Compaq Plus Luggable boot problems

Ok, yes, this IS an old computer! I anyone could steer me to a more
appropriate group, I would be grateful.

I used to own one back when they were state of the art, g and
decided to see if I could pick one up on eBay. You can frequently find
someone selling one.

Since I'm on a bit of a budget right now, I went for one of the lower
prices, natch. The machine was sold "as is" and I expected thing to be
wrong with it. I figured I could hack most of them by replacing a
card, or a drive, etc. Anything but the built-in monitor, anyway.

So. This machine is a Compaq Plus (gold label) and comes with one
floppy and a hard drive. When I turned it on I got (in order) a 301
error, and a 1701 hard drive error(or was it 1705? damn, should have
written that down) ; something I used to know about, but it's been a
long time since I messed about with an XT class machine.

I didn't see a memory check.

Anyway, the system got to the "bad or missing system disk, insert boot
disk and press a key" message, so I figured the HD was dead or in need
of formatting, so I dropped in a 5 1/2" DOS 5.0 boot disk w/o
autoexec.bat or config.sys on it, just so I can see what's working.
Press a key. Nothing happens. Not good.

Ok, I cold boot with the boot disk in the drive this time, and I see
the 301 & the 170x error, then get to "Enter date:" Excellent! It
boots!.

But again, when I try to *enter* a date, nada. The keyboard is
completely unresponsive.

So I turn off the machine, drop the floppy into my main system (still
have a 1.2 meg drive) and create a little autoexec.bat with just dir &
checkdisk on it, to see if at least the memory and disk checks work,
but this time when I powered up, there's no damn video! Arrgh.
Otherwise I could have told you exactly what 170x error was reported.

I'm hoping the video is fixable by replacing the display card, but I'm
stumped on the 301 error. Any old-timers remember what that one was?
I'm figuring it's probably a keyboard error, but I'm not sure.

I took the keyboard apart, and I don't see any obvious problems, like
someone spilled crap all over it, and melted some of the traces
(something I once managed with an AT keyboard and some iced tea,
once), and everything seemed plugged in ok.

Also: my original Compaq was the silver label: the PC equivalent. I
later upgraded it by replacing the BIOS so it could take 640k on the
motherboard, and added that memory. I was told that the BIOS upgrade
made it the equivalent of the XT/Compaq Plus model, and read last
month that many of the later-run silver label models included the XT
BIOS when sold. Anyone know anything about that?

Sigh.dunno if I can fix keyboard problems, unless I can find one and
swap out the circuit board.

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all have,
Casey

Almost forgot: Apparently the IBM Portable used an actual IBM PC
motherboard, so you could (I suppose) swap out the motherboard and
drop in one from a desktop if you wished.

Does anyone know if that's true for a Compaq?

TIA,
Casey

301=keyboard
1701=hard drive controller


201=memory
7301=floppy drive controller
161=battery
1101=setial card

Casey Tompkins wrote:
Ok, yes, this IS an old computer! I anyone could steer me to a more
appropriate group, I would be grateful.

I used to own one back when they were state of the art, g and
decided to see if I could pick one up on eBay. You can frequently find
someone selling one.

Since I'm on a bit of a budget right now, I went for one of the lower
prices, natch. The machine was sold "as is" and I expected thing to be
wrong with it. I figured I could hack most of them by replacing a
card, or a drive, etc. Anything but the built-in monitor, anyway.

So. This machine is a Compaq Plus (gold label) and comes with one
floppy and a hard drive. When I turned it on I got (in order) a 301
error, and a 1701 hard drive error(or was it 1705? damn, should have
written that down) ; something I used to know about, but it's been a
long time since I messed about with an XT class machine.

I didn't see a memory check.

Anyway, the system got to the "bad or missing system disk, insert boot
disk and press a key" message, so I figured the HD was dead or in need
of formatting, so I dropped in a 5 1/2" DOS 5.0 boot disk w/o
autoexec.bat or config.sys on it, just so I can see what's working.
Press a key. Nothing happens. Not good.

Ok, I cold boot with the boot disk in the drive this time, and I see
the 301 & the 170x error, then get to "Enter date:" Excellent! It
boots!.

But again, when I try to *enter* a date, nada. The keyboard is
completely unresponsive.

So I turn off the machine, drop the floppy into my main system (still
have a 1.2 meg drive) and create a little autoexec.bat with just dir &
checkdisk on it, to see if at least the memory and disk checks work,
but this time when I powered up, there's no damn video! Arrgh.
Otherwise I could have told you exactly what 170x error was reported.

I'm hoping the video is fixable by replacing the display card, but I'm
stumped on the 301 error. Any old-timers remember what that one was?
I'm figuring it's probably a keyboard error, but I'm not sure.

I took the keyboard apart, and I don't see any obvious problems, like
someone spilled crap all over it, and melted some of the traces
(something I once managed with an AT keyboard and some iced tea,
once), and everything seemed plugged in ok.

Also: my original Compaq was the silver label: the PC equivalent. I
later upgraded it by replacing the BIOS so it could take 640k on the
motherboard, and added that memory. I was told that the BIOS upgrade
made it the equivalent of the XT/Compaq Plus model, and read last
month that many of the later-run silver label models included the XT
BIOS when sold. Anyone know anything about that?

Sigh.dunno if I can fix keyboard problems, unless I can find one and
swap out the circuit board.

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all have,
Casey

"Casey Tompkins" wrote in message
...
Ok, yes, this IS an old computer! I anyone could steer me to a more
appropriate group, I would be grateful.

I used to own one back when they were state of the art, g and
decided to see if I could pick one up on eBay. You can frequently find
someone selling one.

Since I'm on a bit of a budget right now, I went for one of the lower
prices, natch. The machine was sold "as is" and I expected thing to be
wrong with it. I figured I could hack most of them by replacing a
card, or a drive, etc. Anything but the built-in monitor, anyway.

So. This machine is a Compaq Plus (gold label) and comes with one
floppy and a hard drive. When I turned it on I got (in order) a 301
error, and a 1701 hard drive error(or was it 1705? damn, should have
written that down) ; something I used to know about, but it's been a
long time since I messed about with an XT class machine.

I didn't see a memory check.

Anyway, the system got to the "bad or missing system disk, insert boot
disk and press a key" message, so I figured the HD was dead or in need
of formatting, so I dropped in a 5 1/2" DOS 5.0 boot disk w/o
autoexec.bat or config.sys on it, just so I can see what's working.
Press a key. Nothing happens. Not good.


I have a compaq luggable that only works with a dos2x boot disk
I tried a number of different (known good disks) and finally got the dos 2
version to work