Toshiba Libretto 50ct teardown and possible project

[cdabc123]

Had this laptop sitting around and after diving in the construction and design really interested me.

Currently have no idea if it even powers on. Adapter is on the way. After that I get to dive into the majical world of win 95 to try and get a os crawling on this thing.

As far as projects go this has a very well documented io sheild. Since this is already a external device I want to intigrate a tiny fpga with it to deal with any io weirdness I want to use this thing for. Im also looking to integrate a rpi nano and remote into it and use that for modern internet access.

 

[NattyKathy]

So tiny! I love it!

 

[serpretetsky]

Lattice Semiconductor MachXO3 FPGAs are pretty good for small low-cost FPGAs. FPGA flash configuration and oscillator on the chip, all you need to do is supply 3.3V (and any related bypass capacitors) and you're good to go. I do recommend bringing out the jtag pins as well for easy debugging and programming. The tools work on modern machines too (I was using Diamond Lattice with windows 10).

 

[cdabc123]

Lattice Semiconductor MachXO3 FPGAs are pretty good for small low-cost FPGAs. FPGA flash configuration and oscillator on the chip, all you need to do is supply 3.3V (and any related bypass capacitors) and you're good to go. I do recommend bringing out the jtag pins as well for easy debugging and programming. The tools work on modern machines too (I was using Diamond Lattice with windows 10).

I was looking at diving into the lattice devices as some of the offering fit the form factor perfectly. I need to get a better idea of what I expect out of the fpga. I do have regulated power as well as serial and various other io from the laptop.

I was also leaning to a larger xilinx or altera fpga as I have a reasonable x y space to work with if I minimize the z space. I'm also already familiar with quartus and vivado.

Lol, what debug and programming options work on win 95?

 

[serpretetsky]

win95? I haven't checked but for Xilinx it would probably be ISE. I believe that supports most xilinx FPGA's/CPLD's before the 7 series (and some 7 series?). I think i was more assuming you would synthesize and/or program from a different machine and then generally keep that fpga image semi-permanently until you needed to change it for some reason. But i dont know how you envision your use-case.

Synthesis on that machine will be pretty slow, but for smaller FPGAs maybe it will be fine?

Im not familiar with Altera.

 

[cdabc123]

win95? I haven't checked but for Xilinx it would probably be ISE. I believe that supports most xilinx FPGA's/CPLD's before the 7 series (and some 7 series?). I think i was more assuming you would synthesize and/or program from a different machine and then generally keep that fpga image semi-permanently until you needed to change it for some reason. But i dont know how you envision your use-case.

Synthesis on that machine will be pretty slow, but for smaller FPGAs maybe it will be fine?

Im not familiar with Altera.

Lol I definitely will build the fpga on a different device. I'm just curious what the fpga scene looked like for win 98 ish.

Is the lattice toolchain pretty decent to build from?

 

[serpretetsky]

Is the lattice toolchain pretty decent to build from?

It was good enough for me. Lattice Diamond tools. My designs were generally pretty small and typically didn't push clock timing very hard. Generally I dont use the IDE for writing HDL, prefer notepad++ or visual studio code. The free version currently comes with modelsim for simulation, which is ok (I remember preferring activeHDL which they recently switched away from, just generally more responsive and more stable). For verilog it supports many verilog/systemverilog 2009 constructs. I'm not sure how good the VHDL 2008 support is.

I never got the reveal logic analyzer to work ( equivalent to Xilinx ILA). So there's that.

If you want to instantiate a soft cpu they have the Lattice Mico 32 (LM32) and Lattice Mico Development tools (c compiler) which integrates with Lattice Diamond tools. You can recompile code and not resynthesize anything, just reinitialize the BRAM. I've heard they're moving away from the LM32 and moving towards RISCV so maybe there are other options there (Lattice Propel i think?).

They generally support wishbone bus for LM32 and MACHXO3 / MACHXO2 fpgas, but maybe with RISCV they've moved to AXI, not sure.

 

[cdabc123]

It was good enough for me. Lattice Diamond tools. My designs were generally pretty small and typically didn't push clock timing very hard. Generally I dont use the IDE for writing HDL, prefer notepad++ or visual studio code. The free version currently comes with modelsim for simulation, which is ok (I remember preferring activeHDL which they recently switched away from, just generally more responsive and more stable). For verilog it supports many verilog/systemverilog 2009 constructs. I'm not sure how good the VHDL 2008 support is.

I never got the reveal logic analyzer to work ( equivalent to Xilinx ILA). So there's that.

If you want to instantiate a soft cpu they have the Lattice Mico 32 (LM32) and Lattice Mico Development tools (c compiler) which integrates with Lattice Diamond tools. You can recompile code and not resynthesize anything, just reinitialize the BRAM. I've heard they're moving away from the LM32 and moving towards RISCV so maybe there are other options there (Lattice Propel i think?).

They generally support wishbone bus for LM32 and MACHXO3 / MACHXO2 fpgas, but maybe with RISCV they've moved to AXI, not sure.

Good to know I think I need to figure out what exactly im expecting out of the fpga. Im tempted by the tang nano 9k devices avalible from china but dont know how hard to build and they seem minimal on resources.

I think im looking at stacking 2 rpi zero form factor boards and intigrating them into the io attachment of the laptop. There seams to be plenty of riscv rpi alternitives so im almost assuming im going to tie the boards in some way and avoid a soft processor on the fpga.

I plan on using the 'rpi' for modern internet acces and wifi. I still need to find a good way to network the rpi and laptop which currently uses a cardbus to ethernet adapter.

The adapter arrived for the laptop, and it boots! windows 95 is pretty snappy on this, and the joystick works better then the modern dell ones ive tried. It has a 800mb ata/ide drive. Im thinking and contemplating if I can install a modern msata ssd with an adapter in this spot.

 

[MisterDNA]

Based on the pic of the CPU, you got one of the 50CT units with an underclocked Pentium 120MHz CPU where the discontinued 75MHz CPU should be. I recall there are ways to enable it to run at full speed, but it requires soldering those tiny wires. The 120 would also easily take an FSB boost to 66MHz for 133MHz. 166MHz is also possible with the multiplier boosted to 2.5x, but it will run very hot.

I had one of these machines back in 2002 and used it for GPS navigation in my car.

 

[toast0]

Looks like a pcmcia slot? You can probably find a wifi card for that, although you'd be limited on security. The easier way would be wired ethernet plus a wifi client bridge. Maybe not as compact. Try to find a dongleless ethernet card if it'll fit, cause losing your dongle is a drag. And the dongles / dongle connectors are fragile.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I brought one of these back from the dead for a customer a year or two ago. You gotta replace those white plastic electrolytics (we call them fake tantalums in the vintage computer community), because they leak and will destroy everything. I'd recommend using tantalums, because that style of electrolytic doesn't exist anymore, and there's really not enough room to use any other package style electrolytic. I can't remember if there are electrolytics in the screen or not, but those definitely have to go as well.

Based on the pic of the CPU, you got one of the 50CT units with an underclocked Pentium 120MHz CPU where the discontinued 75MHz CPU should be. I recall there are ways to enable it to run at full speed, but it requires soldering those tiny wires. The 120 would also easily take an FSB boost to 66MHz for 133MHz. 166MHz is also possible with the multiplier boosted to 2.5x, but it will run very hot.

Overclocking these units isn't terribly difficult, I've done it.
http://www.silverace.com/libretto/overclocking.html

I'd not recommend it though. If you have the original 75 MHz model, the passive heatsink is right on the edge of being safe if you have a heavy load on the CPU for an extended period of time. I've done a modest 100 MHz overclock on a 75 MHz model and the heatsink couldn't keep up under sustained load and would overheat.

Looks like a pcmcia slot? You can probably find a wifi card for that, although you'd be limited on security.

I believe that it's only for storage devices. Normal PCMCIA cards won't fit because of a key in the slot preventing them from slotting in.

 

[cdabc123]

Alright, first phase of this project is looking to be, storage, networking and os. Ill try and find some resourses regarding the cap values in the meantime.

Storage: Anyone know how much luck I would have trying to throw a msata ssd in with something like this? https://www.ebay.com/itm/224902664915?var=523771706664

Networking: I plan on utilizing the cardbus adapter to ethernet and building a local network with that to interface with the rpi and fpga. Im also heavily concidering just using serial as that elements the dongles and plays nice with the fpga.

win 98? would server 2003 play nice with the drivers from this era? I found that os pretty palatable on my dual Pentium server.

Notes:

1. Its good to know on the overclocking ill have to keep that in mind although I would definintly agree the current 'heatsink' is inadiquate, perhaps the project will snowball abit and ill find a alternative method of cooling the chip.

2. I also need to find a battery alternative. The two I have are completely toasted. for this im considering either replacing the ?nicad? cells, modding a lipo and battery manager into the larger plastic extended battery case, or buying a 'new' one.

3. I want usb, somehow someway. So potentially target using the cardbus adapter for that and networking over serial or some 'usb' ghettoness via an external sbc and file transfer.

4. I am looking for recommendations for a small sbc that can run linux and be used as a workable web browser. rpi zero form factor would be ideal.

 

[MisterDNA]

I remember jerrying a Cardbus USB 2.0 adapter with two ports. It fit flush, but I had to make it fit. And that was on a different machine. I used to use PCMCIA a lot and Cardbus a lot. That standard was easier to work with than ExpressCard. I never did get my ExpressCard (in USB mode) hackadoodle card with an Xbox 360 controller receiver inside it to work right. But that was 2011.

Today? Just use Bluetooth with an XBOne controller, silly.