Unless you’ve got an especially small lap, calling the Toshiba Libretto a laptop is a bit of a stretch. The diminutive computers from the mid-1990s had a lot of the usual laptop features, but in an especially compact and portable case that made them a great choice for anyone with an on-the-go lifestyle.
Fast-forward thirty years or so, and the remaining Librettos haven’t fared too well. Many of them have cases that crumble at the slightest touch, which is what led [polymatt] to undertake this meticulous case replacement. The effort started with a complete teardown; luckily, the lower aluminum-alloy shell was in fine shape, but the upper case parts were found to be almost too deteriorated to handle. Still, with a little patience and the judicious application of tape, [polymatt] was able to scan the case pieces on a flatbed scanner and import them into his CAD package. Great tip on the blue-tack for leveling the parts for accurate scanning, by the way.
After multiple rounds of printing and tweaking, [polymatt] had a case good enough to reassemble the Libretto. Unfortunately, the previous owner left an unwanted gift: a BIOS password. Disconnecting the CMOS battery didn’t reset it, but a little research told him that shorting a few pins on the parallel port on the machine’s dock should do the trick. It was a bit involved, requiring the design and subsequent bodging of a PCB to fit into the docking port connector, but in the end he was able to wake up a machine to all its Windows 95 glory. Better get patching.
In a time when laptops were more like lap-crushers, the Libretto was an amazing little machine, and thirty years on, they’re well worth saving from the scrap heap. Hats off to [polymatt] for the effort to save this beauty, and if he needs tips on reading data from any PCMCIA cards that may have come with it, we’ve got him covered.
I loved the Libretto when it first came out and was even using one as recently as 10 years ago to control a glass fusing kiln. I think I still have a couple in storage. I hope to someday update the machine with a new RPi.
My Libretto (100CT) still works fine, but I cannot find a replacement battery module. Any ideas?
Disassemble the battery and change the Ni-Cd cells themselves
Best bet is to disassemble the battery and rebuild it. Back then, most battery packs were built from some common variant of cylindrical NiCd or NiMH cells, which generally are inexpensive and easy to source. You can get cheap LiPo based battery spot welders for under $50 that will do the job of rebuilding such a pack. If you’re creative, you might even be able to upgrade the pack to Li-Ion cells to increase the capacity and lifespan.
I still have mine. I never use it but can’t seem to bring myself to getting rid of it.
I remember somebody showing me this thing…I wanted one so bad!
Wouldn’t say no if I was offered one now, bit it’s less of an “I NEED THIS!”
It’s neat that someone will take this kind of time to do this. I had a couple of these I had salvaged some years ago but they quit working, so they went to recycling.
Looking for replacement screen for mine 50CT – heard that some gps used compatible one.
Do not not remember these.
For 4 years a GPD Micro PC with 6 inch screen have been my mostly used PC. W10Pro and VStudio is fine.
Yes, when at a desk, it get an extra monitor and keyboard, or just RDPed to.
But being able to have a real computer with all my stuff, in a pocket that is only big enough for a phone is great.