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Philips Magnavox Metalis/SX Help

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super-sama

Experienced Member
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Jan 27, 2008
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I recently acquired a Philips Magnavox Metalis/SX laptop with no AC adapter from a friend who got it at a thrift shop for 6 bucks. the model under the bezel says PCL304, yet the only thing i'm able to turn up is an old ad for said laptop from around 1991. it has a 386SX of an unknown speed and an unknown amount of memory, but I'm all too sure it's under 16MB as the 386SX can only use up to 16MB if memory serves. it has a 40MB Conner drive, I didn't get a good look at the model number but I'm pretty sure it's MFM or RLL, but it's a biggun nonetheless.

Anyone have any info or own one of these? manuals? Google seriously has nothing on this model.: (
 
A laptop in a 386 class with an MFM or RLL drive? That doesn't sound right to me. MFM/RLL is 8086-286 technology. I suppose it's possible, but during the time where MFM/RLL disks were the main technology, the drives were also 5.25" (though I do have a 3.5" one from a PS/2 model 25) and laptops came with dual floppies instead. I'd like to see some pics, especially if I'm wrong, because it would be quite interesting.
 
Raven said:
A laptop in a 386 class with an MFM or RLL drive? That doesn't sound right to me. MFM/RLL is 8086-286 technology. I suppose it's possible, but during the time where MFM/RLL disks were the main technology, the drives were also 5.25" (though I do have a 3.5" one from a PS/2 model 25) and laptops came with dual floppies instead. I'd like to see some pics, especially if I'm wrong, because it would be quite interesting.
Click to expand...

I'll get some pictures sometime up today or tomorrow, as it is a very interesting one. I'll be getting the model number first though...

a-whoop, look at that. I'll have pics up in JUST a second. in the meantime, here's a link to the Stason page for the hard drive in this thing... it's a 3.5" Slimline IDE/XT Conner 4044XT which uses an RLL 2/7 recording method.

http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-drives-hdd/conner/CP-4044XT-42MB-3-5-SSL-IDE-XT.html

and some pictures. 1280x960, sorry for the quality but as I cannot find my camera I used my phone.

<-- the Model/Serial/FCC ID... Might come in handy...?
<-- the power adapter port. I need to find one or fabricate one. in the end I might just solder two wires onto where the HUEG battery connects to and hook it up to a universal power adapter. that'd work, right? the battery is 4.8v 5000 mA/h. if this is the case what would I need?


there's the keyboard. it has a nice clicky feel to it but I believe the F1-12 keys and such use a different type of spring mechanism.

and finally...

the insides. HDD on the left, connects via ribbon cable, and nthe floppy on the right, which I can safely say is 1.44MB/720k.

If you need any more info, i can provide it. the memory is also weird but I can't take a picture at the moment of that due to bad lighting.

also, Happy Easter to all who celebrate it!
 
Wow, a full-sized 3.5" desktop HDD in a laptop - that's a rarity in and of itself (in my experience, anyway, which discludes 286 and 386 based laptops).

Can't see the connections too well in that pic, is it two separate cables + power? That usually indicates MFM/RLL interface (though they can be combined into one wide cable). Although you already linked to the HDD info's page, and XT-IDE is pretty rare (it's 8-bit IDE). The only machine I have that uses XT-IDE is my Tandy 1000 RL/HD - take good care of that drive, because you won't find a replacement too easily.
 
Raven said:
Wow, a full-sized 3.5" desktop HDD in a laptop - that's a rarity in and of itself (in my experience, anyway, which discludes 286 and 386 based laptops).

Can't see the connections too well in that pic, is it two separate cables + power? That usually indicates MFM/RLL interface (though they can be combined into one wide cable). Although you already linked to the HDD info's page, and XT-IDE is pretty rare (it's 8-bit IDE). The only machine I have that uses XT-IDE is my Tandy 1000 RL/HD - take good care of that drive, because you won't find a replacement too easily.
Click to expand...

the problem is I don't even know if it works. it's only two cables, it seems, and I believe one also gives it power. I'll have to take a look into this later.

as for the power, I still need to know about that. again, 4.8v at 5000mA/h. what type of adapter would I be looking for for such a conversion? I'm guessing 5v at something since I do have those.
 
I'm not very good with electronics on the low-level, so I can't really help ya with that. My two cents though - If you go to radioshack and ask around, don't trust a god damn thing they say - they fried a Xircom adapter of mine saying that the polarity is irrelevant.
 
Raven said:
I'm not very good with electronics on the low-level, so I can't really help ya with that. My two cents though - If you go to radioshack and ask around, don't trust a god damn thing they say - they fried a Xircom adapter of mine saying that the polarity is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

they probably assumed the device was asking for AC power, in which case you'd need an AC to AC adaptor, not an AC to DC as per usual. they take 12v 300mA or more up to a tolerable 1000mA if I'm not mistaken. you can use a Linksys or Netgear AC adapter made within the last 5 years that does 12v DC 1000mA or less and use that fine with them. I've chosen to move away from those and use good ol' mouse port power. much safer and doesn't hog up electricity :D

the laptop is off to the side however until I can get more information on electrical input.
 
super-sama said:
I might just solder two wires onto where the HUEG battery connects to and hook it up to a universal power adapter. that'd work, right? the battery is 4.8v 5000 mA/h. if this is the case what would I need?
Click to expand...
If that "universal power adapter" was regulated (output voltage remains same irrespective of amount of current drawn) then I would agree. If you use an UNregulated 5 Vdc power source (such as an unregulated AC adapter), there could be periods where say, 7 Vdc, could be supplied instead of 5 Vdc. For all we know, the 'receiving' circuity (circuitry supplied by the battery) may only be designed to tolerate up to say, 6 Vdc. Best to play safe in this scenario and use a regulated supply.

POWER REQUIREMENT

The "5000 mA/h" rating on the battery only informs us of roughly how long the battery could supply current for, if we knew the current consumption at 4.8 Vdc.

Your first photo provides good information. The label has two ratings: "7.5VDC 1.4A" and "5.6VDC 2.4A". Maybe the AC adapter for the 115 Vac world had an output of "7.5VDC 1.4A" and the AC adapter for the 230/240 Vac world had an output of "5.6VDC 2.4A" (or the other way around). Maybe Philips was thinking ahead, thinking that the owner may lose the AC adapter, and providing a range of possible inputs.

"7.5VDC 1.4A" (consumption = 10.5 Watts)
"5.6VDC 2.4A" (consumption = 13.5 Watts)

For the purpose of what we are doing (calculating approx. maximum power consumption of the unit, minus the battery charging circuitry), we can use the best case, i.e. we pretend that the adapter supplied with your laptop was a "7.5VDC 1.4A" one. So the laptop could at times draw up to 10 Watts from the AC adapter. The battery charging circuitry itself will be consuming some power, but I don't feel comfortable putting a figure to that.

So I think that 10 Watts is a good 'safe' figure to use, and that means that your 5 Vdc power source to the battery compartment area needs to be able to supply up to 2A.
 
modem7 said:
So I think that 10 Watts is a good 'safe' figure to use, and that means that your 5 Vdc power source to the battery compartment area needs to be able to supply up to 2A.
Click to expand...

I believe I can do that.
It seems Radioshack has an Enercell AC adapter that'll give ~6-12v at a maximum of 2.5A.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3875404

SO before I take the plunge, since I want to get this thing working as soon as possible, would this be what I would generally need? If such is the case I could probably solder the wires onto the adapter port in the back too... I doubt the battery holds a charge anymore but I'd like to be practical with the modification.
 
super-sama said:
I believe I can do that. It seems Radioshack has an Enercell AC adapter that'll give ~6-12v at a maximum of 2.5A.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...ductId=3875404
Click to expand...

It's regulated, but it is 6 Vdc rather than 5 Vdc.

Your 4.8 Vdc battery is probably NiCad, consisting of 4 x 1.2 volt cells. With those cells in good condition, and fully charged, they could have up to 1.4 Vdc on each of them (source: various sites on Internet). So your 4.8 Vdc battery would measure about 5.6 Vdc (4 x 1.4 Vdc) in that scenario. So we know at this point that the engineers have designed the immediate circuitry that the battery supplies power to, to be capable of handing up to 5.6 Vdc.

NiCads are charged by supplying a certain current for a certain time. It's done by current regulation - the charging circuitry adjusts the voltage supplied to the battery so that the current is maintained at a particular value. And there are different charging algorithms. When the battery is near full charge, to maintain the charging current, the charger must be supplying a voltage that exceeds 5.6 Vdc (4 x 1.4 Vdc). Whether in practice that is say, 5.65 Vdc or 5.8 Vdc or whatever, I don't know. Maybe someone with experience with NiCad charging will comment.

So all I'm prepared to say is that the immediate circuitry that the battery supplies power to, will be capable of handing up to 5.6 Vdc. Will it handle 6 Vdc? I don't know.

Unless someone else has knowledgeable comments, I recommend that you play safe and look for a regulated power supply of between 5 and 5.6 V dc, that can supply up to 2 amps.
 
modem7 said:
It's regulated, but it is 6 Vdc rather than 5 Vdc.

Your 4.8 Vdc battery is probably NiCad, consisting of 4 x 1.2 volt cells. With those cells in good condition, and fully charged, they could have up to 1.4 Vdc on each of them (source: various sites on Internet). So your 4.8 Vdc battery would measure about 5.6 Vdc (4 x 1.4 Vdc) in that scenario. So we know at this point that the engineers have designed the immediate circuitry that the battery supplies power to, to be capable of handing up to 5.6 Vdc.

NiCads are charged by supplying a certain current for a certain time. It's done by current regulation - the charging circuitry adjusts the voltage supplied to the battery so that the current is maintained at a particular value. And there are different charging algorithms. When the battery is near full charge, to maintain the charging current, the charger must be supplying a voltage that exceeds 5.6 Vdc (4 x 1.4 Vdc). Whether in practice that is say, 5.65 Vdc or 5.8 Vdc or whatever, I don't know. Maybe someone with experience with NiCad charging will comment.

So all I'm prepared to say is that the immediate circuitry that the battery supplies power to, will be capable of handing up to 5.6 Vdc. Will it handle 6 Vdc? I don't know.

Unless someone else has knowledgeable comments, I recommend that you play safe and look for a regulated power supply of between 5 and 5.6 V dc, that can supply up to 2 amps.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's made of 4 D batteries, and what looks like some sort of fuse or something on the side, as it needs to be dropped in at a certain angle or the side door won't close... which is why I also thought to try 4 Ds instead as a backup plan. The battery itself looks to be in great condition with no leaking acid or whatnot, which tells me the original owner (whose name, address and phone number are on a label on the bottom) probably took good care of it. Speaking of the owner and such, I also recently had a talk with linemanduke about this, he said the same drive was in his Compaq Portable 486, which leads me to believe I might get more information about it from a current owner of said luggable.

It just so happens my brother has a box of Ds in his room he'll never use ever. so, I'm going to try that now... will post results later.

EDIT: 4 D batteries powers it. it doesn't POST though... I'm gonna pop it back open to look for a CMOS battery of some sort that needs to be changed. the HDD doesn't turn on either, so no knowing if it works or not.
 
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modem7 said:
If those are 'standard' batteries, then you've just answered the "Will it handle 6 volts?" question, because 4 x 1.5V = 6V
Click to expand...

yes, I know. again, it turns on but does not POST. I'm going to be taking it apart looking for a battery shortly after writing this post.
 
Hey, I know it's been 5 years, but I've come to a computer similar to yours and I wanted to know if you were able to make it work or any kind of information you may have got after the last post.

I'll be surprised if you answer after 5 years
 
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