Is An Old Honeywell Tablet Useful For Anything?
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- Опубліковано 23 кві 2024
- I picked up a couple Honeywell Thor VM1 industrial computers 2nd-hand. After a couple weeks of screwing around with them, the only thing I can get to work is Doom! I haven't been able to get a real OS onto it or run much other software successfully. These seem to be one of those proprietary overpriced gadgets designed to go in a landfill as soon as they're past their original use. If anyone has suggestions or other ideas for it, I'm all ears, but first I need a way to get an operating system on there!
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Big companies purposefully using niche cables can't even stop this guy, bro just casually has a compatible plug laying around.
"Purposefully" is the right word. It's to be used as in "purpose is usually mechanical strength, waterproofing, compliance to standards, acid resistivity, etc". It's not to be used as in "fuck with customer on purpose cause they evil and muahahaahahaa".
Ex Honeywell support employee here. I did not support the Thor directly, but I did support products that were used with the Thor. Whenever I would need one to test with, the folks that did support it had a whole host of CF cards with different releases of Windows on them. Everything was custom built. I do recall building one or two CF cards on my own. And recall it being a royal PITA. The image as you said can be had from the website. But I do not recall exactly how it got onto the CF card. The touch screens on those were a real pain to get up an going. $500 bucks? Try $3000+ per unit depending on the options. You have the VM1 flavor of the Thor. Windows CE only. Completely custom CF card required to boot and run.
I worked for a company that equipped forklifts with this unit back in 2010. Back then, the unit were leased. It would cost about $350 to replace one of those. I have never known anybody that has paid $3000+ for a single unit.
*edit
I really don’t know why you would need a custom CF, if any updates can be done over the wifi connection. I never had any issues installing updates. I really like the Thor.
What companies use those THOR tablets? That way Gabe can donate the DOOM version to one of their forklift operators.
@@processagent5095Freight handling companies. It is posible to install apps, the easiest way to do it is OVA through the wifi connection, but you still need the admin password.
@@processagent5095 mostly freight, shipping companies. You would need an admin password to install anything on it though.
Do you know if the USB hardware supported UHCI? If so you can likely just load a DOS driver and get some keyboard or mouse action going.
Awesome! "This time I failed in green so it looks like I'm hacking!" Be quote of the day lol
There’s some delicious irony in the fact that this industrial computer is now only capable of running a game
Regarding CFlash: I have a friend who does field work for restaurants that use Micros POS system. Their workstations still use CompactFlash. The good thing about them is that if the workstations themselves have a HDD failure, you can just pull the old one out and pop the new one in and install a new POS image. Newer POS stations are sealed, so if one fails you essentially have to replace the whole thing.
Back in the LONG ago days, I used to hookup the computer order displays to various POS system - Micros being one of them. Back in the day when you had to actually solder a DB9 to a particular serial pinout for the POS system. I miss those days.
Slot machines still use the CF cards
Sci Fi prop? a couple of belts and you could mount that thing to your arm like the Pip-Boys from Fallout.
Heavy and super clunky? Yeah actually you're right. It does fit the worn feel of alien and similar sci-fi
Just so you're aware; because CF cards were used for a long time in professional digital cameras, you can find 32gb and even 64gb cards from what I've seen around in shops back then. Iunno about anything above that but I figure you could just use a CF to SD adapter and whatever capacity sd card you wanted to have in there.
Depending on many things being able to work, some things thay come to mind for its use:
-Dedicated CNC pc/controller
- Midi/vst host for live performance
- stationary bike pc (for Zwift/ Golden Cheetah etc.)
- spotify server that lives in your media/ sound system cabinet.
Man, that's not a proprietary connector. It's standard industrial M12. I fix stuff like that as hobby - the parts are available for 20 years form any electronics catalog. There is a reason for it all. "Standard USB" does not have retainers and is not waterproof. What you would call "standard" power plugs are not waterproof and have no retainers. CF is still used in industrial stuff as it is electrically compatible with IDE. The costs are not that overpriced at all. They come form industrial grade components used, custom keyboards, custom durable enclosures, very tiny manufacturing runs in comparison to typical PC shit and astronomically long R&D that goes into it in respect to sells numbers. 500 bucks for it is so cheap. Amazone amatrons cost liek 3000 and up.. Those salaries have to be compensated by the price. Also, to run graphical stuff on it you should start with finding out what graphics adapter is in it. Check the chipset in case it's integrated.. You need to use drivers form vendor.
this has the power of a 200 dollar netbook from back in the day and cost 3 grand when new. I understand the need for lockable connectors, but I can't see just the case and the connectors development warranting and extra 2 grand markup.
@@firenado4295 It's not only connectors and enclosure design though.
First of all, it's processing power is jsut what it needs for the task. The software is done in low level so it would be realtime. Remember that some 30 years ago CPUs ware measured in MHz not GHz and mostly did same shit that previous gen multicore GHz CPUs can't handle now because of shit programming practices. I'm not talking about streaming in 4k, but working with typical office and R&D tasks. Shaded shiny looks over the efficiency and gigabye of 3rd party libs over hiring expert coders.
Next - try to put a netbook in a tractor. You think it's only vibration? No, it's moisture and corrosive environment. Fertilizer contains high levels of Ammonia. Have you seen what happens to fertalizer tractors after 3 years on field? They look like they are at it for at least 15 years. Every smallest scratch in paint gets instant corrosion. If it's not stainless, it's rusted. If it is - it's rusted a bit later.
Each - designing, prototyping, testing, certificating and manufacturing those enclosures is pain in it's own right. But then you have next fun part - The darn thing can not have a fan. Fan = holes = sucking in the acidic air. So now you have closed volume with energy going in and heat being produced. Check waht laws of thermodynamics say about that.. Now you need to figure out how to make the heat transfer from your chips and coils to enclosure and make the enclosure radiate more heat off of itself than it's getting from the internal electronics. And it has to happen in hot summer day with sun shining on it. No, aircon will help just a little, as the sun beams are not canceled by it.
Now we are talking about whole different component base - it can't be just your laptop parts that are 0 to 55 Celsius rated. You need industrial -40 to 85 or better extended / automotive -55 to 125 Celsius rated components. For commercial grade parts, -off the chip fab after capping (welding wires to and putting crystal in epoxy) they are tested for main parameters 10 per batch of 100k or so. Industrial and extended grade often asks for full batch test for most parameters. That increases chip production time greatly. Thus these chips are now 2 times more expensive and harder to get just by this fact alone.
Now you need to design it. You have your analog engineer, digital engineer, software guy, mechanic guy - all with top salaries, cause there is no place for mistakes and retries. That's bare minimum or you can get a unicorn that does it all, but asks 4 times the salary and has a pissy attitude because he can. You don't ship industril design off to India or China. Well, you can try, I want to see someone do that for lols tbh.
And remember, you don't design only the computer, you design the connectivity to peripherals and software support. It's not PC mouse that goes attached - it's sensors and actuators for tractor tool leveling, combine harvester operation, etc.. You need to follow the standards and test it in real field. You need to buy a fucking combine to test it on.
Then you design debugging tools, service apps.. You know, the dealer tool set.. You have to make that too.
You design also manufacturing tools - injection molding / die casting forms for the enclosure elements, buttons, internal brackets - each metal or plastic bob has some mold. Or you can machine those parts. That's even more expensive, but if you build like 10k units per year, it might be cheaper than molds.
Now certifications - that's a whole another can of worms.
And now the amounts of production. Your typical laptop board is made in batches of 100k. Your typical industrial thing - 1k. We are talking about completely different component and work costs here.
And I did not even mention software components for different machinery, licensing for special components and standards, project management, sourcing, logistics, prototyping steps and costs and fact that design cycle of such product is about 2 years from first meeting to actual launch party .. You can make it cheaper and stretch the design by getting shitty engineers.. Takes longer. Costs same in end. You can also pay extra for better and more engineers. But because of how the whole process flow goes, you won't beat those 2 years by much anyway. That's 2 years of highly trained specialist salaries.
Now the sales of [OMG, it's 3000k netbook that won't even run muh Crysis, what a shit] has to cover all these costs mentioned. And they won't sell more than 10k a year as it covers a very specific need.
My point is if you think they are so overpriced, why not making you own and selling it for half the price? You will become instantly rich. Every farmer will want one that's 2x cheaper. Not even joking.
PS: and of course there is a fucking markup. How would the companies be able to afford the science and research for next product otherwise? And even if some of it went to CEO's new yacht, it's a fraction of what research and scientific work costs.
@@hatterfoil didn't need to go on about how RND costs money, I know. It is the same for all products of this type. You missed my point entirely when I compared these to a netbook. I was implying they used cheep low power hardware even for the time. I see how the added ruggedness these units have would warrant some kind of premium but back when these were made you could still buy a Panasonic toughbook with all this and twice the power for over a grand less. These have less hardware and cost alot more. 1k extra isn't just a markup it is a ripoff, and that is only one unit, buying these in bulk and the situation is made so much worse.
I don't see why me saying that has caused you so have some kind of tantrum writing and entire lecture on how companies function. Its not like this isn't well known information. But oh well.
Also you mention about people trying to find cheaper alternatives to business grade things, they already do and always have done. That is why units like these are always so rare, because they where junk when they where new and only companies with money to through in the bin got them.
@@firenado4295 I'm trying to explain the difference between high volume and low volume production as well as between commercial, industrial and automotive design. I do it because the way your opinion goes is the same as you may hear in any 3rd party vehicle service from a typical wrench monkey. "They made this hose connections here so it's harder for unofficial services to work on cars". "They put the bracket here with this shape because they are too stupid to make it that shape and put it there". Like engineers don't have reason to put a thing in that shape there exactly.
It's same when you or anyone says that connectors are like that just to sell overpriced dongles.
Also, I am not sure which Panasonic are we talking about? I feel it's before CF-19-mk1? I don't have all the paperwork available for these machines quickly, and I don't remember the specs, but I would think toughbook was not really 1k cheaper back then as well as it likely did not have same spec. Thor has industrial spec CPU, right? I would think it's -40 to +60 operating temp. at least.. I don't thing you could get a standard x86 CPU with industrial temp back then. They ware very special and they ware few gens late. In fact I don't think you can get up-to-date industrial spec x86 CPU today. Sure, you can prove me wrong there, as I'm using ARM in my designs not x86 and not going to look up the production dates and manuals or spec sheets to get exact numbers.
I'm talking form how it generally is and even with ARM, you are not getting the latest cores in industrial versions.
Also Thoughbook is bad comparison as they are not automotive and they are sold in much larger volumes. Also have less custom software.
So I still think you are factually wrong. Give me numbers if you want to convince me.
Was watching Diesel Creek recent forklift video and sure enough there is a tablet like that on some, running windows ce or embedded for weight app and so on
Good thing spring is here it will make a fine boat anchor for the jet boat...
To get a colon, try holding down ALT and typing 58, and then letting up ALT. This will work if the numbers are the numbers from the numeric keypad. To get a forward slash, type 47 while holding down ALT.
I tried some things like that without any luck. Big companies hate standards 😢
@@saveitforparts USB keyboard?
@@Peter_S_ That's what I came here to say😅
@@Peter_S_ USB support is part of the OS. You also need the device drivers.
@@michaelterrell You can't adjust BIOS settings on a PC with a USB keyboard? Really? Lol.
Don't sell yourself short. Getting anything to run is a win. DOS is a great start. It is likely some driver issue causing kernel panic given all the graphic problems. The fact that you got the actual cpu and ram to work is a big win.
I watched this before it was published (from playlists). Honestly, this is the best channel ever.
It’s so funny that after failing to load multiple operating systems it was still able to run doom with almost no problems.
"This time we failed in green!" LOLOL
They would have been perfect for a 90's Roger Corman flick.
CF cards seem to be fairly popular for retro gaming because they can just replace IDE drives and are pretty fast
Wait til old trucker eld's are in auction man I'm so excited
There’s a small Linux distribution I’ve used on 1GB CF cards called “Voyage MPD” that you might could try. There is also Tinycore Linux and DSL which can be installed in insanely small drives like 16MB. And also NetBSD can be installed with very little space as well, but if you aren’t familiar with BSDs that could be tedious. 😀
I remember trying TinyCore on an early 2000s laptop with 128MB of RAM and being amazed at how fast it was and how it installed on the first try.
Most likely there's a key combination you need to hold down to get it to boot to another storage device. I worked for another company servicing similar equipment. Their business model typically was to make it difficult for any third party to service their equipment. The goal was to lock the customer in with service contracts, and when the OEM decided to stop servicing it, the customer would have no choice but to upgrade.
EOL support is often determined by components becoming NLA, Some of out products were through multiple redesigns as component families went obsolete. From thru hole, then multiple generations of Surface mount components. Third party support isn't always a great idea. Shoddy companies doing it can destroy the OEM's reputation. I went through that back in the '80s, when I maintained Cable TV headends and other electronics. Two third party companies really screwd us so bad that we opened an in house service center. One was using unapproved power transformers in Cable TV converters. Instead of having a thernal fuse open, on failure the converters were bursting into flames.
Appreciate you trying! We all learned even though you didn’t get anywhere. At least we know now 🙂
This is the stuff I like to see, making old hardware do things it wasn't supposed to. I think if you can crack rigging up a normal keyboard and mouse to it, either via that USB port or a serial connection on a DOS operating system. You may be able to work your way up through windows OS till you reach its limitations. I had a similar experience with some digital signage pcs, I was able to install Windows10 on a Msata drive and get them boot from it. I use one connected to touchscreen as a windows tablet! Hope you do a pt2 of hacking these things into being useful !
I have a Pt2 but it still wasn't super useful... might have to wait until pt3 :-P
that 50 pin connector is insane, both from a design and electrical view
CompactFlash was the new big thing in the 90's my man, sd was already taking over in the 00's
The screen and buttons look in good shape. Could be campbellyzed into another project down the road
I just started my journey on putting Linux on my old surface rt (10-20$ on eBay) and this video makes me even more thankful to just be able to follow the pioneer work of others 😄
For easier file-navigation, perhaps a serial-mouse and DOS SHELL would be helpful. Great Vid!
I get the hate for the custom ports... but keep in mind this thing was meant to be roughed around on equipment. USB is not exactly known for durability during rough use, hence the screw-mounted 9-pin alternative connector.
I haven't seen a microdrive in a long time; I used to have one in my camera. I stored the pictures in RAW format. An aluminum die-cast housing used as a heatsink, an interesting design. It's good that it still works.
When in doubt, run doom.
Looks like a pretty handy piece of tech if you work in the field though.
I know a guy online who plays Star Fleet 2 Krellan Commander on a mobile terminal like that (visually, I believe his has some sort of 386 processor in it, which probably makes it much weaker than the snapdragon in those units)
My old Toshiba Tecra 700ct got a CF card upgrade. I could not burn msdos/freedos with Rufus and have it boot. I had to format and install dos then windows from the pc it was going work with.
CF cards are also used with certain old pro cameras, and im going to use a cf to sd adapter with my ipod classic Gen 3.
Also it was neat bumping into you and the buffalo hamfest back in march lol!
It would be cool if you made it into a portable mini Cyberdeck, not like the one you already have, but basicly to tinker with radio signals wirelessly and stuff like that. You could take the old cuircuitry out of that darn thing and just put a raspbery pi, and comnect it to the display that it already has. In my opinion, that would be so cool😎 Love your videos👍🏻
i'd love to work in a warehouse where the aisles are canals and the pickers and forklifts are boats
That sounds awesome!
@@saveitforparts you mentioned mounting it on it a boat so it was your idea :-)
Might be worth taking a look at what “mode” the CF card is in. A lot of the retro computing community use CF cards to replace dead hard drives and have to be pretty picky with what cards will work, and which ones will allow you to change the mode. Some time after the major boom in CF and in its final~ish days, manufactures changed the default mode to where it reports itself to the system as removable media instead of a more traditional boot drive if you will, and some older computers don’t like that one bit.
If it runs Doom, it's not completely useless. Cool tablet, sad it's so locked.
That RAM mount will be worth about 3x what you paid for the computer!
Try an old 1 or 2 GB SD card, above 2GB capacity you are in SDHC territory.
Or as Kingston put it.
SD-compatible devices are compatible only with SD standard cards. To put it more simply, hardware devices that support newer standards are backward compatible with older standard cards, but newer standard cards can't be used in hardware devices that only support older standards.
I thought they worked with limited capcity, like the first 2 or 4 gb could be accessed
The Honeywell Doom Deck
We had the exact same system setup on our forklift at a previous employer. Scan the pallet of product with the gun go into our system and put it away, or we'd receive items to go and pick up. It operated on a RF. They are a one trick pony I'm afraid.
The sd card slot is most definantly a original SD card slot which means it can't use anything bigger than 2gb. I would put the CF card in a computer and use a virtual machine software to install windows CE to it. the Microsoft virtual PC programs or hyperv are all useable in windows, though virtual PC does need windows 7 or older. vmware could also work or some linux based virtual machine. or if you have a contemporary computer you could use that with the CF card to install Windows CE, and then copy over honeywell drivers.
we are all awesome at hacking when we use green tints on our Monitors
Honeywell the old school Apple 😂
Not sure if anyone mentioned this in the comments, but... You need a CF card that reads as a bootable device. I have bags of 2, 4, and 8GB CF cards somewhere. The biggest bootable one I have is 64GB.
They're pretty much just tiny IDE drives btw.
Love videos where you try to make junk work!!
Wish I had held on to the floppy disks that I had
They call it the Thor model cuz it's hard as Thor to get to work.
It probably won't read SD cards larger than something like 1gb... If I remember correctly the higher capacity SD cards are a new protocol. (SDHC being SD High Capacity)
1 GB? When I started using Linux in the '90s, the _largest_ Linux filesystem was 128 MiB. I'd install full distros on my SyQuest EZ-135 drive, giving exactly 128 MiB formatted capacity, less a few MiB for a swap partition. A version of Slackware from the date when the Atom CPU was made would work, and you could use LOADLIN to boot the bzImage right from a DOS partition, and mount a ramdisk file. If that's too nuts 'n' bolts, you could use Ventoy or Easy2Boot to load up an ISO image distro. There are still CD-ROM sized utility distros like SysRescueCD that are less than 1 GiB. Or you could get a larger CF card from eBay. At the very least, watching the kernel messages should give you a clue about what hardware is detected. Perhaps the PCMCIA / CardBus drivers might wake up the SD card.
Compact flash is definitely an SSD. It uses the exact same IDE/PATA interface that hard drives used at the time.
My cameras use dual CF :-) I pop a couple of 256 and 512GB cards in for weddings and whatnot. There's a CFast card slot too that looks very similar to CF but writes at insane speeds for 4K+ video capture.
hey man, nice toy, try a smaller usb drive if you have one, less the 4gb, and an usb keyboard might help you further. make sure the drive is formatted fat16 or fat32, you can experiment with that. keep up the good work dude. greeting from Romania!
@5:21 - The CE cards - Back when I was working for the fuel industry, the new, 10.5 inch Gilbarco color dispenser screens had legit pentium mother boards installed in the intrinsic electronics cabinet up top (including USB IO for the receipt printers.) The OS for the dispensers were run off CE cards. I say "were" but I can assure you that most of the stations where you avail yourself of the dispensers, there is a CE card involved. Notice I didn't say "pumps?" That's a fuel business pedants nightmare.
Wayne used them for a bit before going USB-crazy. 😂
You can use an adapter for a gf to cf cable.
Also I wonder if the keyboard is plugged into a controller board that could be replaced?
i don't know why, but I have a real fondness for these rugged tablets, I'd love it if they were made today with better specs
I have a real fondness for portable devices with physical keyboards! RIP Blackberry 😢
There are, Zebra makes a rugged tab running Android for the same environment this was originally made of. Not nearly as unique or interesting as this unit though.
@@buenogoodlive Didn't know that!
But looking at them now, they definitely don't have that 'utilitarian charm' these older tablets had.
@dillis2188 Agreed haha
To get a colon or other special characters: With ‘normal’ MS operating systems, you could hold down the Alt key and enter the ASCII numeric code.
I tried some alt codes but it didn't do anything :-(
Hey, I saw you on that reddit thread
I got three of these a week ago and more or less figured out how to use them.
I posted how to wire in a power jack and some pins for usb I found, which should get you further than ms-dos
if you want, I can dump my cf card to an iso, but once you have working usb it will boot to any usb stick and install the factory image no problem.
Let me know, I can email you some pictures if you still have these or want to mess with them more.
I'm interested to know if you do get wes2009 working if your touch screen or wifi work at all, the like two i've tried so far dont.
Nice! I actually sent one off to someone in that Reddit thread, hoping they could get Linux on it. I also got a CF image from someone which will be in a Pt2 video on Friday. I kind of got CE working but it's still kind of useless :-P
Axeman must sell serial mouse , they have everything else
"We failed in green, so it looks like hacking" 🤣🤣
Perhaps it will behave better if you put a Morpheus sticker on the CF? 😅
This tracks with just about anything from Honeywell I've ever worked with
0:52 That connector looks like a GX16-6, they are commonly available online!
It's been a long time but to load drivers in dos you will need to edit the config.sys file. Have you considered netboot? I suspect it's what those systems were intended for.
I doubt that power connector is proprietary. It will be some automotive standard but I doubt it’s proprietary.
And in an industrial product of this vintage I understand the choice for sub d USB. Rugged USB cables would have been just as expensive, if not more, than this solution.
Heaviest handheld of Doom ever
Would an external keyboard work? You've got a serial port-usb port thing... that at least would have the extra characters
Or maybe try ascii codes using the alt key + numbers
If these were easy to modify, they would have been stolen so often that no industrial user would want them. You have to look at the intended market. Software would be factory installed at time of manufacturing. I installed a lot through Serial ports or JTAG, One product ha to be connected to our Engineering server, and a batch file run to download and run the OS and firmware. These were built for one use, only or they would have used COTS components.
Now that you have dots on their you could use basic GW basic or qbasic to make some programs
Try holding down alt and press 58 or 0058 on the number pad. See if it shows your colon.
Tried some alt codes without luck :-(
Lol green, looks like I'm hacking.....😂
use serial cable and alpine or void linux,
run lscpi/lsusb/etc. to find out about gpu
and missing modules.
If "no gpu" - pass video=uvesafb:options to kernel
Would be nice to make a video with such panel
on a snowy day. Like in Alien 2
These are the sort of things I like to tinker with but they never come up, especially cheap
So many funny bits here 😂
Is it possible to just use the screen? Because this would be a nice small screen for a headless linux running in a RPi Zero W.
Ya might need to try it over serial to get reliable keyboard input via PuTTy or similar
See, you don't have to hack satellites for us to enjoy watching you! Btw, when's the next time you're hacking satelittes?
DSL or 'Damn Small Linux' is the go-to for small space requirements!
Pretty sure I tried that one and it got stuck in a boot loop.
Looks like an anchor to me
thanks
Doom is one of the best PC games ever made
What does that "Shift" button do if you hold it while you type? Is that how special characters are entered? I also see a "Shift Lock" button to the right bottom of the screen. Could it be that shift is just locked out?
There's a blue button that's supposed to enable special characters, but doesn't work with DOS since it's not a standard key. I think it has to be in Windows with the right drivers loaded before it will work.
i would love to have a crack at that, i'll bet i could get it running linux
I still use CF cards every day with my Canon 5D mk. II
Try holding the "Alt" button while typing the ASCII code on the number pad. For example ":" = "58". So press "Alt", type "58", then release "Alt".
Tried that, doesn't work :-(
@@saveitforparts - works on regular keyboard. Was worth a try.
You don't CD into a drive on DOS, you just type the drive letter followed by a colon. CD is limited to the current drive.
To get the special characters, try the Shift Lock key next to the bottom right corner of the screen.
Tried that but apparently it has to be enabled with a driver :-(
Did you try to partition the compact flash card? It would split it in to 2 drives
Do you dissasemble stuff that you pick up and doesn't work to try to salvage any usable parts like capacitors and potentiometers?
Sometimes, if I have no other use for it or I'm about to throw it away!
Respect 🙏🏻
Grrat video...👍
This ports are weather resistant and shockproof, regular computer ports would not withstand the operating conditions in which these computers are used and I would not criticize them for such a design man, but the price is a ripoff I agree with that ...
There are existing standards for weatherproof / shockproof power and USB, plenty of mobile radio manufacturers have figured that out. I still think Honeywell wanted to be different so they could charge more.
Take stuff you can't do with anymore and melt out the gold in it.
Did you try to use the ALT symbol codes to type in the colon backslash?
Hold ALT and then type 58 for colon
Hold ALT and then type 92 for backslash
Yep, tried those without luck.
Tried arch? or is it 32 bit only? being 32 bit would be pretty limiting for anything modern.
How about putting a Pi in it and using the screen with that. And hot key the keyboard
now on some pcs if you hold and press alt while typing a number on the keypad will display that char something like alt-92 = \ its basically alt then the ascii # for that char you want something maybe to try out on that antiquated keyboard :) id love to get my hands on something like that i love the old and odd stuff as well
Couldn't get alt codes to work, tried a few and nothing happened.
this kind of "built very well and robust" but you gotta buy all our shit is what stopped me from investing in a new panasonic toughbook. sure its got the whole xpak system for adding all the ports and features you could ever want, but doing so will cost you a fortune. fingers crossed framework can develop a more rugged laptop, or someone in the community does using a framework mobo
Maybe you could install Commander keen on there to play on dos
Did you try Tiny Core Linux?? I think its like 16mb after install on the drive
If you’re willing to send one of those to me, I’d love to give it a shot at imaging and making a windows ce distribution for that… or maybe even trying to throw a win7 compact or embedded dist for it,..
I actually sent one to someone already! They said they could get Linux on it, so we'll see what happens.
Very cool, I look forward to seeing what can be done with this interesting lil cherub