The Toshiba Libretto CT50

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The Toshiba Libretto CT50

Рет қаралды 2,043

Күн бұрын

This revolutionary UMPC brought portable computing to a new level back in 1995 and still has a large following today. Its compact form factor with suprisingly usable keyboard, sharp screen and good battery life made computing on the go a realistic option for busines users and consumers alike.
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Libretto drivers - archive.org/de...
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Пікірлер: 41

@foggygray Жыл бұрын

That CT50 is in great shape. I was looking at Librettos not too long ago and most them were missing huge chunks of plastic. I’ve always found these to be interesting little computers.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Yes I was very lucky with this one, I think it was stored in the loft (so dark) for a number of years so the plastics haven't become too brittle, I will be keeping out of direct sunlight for the same reason

@user48377 8 ай бұрын

I bought Libretto in 1997. I used it till 2010 when colleagues were still amazed of such a small PC. I overclocked it by soldering some wires, instruction online. I gave it to my niece.

@HandheldComputing 8 ай бұрын

Oh wow, 13 years of regular use! that's good going! I found the instructions on overclocking, its something I am considering. Were there any downsides to overclocking it? Did you stick with Win 95 or did you update to 98?

@RobertDeloyd Жыл бұрын

Great video as always! I love the old stuff!!! 🤗 Right now I getting into AlphaSmart Neo2 and Dana

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed it. Nice, would love to get my hands on a Dana!

@TheMinocula Жыл бұрын

good job, cool to listen, view and think about the glory past then 😂

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Thanks! I do love this little libretto

@kurtiunlisted8589 Жыл бұрын

The Win95 startup sound is always giving me the chills 😮‍💨

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Brings back memories doesn't it!

@TheKsax Жыл бұрын

I also read somehwere that Libretto CT line is very overclockable, but requires fairly brutal motherboard tweaks. But can make them beastly period accurate machines. I am on the personal journey of trying to befriend a voodoo card with one my Libretto, but finding CardBus to PCI adapters proved very hard. They exsist, but seems brutally rare.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

YES! I looked at this and it seems the 75Mhz Pentium is actually a 120Mhz CPU underclocked (in some units at least) so it can be over clocked to 133Mhz while remaining stable but you are right it involves soldering leads to the main board. I was unaware that you could pair the libretto with a Voodoo card at all! That would be amazing!

@tonykingsmill2310 Жыл бұрын

Another really good video thanks. I picked up one of these second hand years ago, old enough to be cheap but before they became collectable. Sadly I no longer have it in my collection but I admired the portability of the machine. I struggled with the position of the mouse pointing device next to the screen which was the main downside for me and prevented me from using for extended periods without an external mouse.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Ah yes, there was a time between 2003 and 2010 when all these old palmtops were so cheap compared to now! The mouse is OK but I agree you would defiantly want an external one for any prolonged use. Still a great little computer though!

@Vote4waifu 9 ай бұрын

I actually have one of these, and it has a enhanced port replicator with it. No dents or damage to it... finding your videos has made me want to add a CF to it. I'd love to keep it alive. I'm completely new to messing with something like this, so I'm a bit nervous lol

@HandheldComputing 9 ай бұрын

An enhanced port replicator would be good, the mouse isn't always the easiest and sometimes it just drifts around! The CF card swap is very easy, I have done a video on it but you will see in the comments a way of doing it WITHOUT disassembling your machine. I'm considering doing a battery re-cell but the plastics are becoming brittle so that might be tricky!

@michaelprox1172 Жыл бұрын

i have a toshiba portage 320ct from 1997 with its docking station and its battery also still working and holding a charge after 26 years later, but great video btw this old toshiba laptops are really nice

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

It is amazing that the batteries still work in these devices! Toshiba made very solid laptops!

@federicobustamantegamboa2038 Жыл бұрын

Hello. I had one and donated it to a friend collector. It had such brittle plastic that it was falling apart at times. I didn't feel able to do anything for it, so I donated it to this acquaintance of mine. The same thing has happened to several Psion 5's. The plastic has become so brittle that every time I take it out to look at it, it has a new crack in it. It's a shame.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

I have been very lucky with my CT50 and my series 5 collection, I think partly because they have been stored in the dark so the plastics haven't broken down

@davinhunt7558 Жыл бұрын

Cool channel, I have a kink for umpc's

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

UMPCs are amazing! You should check out some of GPD's offerings

@TheKsax Жыл бұрын

Winamp runs just fine on 70CT, but struggles with higher bit rates. Though I also did experiments with a playing MP3 on 486 based machine and had to do brutal down conversions to get it to play without hickups. Though I actually suspect might have been IO issues too. Need to test with faster IDE drive or fast CF card.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

I tried low bit rates and still glitchy down to 64Kbs with CPU maxed even when running of CF card in the PC card slot, never had an issue playing MP3 from CF card on other machines. Good to know it works on the CT70 though!

@witnesspropro 9 ай бұрын

I have the next iterattion of this which is the Libretto U105. Pretty sure I paid £1200 for it (I had more money than sense back in those day).

@HandheldComputing 9 ай бұрын

The U 1xx series are very nice little machines and yes it would be over 1K the whole libretto line was very expensive its like a 'miniaturisation tax'

@TheKsax Жыл бұрын

I actually ordered some new IDE drives for libretto, as I found that most CF cards have really bad performance. But a proper SSD IDE drive should tripple performance. Should allow daemon tools to run without a large performance penalty due to IO.

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Yes, most CF cards give fairly poor performance. I swapped my HDD out as it was dying and there are significant power savings to be had by using an SSD or CF card. The performance of the CF card is very similar to the original HDD. When I looked for IDE SSDs they are very expensive or didn't seem legitimate and were probably just a micro SD

@Unan1mouz Жыл бұрын

That is such a cute mini laptop. Haha

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

It really is, I have used it quite a bit since I got it last year and it still raises curious looks from the public!

@Vallee152 Жыл бұрын

why do you measure RAM and storage in megabits rather than megabytes?

@HandheldComputing Жыл бұрын

Oups, thank you for pointing this out! Should be MB not Mb!!! :-)

@sideburn 21 күн бұрын

I put 1800mah cells in mine and now the battery % monitor is inacurate. It drops to 1% in the first hour and I get about 2.5 hours runtime. Have you experienced the same? I have written a new battery monitor task bar tray application to compensate for it. Also my display has some play in it. It can move up and down and forward and back a bit. I’d this normal?

@HandheldComputing 19 күн бұрын

I haven't replaced the cells in mine yet as I still get nearly 50 mins on a charge which is amazing given how old those cells are! Its common when re-celling batteries to get battery monitor issues but it normally sorts itself out after a few charge discharge cycles. Theres no play on my display it fits snug

@ysg220 4 ай бұрын

this is quite an old video, but I try to replicate this on my toshiba and it cannot work. the flashcard is formatted by rufus, then when "restoring" disk, the aomei software reformats the card, making it un-bootable. something is missing or the video is wrong. if anyone has any idea how it was done, thank you in advance

@HandheldComputing 4 ай бұрын

That's strange as what you see is exactly what I did. Perhaps try creating a partition on the flash card for windows so Aomei only reformats the partition and not the boot section - hope this works for you 😊

@HandheldComputing 4 ай бұрын

I did also think, have you connected the jumper on the side of the adaptor? If you forget to do that it just won't find the drive. I just used a blob of solder as the pins were too long