does anyone have details on the LCD used on this? I've got one of these and an debating on opening it up, and seeing if I can find an "upgrade" for it.
 
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