I have had some good and bad luck of late with the acquisition and shipment of Vintage and not so Vintage PCs.I had a shipment of 2 P3s a P1 and a 286 laptop arrive in deplorable condition.The US Postal Service really took great pains to ensure that these PCs had met the end of their lives...Or so I thought.(The seller had done as good a job with packing as he could,so it wasn't his fault.)
Just for "Grins" I fired up one of the Compaq P3 laptops and even tho about 1\3 of the outer case had been shattered,the floppy drive bent beyond hope and a huge bend in the lid...It WORKED!!!Holy Crap!!Was I ever surprised.This sucker survived what looked all the world like a Mail Truck had backed over it!!!!WOW! I will NEVER diss (Pre-HP Merger)Compaq products again.I was jazzed!What about the second P3?Uh...The LCD had 4 breaks in it,but what the heck,I fired it up and GOOD LORD!!It booted as well!!OK,now I couldn't actually see anything but all the right noises were being made.That's Two for Two.Now to try the less damaged ones.The Compaq P1 had some damage but was mostly intact.So it gets power and...YES it works!! YAY!! The P3s were total write offs but the P1 had a chance for renewal.But what about the 286?Being the smallest(Can you believe that a 286 Laptop would EVER be called "Small"?)It had suffered the least overt damage.Sadly due to a lack of the proper Power Supply(Anybody have a Compaq LTE 286 Power Supply to spare?)I was unable to test it.But the LCD was undamaged and it looked fairly good,considering.
Even though the Postal Service had done it's worst!These well built laptops took the beating.I was amazed.
OK,the P3s are only good for a few parts and the P1 still needs to be worked on a bit,but who among us hasn't suffered a similar disaster?I suppose the old motto about Life \Lemons and Lemonade still is true.
Hmm....What did I learn?Well I learned that Compaqs are a lot tougher than I ever thought.I learned that it's a REAL GOOD idea to ALWAYS insure your packages and that sometimes S**t happens.(Despite good planning)
End Part 1
Just for "Grins" I fired up one of the Compaq P3 laptops and even tho about 1\3 of the outer case had been shattered,the floppy drive bent beyond hope and a huge bend in the lid...It WORKED!!!Holy Crap!!Was I ever surprised.This sucker survived what looked all the world like a Mail Truck had backed over it!!!!WOW! I will NEVER diss (Pre-HP Merger)Compaq products again.I was jazzed!What about the second P3?Uh...The LCD had 4 breaks in it,but what the heck,I fired it up and GOOD LORD!!It booted as well!!OK,now I couldn't actually see anything but all the right noises were being made.That's Two for Two.Now to try the less damaged ones.The Compaq P1 had some damage but was mostly intact.So it gets power and...YES it works!! YAY!! The P3s were total write offs but the P1 had a chance for renewal.But what about the 286?Being the smallest(Can you believe that a 286 Laptop would EVER be called "Small"?)It had suffered the least overt damage.Sadly due to a lack of the proper Power Supply(Anybody have a Compaq LTE 286 Power Supply to spare?)I was unable to test it.But the LCD was undamaged and it looked fairly good,considering.
Even though the Postal Service had done it's worst!These well built laptops took the beating.I was amazed.
OK,the P3s are only good for a few parts and the P1 still needs to be worked on a bit,but who among us hasn't suffered a similar disaster?I suppose the old motto about Life \Lemons and Lemonade still is true.
Hmm....What did I learn?Well I learned that Compaqs are a lot tougher than I ever thought.I learned that it's a REAL GOOD idea to ALWAYS insure your packages and that sometimes S**t happens.(Despite good planning)
End Part 1