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The Epson Equity LT

A

abruno17

Experienced Member
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4104 Longworth Loop Kissimme, FL 34744
It does, but they are somewhat proprietary.
One of the two slots is typically used for a HDD controller for an internal 20mb drive.
The only cards I've ever seen for the other slot are modems, however the slots do seem to use the standard ISA pinout. It's just a much shorter footprint.
 
keury said:
It does, but they are somewhat proprietary.
One of the two slots is typically used for a HDD controller for an internal 20mb drive.
The only cards I've ever seen for the other slot are modems, however the slots do seem to use the standard ISA pinout. It's just a much shorter footprint.
Click to expand...
Here’s my next question has anyone made an adapter for them?
 
abruno17 said:
Here’s my next question has anyone made an adapter for them?
Click to expand...

No. It's been on my bucket list for a long time to try to build an xt-ide card for one, but it's not one of my strengths, so I haven't dedicated the time to try it.
I've talked to a couple people over the last few years that were interested as well, but it's such a limited audience it doesn't gain any steam.

I worked with the manufacturer of the MFM emulator (drem.info) and he was able to program that to work with the unique controller and cabling that the Epson LT uses, so there is an (expensive) alternative to the original HDD available. You do have to have the original controller. I have 2 of the emulators and can confirm they work well. Just as slow as the real thing and limited to 20mb.

If this is a project you're interested in, I have spare devices that I'm willing to sacrifice to failed testing. I just haven't had (made) the time to try to get the cards made.
 
keury said:
No. It's been on my bucket list for a long time to try to build an xt-ide card for one, but it's not one of my strengths, so I haven't dedicated the time to try it.
I've talked to a couple people over the last few years that were interested as well, but it's such a limited audience it doesn't gain any steam.

I worked with the manufacturer of the MFM emulator (drem.info) and he was able to program that to work with the unique controller and cabling that the Epson LT uses, so there is an (expensive) alternative to the original HDD available. You do have to have the original controller. I have 2 of the emulators and can confirm they work well. Just as slow as the real thing and limited to 20mb.

If this is a project you're interested in, I have spare devices that I'm willing to sacrifice to failed testing. I just haven't had (made) the time to try to get the cards made.
Click to expand...
I don’t need a hard drive per day. I’m cool with floppies. Believe me, I can swap floppy discs. I just want a working sound card.
 
abruno17 said:
I don’t need a hard drive per day. I’m cool with floppies. Believe me, I can swap floppy discs. I just want a working sound card.
Click to expand...
Here's the space you would have to work with if you wanted to try to build an extender to a full size 8 bit card slot, or if you wanted to build a card to put in the laptop. The xt-ide card is really the only one that I am familiar with, so if there's a 8-bit sound card design, cool... There is a power connector for the HDD controller on the back of the card, but it's not required for other cards. The HDD gets power over the ribbon cable directly from this card through those extra pins. It's only available in slot 1, but this is the only I marked up.

The screen isn't the best for gaming and the sound is pretty bad, but you can connect a cga monitor to it. I've successfully connected vga monitors with an adapter. There are 2 different monitors available. The most common one is the blue/white monochrome, but there is a rarer non-backlit flextwist? monitor that is virtually impossible to read. The blue/white is easy to read, but it is very sluggish.

With an external monitor, you're still stuck with the built in keyboard, but you can remove the laptop screen easily to get it out of the way.

The FDD is limited to 720k. Someone told me that they got a 1.44 working, but I have never been able to get one working in it and they weren't able to back up the claim.
 

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Hi, all. First post on VCFed. Recently added an Epson Equity LT to my collection. Bumping this thread with some answers and questions:

720 KB vs. 1.44 MB: I tried a couple of Gotek devices on my journey to running DOS. A 720 KB model with stock firmware didn't want to boot (despite trying numerous jumper settings, image vs. directory formatting, etc.) but a 1.44 MB-capable model with FlashFloppy+ works quite well so long as the image size remains limited to 720 KB. The machine didn't seem to know what to do with a 1.44 MB image so I'm with keury on this one and doubt the LT's internals can support HD capacity.

SSD replacement: So the DREM is truly the LT's only solid state hard disk replacement option? Haven't seen any other choices for MFM out there. The original HDD showed up DOA (as expected) and I immediately started researching alternatives. I'd sign up for an XT-IDE with the alternate ISA connector but I doubt +1 = critical mass here. The DREM looks amazing but for the relative price to get 20 MB of space I feel like I'd be pimping a Ford Festiva with a premier car audio installation.

Battery revival: While I got the lithium RTC/CMOS battery swapped out, I'm curious if there are any options for the system's NiCad(?) rechargable either in terms of a new pack or replacing the cells themselves. Searching for the part number led to either stores out of stock or outright dead links. Found some RC car batteries with similar power ratings but there are the size and connector form factors to contend with (assuming that'd even work). Less important than a HDD replacement but figured I'd ask.

Otherwise, the LT seems to be working well—on the home network with a Xircom PE3 and mTCP.
 
I just saw this thread. Some months ago I also obtained one. Although I think it is one. On the top it says "PC PORTABLE" but for the rest it looks like one: screen, keyboard, places of the dip-switches.

About that expansion slot: on the left side, opposite of the FDD, there is a little plate. Slightly movable but I don't think I can pop it out. Is this the place where the expansion slot can be found? Or does my laptop not have one and therefore this plate?

Thanks for any information!
 
I believe the Portable and LT are the same model (Q150A). My guess would be early models were called the Portable and then Epson adopted "LT" as the naming convention/prefix for its line of laptops.

The left side plate is hiding a 3.5" drive bay that is either empty or occupied by a hard disk. On models with dual internal FDDs, this plate would be absent and its place would be the second FDD. The plate slides out of you disassemble the machine (for those living dangerously, there are three screws in the top rear and five underneath whose removal will allow the separation of the top and bottom sections).

The two expansion slots are accessible in the back. If they are unoccupied the slots should be covered by blank metal faceplates; otherwise they may already be occupied by an MFM hard disk controller (which has a power switch on its faceplate) and/or a modem (with telephone jacks and maybe a serial port). From what I've read in the manuals there aren't really a whole lot of other expansion options available to install there (if any).

Back in 1987 a hard disk and a modem in a portable system would be enough expansion to wow most consumers. Since it was a proprietary design, Epson was probably the one making the option cards and didn't see it profitable to make anything else, especially considering the LT was mostly purchased by those wanting to do word processing and other office applications. Vendors like Toshiba and IBM would support true, full-sized ISA or MCA cards in their portables (targeting more of the power user market). Eventually the industry coalesced on the relatively compact one-size-fits-most PCMCIA standard.
 
I don't think you'll find pre-built battery packs too often for these, but you can make them with sub-c NiCD cells. The original packs used a combination of a 2 different length cells in each row, which is contrary to everything I've been taught, so I just use all sub-c cells. It leaves a little gap, but if you tape them down like the originals were, they don't slip.
 
PC Portable vs Equity LT.
They are both the same machine. The name difference seems to be where they were sold. Every US Q150A I've ever seen has had the Equity LT label, whereas machines in some other countries have had the PC Portable label on them.
 
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