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  • Minimum Viable device?

    From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to All on Mon Jul 14 15:45:30 2025

    I'm looking for something old and small that I can take with me to do light web browsing and some word processing. Eclectic would be good.

    I was thinking about an old Workpad Z50 - I had one in 1999 and loved it. I could either stick with Windows CE (OK for word processing, web browsing would be out) but rumor has it they'll run OpenBSD, so some graphics environment might be possible.

    Another fun laptop I had in 1994 or so was an HP Omnibook 300. Low power slc chip, mono screen (unfortunately, non-backlit), a funky pop-out mouse, and Windows 3.1 in ROM. Crazy battery life, it'd even run on AA batteries. I used to laplink bluewave packets to it when I went on trips.

    Any other ideas?
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  • From Shaggy@21:1/135 to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Jul 16 23:14:56 2025
    BY: poindexter FORTRAN (21:4/122)

    I'm looking for something old and small that I can take with me to do
    light web browsing and some word processing. Eclectic would be good.

    I was thinking about an old Workpad Z50 - I had one in 1999 and loved
    it. I could either stick with Windows CE (OK for word processing, web browsing would be out) but rumor has it they'll run OpenBSD, so some graphics environment might be possible.

    Another fun laptop I had in 1994 or so was an HP Omnibook 300. Low power slc chip, mono screen (unfortunately, non-backlit), a funky pop-out
    mouse, and Windows 3.1 in ROM. Crazy battery life, it'd even run on AA batteries. I used to laplink bluewave packets to it when I went on
    trips.

    Any other ideas?

    Most of the devices you mention will not be good for browsing the web. I have an Omnibook 800, and a Toshiba Libretto. Just not enough umph to run a modern browser. I have been able to install a version of Putty that can SSH into current linux servers. I suppose you could install an X windows client on something of that age and export your display from a shell. You could browse that way.

    The other challenge I've found on Pre-XP laptops is finding cards and drivers to connect to WiFi. Again, I have managed to get my Pentium laptops to connect to 802.11G networks, albeit with some effort.

    Let us know what you find. Love the retro.

    Good Luck,
    Shaggy


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  • From poindexter FORTRAN@21:4/122 to Shaggy on Thu Jul 17 07:15:32 2025
    Shaggy wrote to Poindexter Fortran <=-

    The other challenge I've found on Pre-XP laptops is finding cards and drivers to connect to WiFi. Again, I have managed to get my Pentium laptops to connect to 802.11G networks, albeit with some effort.

    Let us know what you find. Love the retro.

    My current writing deck is an IBM (not Lenovo) Thinkpad X60. 11" 4:3
    screen, 32-bit CPU, 3 GB of RAM. Runs Linux Mint Debian edition just
    fine.

    One thing I'm tempted by are old 486/pentium laptops - just enough
    horsepower to run a browser and a word processor. I loved old Toshiba
    laptops, but the batteries are getting scarce unless you replace the
    innards with new batteries.



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  • From neva@21:2/150 to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Jul 18 22:18:30 2025
    I'm looking for something old and small that I can take with me to do light web browsing and some word processing. Eclectic would be good.

    I just acquired an old but never before used chromebook, an acer c710. At
    first I tried to use NetBSD but lack of hardware support means I switched to Linux, specifically Devuan. It is far more advanced than he devices you listed but these types of devices can be had for cheap and do what you require. I did dig through my closet and upgrade the ram to 16gb but beyond that I found it to be in excellent shape.

    I would check ebay and the goodwill auctions and find yourself a similar device. It will do what you want and more.

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