Monthly Archives: June 2023

A treasure? Toshiba Satellite 430CDT

Hello, dear reader!

A while ago, I acquired the Toshiba Satellite 430CDT in almost perfect condition. Sadly, I had no time to make a post about it earlier, and now its screen has just stopped working. I don’t know the reason. But I can still tell you about this interesting device. It’s a special item in my collection. I searched for this laptop for a while, liked it, and wanted to have it. I had a wish to actually use it as a terminal. I even built a telephone network to use dial-up with it. I may write about it later.

Specifications

Look at what a powerful machine we’ve got!

  • CPU: Pentium 120 MHz
  • RAM: 16MB EDO
  • HDD: 1.35GB IDE
  • Screen: 11.3” TFT 800×600

It doesn’t have USB, FireWire, a card reader, Ethernet, or even a phone modem. It still has an LPT port, which can be used to connect a floppy disk drive, printer, or modem. Mine had a CD-ROM, which could be replaced by a floppy disk drive.

First test and first problems

When I tested it, I found out that the mouse buttons were not working; they were partially broken. Also, the keyboard was very sticky. I couldn’t test it much as I had no PS/2 mouse.

Cleaning

I fully disassembled it. It was a bit complicated thing to do, but I could do that without any manual as I didn’t find any good one. I removed all the buttons from the keyboard and removed the stickers from the buttons (there were stickers with Russian letters). Then I washed all the buttons, and they looked like new. Then I cleaned the case as much as I could. It looked great after the cleaning. I assembled everything, and it worked, and the keyboard worked well.

Second test and more problems

A few days after cleaning, I got a PS/2 mouse for it, built a telephone network, set up a dial-in server for it, and also bought modems. With the PS/2 mouse, it was much easier to use as I could use the mouse buttons. It detected the modem, but I couldn’t connect to the PPP server. Later, I tested PPP with my PowerBook G4, which had a built-in modem. Everything worked with it, but it didn’t work with Windows on the Toshiba Satellite. Also, I tried to use the CD-ROM on it, but Windows had no drivers for it. As we have no USB or any other ways to download drivers to it, I bought an FDD for the LPT port, but it didn’t work either. I don’t remember if I tried to boot from a floppy, but it didn’t work on Windows. Perhaps it was just broken, as I also tried it on the ThinkPad T43, and it didn’t work either.

Then I got a new plan. I wanted to buy another IDE HDD, install the system to it from another Pentium machine, and install this HDD to the Toshiba. I decided to do it later as I had other things to do.

Breaking the screen

Sadly, when I decided to turn it on next time, the screen just didn’t work and had stripes on it. I didn’t do any diagnostic to understand the issue, and now the Toshiba Satellite 430CDT is lying in the box, for N time. Someday, I will get an external monitor for it and will try to do something with it, but for now, it’s just lying in my collection.

Why did I want it so much?

I really liked this laptop. It was very old and thick, but it looked small, like it had only an 11.3” screen, and a nice little keyboard, which was hard to type on just like the Apple Pro Keyboard A1048. I wanted to use it as an old-school terminal and a typewriter. I was planning to use some old FreeBSD on it, as Plan 9 wouldn’t boot on it due to not having enough RAM. It also had one special thing, a built-in PSU! You didn’t need to have a big brick near the laptop; it’s built-in, but of course, it’s very heavy. I was planning to actually use it, but it got broken. I was able to buy the same one in perfect condition, with everything fully working, two working batteries, and even the original Toshiba bag for it! But then I decided not to do that as I didn’t want to spend more money on it.

Maybe someday I will fix this one or buy another one. I don’t know. But it’s a great and interesting treasure from the past.

Bonus

A little history of how I almost bought the ThinkPad 380D, one of the laptops that I wished to have and use. I found this laptop on some site where I always buy stuff. It was in great condition, fully working, with a working battery, and at a good price.

I texted the seller, asked about some things, and ordered it. And then, a few hours later, I received a message: “I canceled the order. I tried to turn it on before selling, and it’s not working. I’m not sure if it’s even charging. Can sell for parts.” And then she set a lower price. I decided, “Okay, I will take it anyway,” and ordered again. An hour later…

“Oh, I am so sorry! I already sold it to someone. They came to my home and took it. Sorry!”

What a seller! I had already ordered it multiple times. I wasted a few hours for you, and then you just sold it to another person? Perfect, wonderful!

Sometimes, sellers are awful.

Thank you for reading!

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Please send any comments to ahr (at) anche (dot) no.

MacBook Pro 15 2017 Review

Hello, dear reader! I recently bought a new MacBook, and in this post, I want to tell you about it. I have wanted to get this laptop since the time when I had no laptop or any other personal computer at all.

Review

Design & Quality

The laptop is made from aluminum, and I got the dark space gray color. It has a good keyboard with a backlight. It also has a large touchpad, and the most interesting thing is the touch bar, but we will talk about it more later. It has four ThunderBolt 3 ports and one 3.5mm jack port. It also has a FaceTime camera with awful quality. It’s very thin and weighs only 1.8kg, making it convenient and easy to carry around or take somewhere outside, for example. The build quality is great, but the paint has a problem, and eventually, it will become a bit silver, haha.

Specifications

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700HQ (8 cores)
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 630, Radeon Pro 555
RAM: 16GB DDR4
Screen: Retina 2K 15”

Audio

It has stereo speakers, and honestly, it’s the best sound I have ever heard. It’s very loud—when I’m listening, I set the volume to 30-40% as it can be very loud. The sound from the 3.5mm jack is also very good. Overall, it has awesome sound, and it can easily be used instead of speakers. Bluetooth sound is also great.

Touch Bar

First, what is it? The Touch Bar is a little touchscreen OLED screen instead of functional buttons on the keyboard. Before I used it, I thought it would be useless, but it’s very functional, useful, and convenient! It can do really a lot of things. For example, you can switch tabs in the browser, add a new tab, or open a bookmark. You can also select the font and size for text when writing notes, among other things. You can control the screen or keyboard brightness, volume, and playback on iTunes or the browser, or any other application, anywhere. It also has a fast fingerprint reader near it.

Screen

As you can read above, it has a Retina 2K 15” screen, and it has an awesome screen quality. You can look at it from any direction, and it will look the same. Such a screen can be easily used to work with graphics, videos, and other such activities. There’s not much to say about it—just good quality screen.

Battery Life

As I have used the battery, depending on battery cycles, battery life can vary. I have not extensively tested it, but it’s likely enough for 6 hours. I will update the information when I test it more. For more information, you can contact Apple.

Why I chose it?

I chose this MacBook because I really liked it, and for its price, I couldn’t find anything better. I got it, and it wasn’t a mistake. Everything is great, and I like this laptop. I will write a post about what I like and what I dislike about Apple. There are many things to discuss as it has lots of problems and many good things. Please wait for the second post that I will write after a month of using it. I am not writing pros and cons as I have not found any cons (yet?). We will not know until we try!

Thank you for reading! Wait for further posts, and have a happy Pride month! <3

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Please send any comments to ahr (at) anche (dot) no.