Comments on: Old school libretto mods

By: Angry Kreyon

Angry Kreyon — Tue, 22 May 2007 16:11:24 +0000

after diggin out my old CT100 and needing to replace the HD. I was shocked to find that a Hitachi(40gb)HD
and an IBM(40gb)HD, could be placed into the Libretto body and it would recognize and access them no problems! especially after reading Here that I would need a disk manager for anything over 8.4gb due to a bios limitation. (I must say I found no such limitation, and only used a 40gb drive because it was the only one I could find around my desk which fit (size wise) into the unit.) I did have to cut a few pieces of plastic off the HD near the pins to make sure it would slide all the way into place. but all in all I was Happy with the results! next thing to do is find a way to add more memory then the 64mb Cap.

my Goal is to beef it up as much as possible and use it for a combo "on board Diagnostics reader" for my truck ( so I could monitor the engine stats in real time as I drive) and also to be able to use it for a navigation unit with a PCMCIA gps unit ( or maybe I would have to get a PCMCIA USB card to hook it up ) and last but not least to output Media player audio to my Stereo for entertainment, you know MP3's and whatever I want to watch or listen too. esentialy this would bcome a Sort of Entertainment Brain for my Truck! now I have a DVD/CD/TV indash unit already, but this would have the ability to download from my wireless network in the house without ever coming out of the truck! bottom line is I got a couple of these units that were expensive 10 years ago, and then sat around for years, so i will try and give them a new life, and get some of that value back from them.

Mod On!

By: mozman

mozman — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 05:14:57 +0000

I’ve got a 100CT with a dead battery. I found the old style camcorder batteries happen to run at 12 volts. A little snipping of power cords and a little soldering and I have a massive external battery. Followed by a 6gb hard drive and shoehorning XP in. Yeah, it takes a little bit to boot but it is great on the airplane. I can comfortably use it even when the bloke in front leans back for a shave.

By: Tom61

Tom61 — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:46:49 +0000

I wonder what happened to silverace's site, it was fully working less than a week ago, with lots of up-to-date links for the Libretto series.

Over the next week, I'll likely put Windows 98 on my 100CT, so I can get USB and Wifi going. I've also picked up a ~$12 card that is a hardware MPEG/MPEG II/DVD decoder so I can play DVDs (see link in name for it) on the Libretto.

My Libretto has enhanced my wants for a beefier platform in this size,. So, it might end up hanging off my KVM as a retro DOS box if I find a suitable replacement for cheap (i.e. not a p1510d).

By: werejag

werejag — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 14:12:48 +0000

i had my libretto 50ct stolen. i so do miss it.

By: Pip

Pip — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 13:55:00 +0000

Yeah, Librettos are sweet. There's also a mailing list which is still fairly active (archive is my url), even though most discussion is about the US-marketed Libs (almost ~10 years later!). I've got FreeBSD on my 100CT now, planning to intsall OpenBSD very soon. Some other good sites include Xin's site (linked to in the post); it is king of the libretto hacks. Also, http://www.silverace.com/libretto/ is definitely not defunct, and has lots of good technical manuals and drivers.

I'm looking to repack/rebuild the extended battery for my Lib--any one else tried this?

By: Gr0bschmit

Gr0bschmit — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 12:57:20 +0000

hey i have one of these. looks like i’m going to have to overclock this tonight. i have found that some harddrives gererate enough heat to trip the heat sensor in to shuting the system down. now we just need a hack to add more then 32mb of ram ;)

By: cide1

cide1 — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 09:55:34 +0000

Ditto on the lifebook. I have a p1510d, and it is fantastic for it’s size. 1.2 GHz pentium mobile, 512 Ram, 30 GB harddrive, CF and SD slot, wireless, 2 USB, VGA, and audio out. Plus the screen swivels into tablet form with a touch screen and finger print scanner. An amazing laptop no bigger than a portable DVD player.

For extended use though, I recommend a separate monitor, usb keyboard, usb mouse.

By: Jakeh

Jakeh — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:45:43 +0000

I love my Libretto! Can’t imagine o’cing it though, it runs so hotly as it is…

By: Tom61

Tom61 — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 01:17:43 +0000

I recently got a 100CT (in the link to Flickr) as a hold-me-over for UMPC prices to come down. I’m planning on O/Cing it from 166 to 233MHz, installing Win 98 on a 20GB HD and upping the RAM to 64MB (the official max)to make it a bit more capable.

By: pragma

pragma — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:34:49 +0000

I honestly had no clue these things existed - certainly a hacker's toy if I ever saw one.

Linux Installation:
http://ecg.mit.edu/george/libretto.html

Hacking the libretto 100 - overclock to 266Mhz:
http://aelinik.free.fr/libretto.htm

A little digging through google and the web archive got me this gem (site is now defunct; no idea how stale any of those links are):

http://web.archive.org/web/20000824180332/www.silverace.com/libretto/

Ebay and other e-tailors seem to be awash with cheap complete sets, extra batteries, etc. Happy hacking!

By: Yorgle

Yorgle — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 18:35:12 +0000

I love my old Libretto 70. I use it to drive a Eprom reader/writer that happens to be bigger than it. heheh.

Great little device. :)

By: Unorthodox

Unorthodox — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 17:10:46 +0000

If you like the Libretto, you should look into a Fujitsu Lifebook… I have a P1120, 800Mhz, 256ram, touch screen, internal wifi, and the same size as the Libretto.

By: crgwbr

crgwbr — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 15:50:51 +0000

crap that’s a big ic