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Trying to ID an old Lunchbox

B

bobellis

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Jul 12, 2009
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I've been cleaning out my brothers storage shed and found an old lunchbox that I may try to put to use or play...

It's a gray case, 9" diag tiltable B&W LCD, 486 33/66 with 16 Meg of ram, but missing the keyboard. I'm guessing '92-'94 based on the 486 33/66. The only ID anywhere is a dataplate on the back with SD-12 and a serial number.

OldLunchboxandCase.jpg

OldLunchboxfront.jpg

OldLunchboxright.jpg

OldLunchboxLeft.jpg



On the front there are Turbo and Reset buttons, Turbo, HDD and Power lights and a slide Contrast control. (No Brightness control, any ideas?)

On the right side are a 1.44 3.5 inch floppy and a CD drive with built in headset jack and volume control (no speed and not a writer). Both are probably aftermarket, since they are White/Putty not Gray.

The Keyboard jack is also on the right, it's the old, big style.

On the left side are six expansion slots, five used.
1) Game and Serial x25 pin
2) Video
3) Serial x9 and Printer
4) Printer (he used Zip Drives)
5) Lan card (10BaseT,NIC,Coax)

There are also two unused slots on the back.

I don't know what OS, since it stops at BIOS (OPTi 1895-H). It says the CMOS isn't set and is asking to run Setup. Since I don't have an old type keyboard right now, I can't continue to find out if it needs a floppy or loads setup from ROM.

My brother did build most of his PCs, starting with an Ohio Scientific in '77-'78, so this may be a clone box, but I'm hoping someone can identify it and give me some idea what it is.

Bob
 
Nice old box, Bob! I recall seeing these boxes that you could use with a conventional "baby AT" motherboard--I think that a no-name clone is exactly what this is--a giveaway is the "turbo" button--you usually didn't see those on mainline branded products.

You don't need an old keyboard, just get an adapter (6 pin mini-DIN female to 5 pin DIN male). You should be able to use a conventional PS/2-style keyboard with it.
 
Maybe it's This...

Maybe it's This...

It looks like a Portable PC III in a grey color(perhaps intended for Military use?).I have a very similar unit in a Cream color.It's the first one I've seen that's got a B&W display.
It would be perfect for those old DOS games!
cgrape2
 
I agree with Chuck(G). They were "the rage" at one point (a non-portable portable) and everyone and their grandmother was selling them (including my first company). Then suddenly, they were "out".
 
Thanks guys,

I think it probably is the no-name clone, I popped the case it is a baby AT board, three extended bus slots, two regular 16 bit slots and a short 8 bit slot.

The top slot that I tagged as a serial/parallel board is actually just two connectors off the multi I/O board in slot three, slot one is empty.

It also has only three drive bays, one 5.25 with the CD, two 3.5 with the floppy and a WD hard drive (couldn't read the model or size).

I went thru my stash of adapters and have three big keyboard to ps2 PC adaptors, but no big connector to ps2 keyboard adapter. Actually makes sense, I had a bunch of real IBM keyboards that I used till the lettering wore off.

Chuck, that atavar brings back memories, I started on Univac's in '71. (Yes, I know that's not one.) Good old days when a .5 Meg Disk Storage Unit was about the size of a chest freezer and took 20 minutes to spin up.

Bob
 
bobellis said:
Thanks guys,

I think it probably is the no-name clone, I popped the case it is a baby AT board, three extended bus slots, two regular 16 bit slots and a short 8 bit slot.

The top slot that I tagged as a serial/parallel board is actually just two connectors off the multi I/O board in slot three, slot one is empty.

It also has only three drive bays, one 5.25 with the CD, two 3.5 with the floppy and a WD hard drive (couldn't read the model or size).

I went thru my stash of adapters and have three big keyboard to ps2 PC adaptors, but no big connector to ps2 keyboard adapter. Actually makes sense, I had a bunch of real IBM keyboards that I used till the lettering wore off.

Chuck, that atavar brings back memories, I started on Univac's in '71. (Yes, I know that's not one.) Good old days when a .5 Meg Disk Storage Unit was about the size of a chest freezer and took 20 minutes to spin up.

Bob
Click to expand...
-----
Yeah, what Druid said.

I've got a similar clone (well, just the case and display adapter); they're actually still uniquely useful for semi-portable applications that need more or different cards or ports than you'd find in a laptop. I use a similar Compaq Portable for a serial analyzer that needs three serial ports, and I used to use one with digital and analog I/O boards for a portable data collection application.

And I've also got a picture sort of like Chuck's, of me in front of a Burroughs B2700 also in the 70's before they joined you Univac folks; should put it up as my avatar ;-)
Or photoshop myself in front of the B260 that I started on in the early 60's...
 
Last edited:
bobellis said:
Chuck, that atavar brings back memories, I started on Univac's in '71. (Yes, I know that's not one.) Good old days when a .5 Meg Disk Storage Unit was about the size of a chest freezer and took 20 minutes to spin up.
Click to expand...

Bob, that's an NCR CRAM. Magnetic card random-access memory. Very ingenious device that used a mechanical selection mechanism that reminds me of one of those old "classify the plant" card decks where you inserted knitting needles in the appropriate places, shook the deck and your selection fell out.

The CRAM had the interesting property (which seems to be forgotten) that if an error occurred with one of those magnetic cards, it'd simply spit the thing out onto the floor. Most data centers kept a box around to catch the rejects.
 
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