The laptop to have here in the 2020s varies depending on who you ask, perhaps a Framework, or maybe a ThinkPad. Back in the 1990s the answer might have included a now-forgotten contender, because in that decade Toshiba made a range of legendarily tough chunky grey machines. Of these the smallest was the Libretto, a paperback book sized clamshell design which was an object of desire. It’s one of these that [Robert’s Retro] has upgraded to use USB-C power instead of the original power brick.
The full video is below the break, and while it first deals with replacing a defective screen, the power part starts just before 22 minutes in. As you’d expect it involves a USP-C PD trigger board, this time at 15 volts. It’s mounted in a small 3D printed adapter to fill the space of the original jack, and requires a tiny notch be removed from the corner of its PCB to fit round the motherboard. The rest of the video deals with reassembling the machine and tending to mishaps with the ageing plastic, but the result is a Libretto with a modern charging port.
Naturally a machine with a Pentium CPU and 32 megabytes of RAM is in of limited use in modern terms, but these Librettos remain very well-designed tiny PCs to this day. It’s great to see them still being modified and upgraded, even if perhaps there’s a limit to how far you can push their computing power. We’ve encountered the Libretto before a few times, such as when one was used to retrieve data from an old Flash card.
Must find new lcd for mine – heard that same type was used in some navigation.
I truly lusted after these. Is there a modern alternative with a proper keyboard like this?
one company, 3 good options
GPD WIN Mini 2024 (clamshell) Ryzen 5 or 7 w 120hz 7 inch screen and dual joysticks w vibration feedback for gamers
GPD Win 4 (slider) Ryzen 5 or 7 6 inch screen built like a handheld gaming device with a hideaway keyboard.
GPD Pocket 3 (twist screen convertible) Intel I7 w 8 inch screen with digitzer support for active stylus with 4096 levels of pressure support for artists
Me neither. Maybe in this particular case because of the ability to use an USB battery pack, err, power bank ?
Generally speaking, I often think there’s some fetish going on when people do “upgrade” various devices by replacing venerable power supplies and linear voltage regulators by modern parts from China.
Often, the intention is to safe power by increasing efficiency.
Or so people say. It seems to be bogus argument, however, considering how often (or how seldomly) the device is actually being in use.
Anyway, each to his own. 🤷
I am guaranteed to have a usb c cable in my backpack at any given moment but never a random barrel jack that nothing else I carry everyday uses?
It’s not clear that these USB-C ‘trigger boards’ do anything other than pass through the voltage they negotiate. So if you plug in a max 12V USB-C supply won’t the laptop then get a rather sad 12V rather then the 15V it needs?
What else would you want a PD trigger to do? Yes, all they do is tell the power supply to switch voltages, it’s the power supply that does all the regulation.
And yes, if the power supply can’t supply the requested voltage, eg 15v, then it’ll give you the next one down, so presumably 12v. That said most laptops are 12v so they’ll run happily enough, the battery won’t charge though.
Trigger boards I’m looking have a defined output voltage (you pick when purchasing). So presumably, if you have a trigger board that wants 15v, and your adapter only supplies 5v or 12v, you don’t get anything.
In college I wanted one of these so bad! There were a couple people who had them in class.
In the decade after college Zaurus existed. I loved my Collie but wanted one of the clamshell models. Libretto was already out of date but I would have liked the ability to easily use a regular Linux distro with full build utils on it. With the Zaurus Sharp tried to make you use a cross-dev tool on a “real” computer that was horribly difficult to make work thus forcing one to be limited to what was available as a prebuilt package.
So now.. there are SO many options for a small handheld computer like I dreamed of then. But I’m older, it’s no longer easy to read such a small screen and my fingers get sore now using mini keyboards.
As @sjm4306 says barrel jacks ain’t barrel jacks; my laptops have at least 3 different sizes (around 4mm, 5mm & 7mm) for no real reason, especially as they’re all 19v. Just another PITA.
USB-C is a definite improvement (though 20v supplies are a bit rare).
The other NEC libretto’s of similar vintage had direct ac input. I liked that design as you didn’t have to worry about a brick.
Sorry Toshiba not NEC.
I still have four Librettos 110CT.
Each with total of 96 Mb. W2K, XP, 2x Linux.
https://avics.home.xs4all.nl/
I learned a great deal of kernel debugging, trying to unlock the workings of the Margi DVD to Go to get it running under Linux and reverse engineering the graphics card with IDA Pro.
Used them for navigation and a lot of other fun stuff.
Still have a lot of spare components laying around.
See the website for more information.
I regret parting with mine so many years ago as it was a fantastic form factor which regardless of what has been released since just doesn’t compare.
I bought a broken one for a not inconsiderable amount of money and the first thing I had to do was take it part to fix the PCMCIA slots. Whilst inside it got clocked too.
I’ve love to have another one and modernize it but the retro stuff demands far too much money to justify that for me.
Oh man, this is fantastic. I picked up one of these a while back to mess with, and aside from the hard drive/CF adapter/SSD replacement question, the power plug has been the biggest obstacle to actually using it. Will definitely be giving this a shot, I’m pretty sure I even have a few PD trigger boards that I can repurpose in the parts bin!
The ability to use large external battery banks.
The ability to carry one power supply to share between all your devices.
The ability to easily find alternative power if your old plugpack dies/gets lost/gets left behind.
The ability to have a much smaller and more efficient power supply than the old plugpack was.
No risk of plugging in a barrel jack with the wrong voltage or polarity.
“As you’d expect it involves a USP-C PD trigger board…” Pedant here: USP-C > USB-C.
One charger to rule them all, one charger to bind them.
Seriously, why would anyone want a bunch of different chargers for portable devices???
I’ve used a few PD triggers in similar projects, and the goal is always the same – get all the devices to accept the chargers I have on hand (always USB-C)
This is for toddlers right?
I remember the old design, but everyone looking at it now is going to say it’s a toy