We're not the only ones after old computer hardware

It seems that McLaren keep a stockpile of 20 year old Compaq LTE 5280 laptops to run their custom DOS-based diagnostic software and CA cards in order to keep the fleet of surviving multi-million dollar F1 supercars on the road!

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576032/mclaren-f1-compaq-laptop-maintenance

 

Haha quite strange indeed. I now understand why I can't find one since a long time !

It is very hard (at least in France) to find a laptop with a parallel port, supporting EPP Protocol !

 

I did read that the other day, and I did service those back in the day too.
I keep 2 IBM ThinkPad G41 's for this very reason, Bi-Directional, ECP, EPP and Output only as selections for the parallel port and the fact it has a 9-pin serial port and 56k modem.

 

Old laptops are always useful. I have finally found an old one with EPP support, but there is no Ethernet port to connect the Internet, the disc drive don't work, and the USB port need a driver to find my key....For the moment, I can't even copy Ziyal (for N64 backup) on it haha. I use to have that kind of laptop but it looks hard to do even a such little thing on it. Nowadays laptop don't even need usb drivers and you have so many possibility to access the datas.

 

The Compaq LTE 5280 was my first laptop. I still have it. Where do you think they look to "source" these from? xD

 

Haha

 

A LOT of companies keep old computers because they run old outdated software. A furniture store chain where my wife worked for 20 years ago, keep old computers and CRTs(and 4:3 LCDs) for that reason.

 

My company also keeps old laptops, as it is the only way to continue maintening old Programmable units (PLC) for our car production lines.

But in McLarens case, top of the art cars and old laptops sounds funny !

 

I should sell them mine for a premium, so.

(But I like my parallel port, so I dunno.)

 

This precious parallel port....GB Xchanger, V64jr,....so much great equipment using it !

 

We have 486 laptop that works 24/7 since 1997 - not a single reboot! And the most impressive part - original battery had about 16% of nominal capacity last year when i decided to remove it and replace the cells.
That beats even my PowerBook G4 that still works for about 40 minutes on 16 years old battery. Especially because it's a NiMH battery, not LiPo.

 

Wow ! That is impressive ! What is your company doing ?

 

Compaqs or McLarens?

Ethernet was on a PCMCIA card - either with a massive bit that stuck out the side, or a cable adapter. And I wouldn't expect USB to work on such an old laptop... if it had anything, it's going to be USB 1.0 which is pretty useless now.

Why not just use an ExpressCard?

https://www.startech.com/uk/Cards-A...CI-Express-Base-Parallel-ExpressCard~EC1PECPS

Not usually so much the software (although yes, custom software) but the hardware - custom interfaces that may have cost tens of thousands, if not millions to develop. And for which downtime would be a disaster.

That's why the legacy motherboard market is big business. They're ridiculously expensive, too! Like these:

http://www.adek.com/ATX_motherboards.html

 

I use those at work, when original computers die and we need a dos pc with an isa slot to drive the machine it's connected to.

 

If those weren't so expensive, I'd buy one for the novelty. Most people would laugh if you called them and asked for a i7 with 32GB of RAM and an ISA slot, but no...not these guys.

 

Thanks for the advice. I have an Ethernet PCMCIA card but I don't have the drivers....and getting them from the Internet will be useless as I don't have a way to transfert it to the laptop haha. I will try to dig a disk drive.

 

Take the hard drive out, put it in a dock, copy drivers to the hard drive.

Put it all back in and install drivers.

 

That is also an option. I even haven't think about it haha. Thanks !

 

LapLinkV! Reminds me of this scenario back then. Laplink support still has KB articles for LL5 online, humor.

All you would need is these cables and the LL5.EXE executable. I had these cables back then like I carry a USB stick now.

 

Still use laplink every couple of months lol