I'm looking for an ultra portable netbook with a parallel and serial I/O. It should support at least EPP 1.9 and a 32bits PCMCIA slot would be important for me. CPU, RAM, HDD doesn't matter. The screen should be 10 inch or smaller. Does anyone know if such a Netbook exist?
Well they have existed for years now, Toshiba made ultra portable notebooks back in the day which even now are still used as it's the size of a video tape... If you can find a Toshiba Libretto 100CT or 110CT with a port replicator (this is the hard bit to find...) then you'll have serial, parallel, 2xUSB, 2 32bit PCMCIA slots, VGA, PS2 keyboard and mouse pors, although you'll need to use one of these slots for a Wifi or Ethernet port. It'll still be smaller then a current netbook, just a bit thicker... and be around 1.5kg and you'll probably have to buy a new battery too. The 110CT would barely scrape in the XP requirements so running a stripped down version of that would give you a great OS, although the machine would come with Windows 98. A IDE/CF adapter and a 4GB (or more) CF card would give you a fast boot (and be about what the machine came with). I have a CT70 which only has 16bit PCMCIA slots but the floppy drive, CD RW unit, wifi and ethernet cards I have are all 16bit so it's not a problem.
Sounds great. Do you know if the Libretto 100CT really supports the EPP1.9 protocol? I have seen a Libretto a while ago on a retro computer show, but it supported ECP only. btw, Win98 would be enough for me.
I have done some research for you and although the chipset used does support EPP, the machine only allows you to set ECP or Bi Directional. However for the specs you want the Liberto is still he best machine, you might just need to buy a PCMCIA card for another parallel port which support EPP, you should be able to get one for around $40. This will still mean a fully speced Liberetto 100CT or 110CT will give you a 166 or 233 Pentium, Windows 98, 64MB RAM, at least a 4GB HDD, with a port replicator you will have 1 USB, 1 Serial, PS2 Mouse and Keyboard, a printer port, 2 32bit PCMCIA slots. I heavily recommend a Wifi Card, a ethernet card, a CD-RW drive (using PCMCIA or ECP compatable), a PCMCIA or USB card reader, the Toshiba libretto floppy drive (PCMCIA) and a 2.5" to CF adapter (to make the Libretto solid state...) Try to buy a Liberetto that comes with the floppy drive, a compatable CD-ROM drive, driver disc (can be downloaded), and Toshiba Liberetto Windows 98 disc (makes a clean install much much easier) and the PSU. You can find compatable new batteries on Ebay.
Thanks for your research. However a Laptop which supports EPP1.9 out of the box would be much better than one of those PCMCIA cards. Most cards support printer only. I need the parallel port for Tototek flashcards, PlayStation Xploder and so on. ... however if the chipset of the Libretto supports EPP, it might also work with the ECP setting. On some computers it doesn't matter what's set in the BIOS. Well I think I have to buy one and try it out.
