I'm typing this in WordPerfect 5.1, from 1989, on my Compaq Portable III PC, which
I got a few days ago from the place I worked over the summer. My old
boss sent me an email asking if I wanted this machine - they had found it in
the back room in maintenance and were going to get rid of it.
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| The original picture I received of the computer |
As soon as I got
back from spring break, I headed over and grabbed it, complete with carrying
case and a PLC, which I really have no idea how to use. (The hardware and
software are all here, but I've gotta read the documentation to really figure
out how it works.) Meanwhile, though, let me tell you about what I've gotten
done so far with this machine.
Upon
receiving that email, all I got was the front of the machine, and I didn't know
if it had a 3.5" or 5.25" disk drive. This was critical, since I
don't have any machines that have the latter kind of drive. After a bit of
reading, I found that the 3.5" drive was optional, as Compaq saw it as a
necessary evil while the 5.25" ruled the roost as far as they were
concerned.
I got a
bit of hope since I saw that they had installed a controller program I was
familiar with, copyrighted 1993. By this point the 3.5" floppy had
essentially taken over, and to run that software this machine must have a
3.5" drive.
Luckily,
this machine has a 3.5", 1.44MB drive, but getting it working was a bit of
a puzzle.
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| The computer as I received it - note the pieces of rubber fallen off of the keyboard cord |
When I
received the computer, it was a bit dirty, given that it sat in a
manufacturing plant for the better part of 28 years. The bag was absolutely covered in dirt, so I left that in
the basement for the time being.After
cleaning it off with dampened paper towels, the first thing I noticed was that
the keyboard cable was literally disintegrating before my eyes. After a couple
Google searches it became clear that dry rot of the keyboard cable was a common
problem with these machines. Handling it gingerly, I booted the computer and
the familiar C:\> prompt appeared before me in glorious orange monochrome on
this sick gas-plasma display.
Real
quick spec rundown before I get ahead of myself:
Step 1
for me when getting an old computer is to get it running Oregon Trail. So, I
loaded up the files on my ThinkPad and copied them to a floppy using my trusty
IBM USB Portable Diskette Drive.
Popped the disk into the Compaq, and dir
yielded a list of all the files. Great, I thought. But upon running the program
OREGON.EXE I received a disk access error complaining that the sector could not
be read.
I tried
a different disk and the same thing happened. Given that I was using brand-new
disks out of the box, I figured there was a problem with the drive type in
BIOS, since the drive itself clearly worked fine (otherwise I wouldn't even
have been able to dir myself up a list of files).
Hmm...time
to enter the BIOS and select the drive type.However,
this computer does not have BIOS built in, so one needs to run a setup program
off a disk. I found a program online that allows you to create a setup disk,
but that program itself requires DOS, which is running on NONE of my current
computers. Luckily someone (Theo,
here)has copied the files off of one of
said setup disks into a zip file and uploaded it, so I downloaded that zip and
thought I would be ready to go.
Step 2,
though, was to create a disk that would be read by the Compaq, since it had
trouble with my 1.44MB Oregon Trail disk. I figured the only other type of disk
that it would accept would be a 720K single sided one, so I looked up how to
make one. Simple - put tape over the right-side hole on a 1.44MB floppy.
To
format this 720K disk in Windows with my USB floppy disk drive, I ran the
following command under cmd:
FORMAT A: /T:80 /N:9
Luckily, it worked - according to
the site, it won't
work with some newer USB drives since they only support 1.44MB disks.
Once I
had the disk formatted, I was able to copy the files from the zip file onto it
in Windows just fine. Popped that disk into the Compaq, ran SETUP.EXE, and up
popped the COMPAQ logo!
All I
needed to do was change the drive type to 3.5", 1.44MB, and I was good to
go! Another stroke of luck is that the CMOS battery is not dead, which is nice
since otherwise I'd need to run SETUP.EXE every time I booted the computer; not
fun at all.
So Step
3 was to finally run OREGON TRAIL, and I stuck the disk in, ran OREGON.EXE, and
was greeted by the familiar splash screen.
I did
all that a couple nights ago. Today, I wanted to get a couple more programs,
and figure out a temporary and permanent solution for that crummy keyboard
cable.
In the
short term, I'm using a spare old keyboard we had laying around. I only found
out that the keyboard is removable, though, today - turns out that the plastic
cover is just that. To remove, according to the
repair manual I found here all you need to do is "gently" pull on the
connector. Right - I braced myself against the computer and literally YANKED,
and finally it came out. Plugged in the alternate keyboard and it worked
perfectly, no worrying about any sort of layout issues or incompatibility.
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| The computer sitting on my computer desk, with alternate keyboard attached |
I also
got a port of Battlezone, the classic 1980 Atari vector graphics tank shooter.
It looks awesome on this display, and while I am not very good at it, it's
pretty fun to play.
One odd thing is that since this was a PC booter game,
there is really no exit. You need to reboot or (Ctrl+Alt+Del) to get back
into DOS! (Booter games were so named because you popped in the disk and the
computer automatically booted into the game, not into your OS. This meant that
to get back to DOS, you needed to literally reboot the computer with the DOS disk in the drive.)
Another
thing I knew I'd want is a word-processor. I looked into WordStar 4 and MS Word
5.1, both of which are easily found online, but I checked on the hard drive and
saw that WordPerfect 5.1 was already installed! Why bother with other ones if
I've already got one? Sweet! Similarly, I will use Lotus 1-2-3 for all my
spreadsheeting needs - I've even got a reference manual for it which I picked
up from the
Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 10 (link goes to my photo album).
The big
project last night was getting that bag cleaned up. I used leather lotion to get
the thing looking nice again, and apart from accidentally turning the inside
logo a bit yellow, the bag cleaned up quite nicely compared to what it was.
Overall,
given that the thing works fine, nothing's smoking at all, and the floppy drive
works well too, I'm an EXTREMELY happy camper. This computer is so much FUN to
use!! Between the so-bad-it's-good PC speaker to the behemoth hum of the
startup sequence, and of course this clear and bright ORANGE screen, the Compaq
Portable III is a real sight to behold. Considering it cost the equivalent of
$12,000 today (2016, original price $5,799 in 1987), you certainly got what you
paid for. 29 years later, the Portable III is going strong!
Upcoming
is a cable replacement for the keyboard; I've got a 6-ft coiled DIN extension
cable in the mail. Stay tuned!
Stay COOL!
Vikram
