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.