Toshiba Libretto Mods.

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Felino
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Toshiba Libretto Mods.

Post by Felino »

OK, I am getting my new 100ct Libretto delivered soon, what mods can I do to it?

I already have an IDE -> Compactflash drive adapter to put in it, along with a 2GB card, with this I can edit the HHD quickly with my other computers, and reduce power usage.

What else?

-Felino
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teraflop122
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Post by teraflop122 »

You could try to LED mod the screen for more brightness and battery life.

Replace the annoying mini-headphone jack with a regular sized one. (70ct has this, not sure about 100ct)

Overclock it to 200, 233, or 266Mhz. Better yet, add a switch to the back for changing clock speed!

Trick it out with a wireless cardbus card and USB cardbus card.
Felino
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Post by Felino »

Can you do both at once?
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teraflop122
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Post by teraflop122 »

I thought it had 2 PCMCIA slots, but I don't know for sure.
Felino
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Post by Felino »

Same :lol:

Might add a PS/2 port though.
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tom61
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Post by tom61 »

Notes about USB and Wifi:

Windows 95 (what it will likely come with) can't handle USB and can only handle Wifi if you manage to find one of the few cards with Win 95 drivers and utilities.

Windows 98 is driver hell when it comes to USB. Have to install drivers for every USB device save keyboards and basic mice, including thumbdrives, external harddisks and memory card readers. It is possible to find Wifi cards that have Win 98 drivers and utilities.

Windows 2000 is about as high as you can put on a Libretto have it do more than crawl, but it gives you decent USB drivers built in, and it's even easier to find drivers and utilities for WiFi cards. definitely max out the RAM to 64MB if you go this route.

With Linux, anything but DSL runs at a snail's pace, unless you both overclock and max out the memory, which take it into the very slow category. If you want to play with Linux, I'll send you my batch file and configuration that I used to run DSL on mine from DOS.

As far as hardware upgrades go, teraflop122 touched on most of them. Upgrading the memory would be a good start on eeking out just a bit more performance under Windows. As for cards you could add a DVD decoder card that lets you play DVDs, as well as MPEG 1, MPEG 2, and .vob files off a harddisk. Then get a PCMCIA DVD drive to go with it. I also considered getting a TV tuner card for mine.
Felino
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Post by Felino »

Hmmm, tv tuner, way to go!

Are there pc card tv tuners?
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Felino
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Post by Felino »

anotherperson wrote:
teraflop122 wrote: Tom61, I have never seen these PCMCIA video cards before. Do you know if it's possible to get one as a "supplement" to the onboard hopeless video chip and have it accelerate the onboard display? It would be awesome to stick in a card that acts like another onboard video chip. There isn't even true Direct 3D support onboard...
I didn't think PCMCIA would supply the bandwith...
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tom61
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Post by tom61 »

Felino wrote:
anotherperson wrote: Tom61, I have never seen these PCMCIA video cards before. Do you know if it's possible to get one as a "supplement" to the onboard hopeless video chip and have it accelerate the onboard display? It would be awesome to stick in a card that acts like another onboard video chip. There isn't even true Direct 3D support onboard...
I didn't think PCMCIA would supply the bandwith...
PCMCIA can't, however, Cardbus can, which is what the Libretto has (Cardbus is backwards compatible with PCMCIA, so that leads to some confusion, even among vendors selling the thing). However, I can't find a Cardbus card that will go through an existing video card's buffer. Back in the early days of 3D acceleration, there were cards with a PowerVR 3D video chip that communicated to the 2D video buffer over the PCI bus. I suppose Cardbus was too new at that point to have much of a market for 3D cards at that point. The one linked is only DVI out. I couldn't find any other Cardbus video cards when I searched, nor a cheaper price, so going to a higher end ultra-portable (like my Lifebook) is a better option.

Also, there is a kind of cheat called 'Zoom Video' that lets you put video into the buffer without going through the normal PCMCIA bus. The DVD decoder card I have uses it. I couldn't find any video cards that used it, only MPEG 1 and DVD decoders. Which makes since, as PCMCIA is ISA based and has roughly the same bandwidth.
Felino
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Post by Felino »

Lifebook? :?
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tom61
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Post by tom61 »

vskid
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Post by vskid »

Felino wrote:Lifebook? :?
This little bad boy that tom61 got.
After reading this stuff, I think I'm going to get Windows 2000 or XP and nlite it for my 300mHz laptops I'm getting.
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Felino
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Post by Felino »

Meh, turn it into a hackintosh!
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