New Geeky toys - HP200LX and Compaq Contura Aero 4/33c

Okay, so these particular one's are not "new", they have been sitting on the shelf for the past few years gathering a bit of dust.  I did stick 2xAA batteries in the back (as that is all they need), but they turned on and went straight off again.... I assumed they were broken or something.  Then I found the CMOS battery slot hidden behind the IR cover, swapped that out for a new one and plugged the external PSU for the Atari Portfolio (more about that later!) in and lo'and'behold, we have working devices!  I started with the 1MB model, just to make sure I didn't fry anything and then I moved over to the more "precious" 2MB model.  I also switched out the Duracell batteries for rechargeable ones and then had to find out how to "up" the contrast so I could see stuff!

Well, I was mightily impressed by these little devices, they are awesomely powerful with their little 486 motherboards and no moving parts.  They run MS-DOS v5 too...  I'll figure out what to use them for at some point in the future, as for now, they'll just be part of my "1990s collection of small devices that are awesome".    (The very smart chap who is doing the IBM PC 110 screen fix is also doing some magic in relation to these HPs, PCMCIA cards and WiFi....so I'll stay tuned on that progress!)

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and then the really "new" geeky toy arrived..... the Compaq Contura Aero 4/33c!

CF Card for size comparison on the top of the device - yes, that is the built-in mouse roll ball on the right-hand side - it works really well!

The previous owner, Ollie, did a great job of restoring and setting this device back up.  The HDD is the old IDE 250mb version that makes a lovely clicking noise as the device boots up - it genuinely "sounds" like it is thinking, like an old 1930s robot that you can hear the clunking of the gears whiring away.

Obviously, it lasted about 10minutes before I got it connected to the inter-webs!  I love those old Cisco aironet 350 series cards!  Also, just like the HP 200LX / IBM PC 110 devices, this is a 486 too!  Currently running 8MB RAM... I just looked up how much a 16MB RAM module is (>£100) WOW! and an extra 8MB RAM module is around the £60 mark...ouch!.... I would like to get it to 20MB to match my IBM PC 110, but, y'know...there are limits...

I know it's probably not that easy to see, but this is actually a really small device, it's about the size of an A4 piece of paper and about the thickness of a good book.  As you can see the 3.5" floppy disk, off to the right, is attached via PCMCIA, which in my opinion is a good decision.  I have a ton of 256Mb CF Cards that I use to copy DOS files around between the machines, so that suits me great.

Talking of those spare 256Mb CF Cards, here's me doing a full HDD backup (just incase), it came with MS-DOS v6.22, Windows 3.1, Microsoft Office 2 (Word, Access, Powerpoint) and Lotus suite too - it was like going back to my first days in the work/work environment!

I know it's hard to see, but the design of this device is really nice, it is sleek, it has curves in the right places, it has worn REALLY well for it's age, they keyboard is nice, it has PROPER keys, not these 2mm Apple crap things that we all apparently use nowdays, they are proper keys that you have to properly press down....

And of course, here's the "Let's surf the internet" on this device (I put my hand on the device at the end to give you a sense of scale).  If I can get the battery figured out on this device, I will be using this as a portable sub-netbook for daily usage.... that clicking HDD was annoying me - I like to have silent devices, but, after speaking to Ollie and gazing over a few websites, it sounds like a CF Card conversion is not worth the hassle... we'll see....

Well. I couldn't resist.... the original July 1992 PC Format disc - that I have had in my possession since then (and have installed onto many a PC since then), was winking at me... also, gave me a good excuse to test out the PCMCIA floppy disk drive. 

Installed to the HDD and played rather well!  Due to the LCD screen style, the germans were a little blurry at they were moving about, but it certainly played just at the right speed and how I remember it!

Ah......nostalgia!....can't beat it.