Lunchbox PCs were awesome! Why did they go away? (Dolch PAC-62)

Let's explore the Dolch PAC 62 and upgrade it.

PAC-62: Screen size 266mm

-- Links

Dolch:

IBM PS2 P70:

BitSavers Dolch Documents:

Compaq Lunchbox computers:

Toshiba 1000XE

Compaq Portable

Photos of motherboard and video card:

-- Tools

Deoxit D5:

O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)

Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:

Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:

Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:

Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:

TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM Programmer: (The MiniPro)

TS100 Soldering Iron:

EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:

DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:

Magnetic Screw Holder:

Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)

RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)

Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (Order Five)

Heat Sinks:

Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)

--- Instructional videos

My video on chip removal without damage:

--- Music

Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino

[douro]

The Dolch family business in Germany made specialised electronic test equipment if I remember right. Dr. Jean-Marc Verdiell (CuriousMarc) knew Volker Dolch personally and he would probably know more about the history of these machines more than anyone else on YouTube.

[haweater]

It's not until you see 1990s LCD displays do you appreciate how a huge improvement todays displays have in "viewing angle range".

[julioguardado]

Marketing: we need a portable computer
Engineering: we'll put a handle on it

[aringler]

The US Army used these PCs. I used one in the late 90's it ran the dispatch software for the vehicles in the motor pool. And I used it when we were out in the field. It was a tough little computer. It was also transported in a pelican style case.

[MikesArcadeMonitorRepair]

I dropped one of those Toughbooks off the top of an H-60 Seahawk helicopter circa 2002. Nearly exactly like the one you showed. Climbed down to get it and inspect the damage. To my surprise, it had zero damage and it was still running perfectly. You’d never know it fell 12 feet onto a concrete hangar floor while turned on.

[EddieLeal]

I'm an 80's kid and absolutely love this old tech. Keep pushing out these awesome videos brother.

[thedungeondelver]

John Carmack did a lot of the coding for Quake II on one of these when he needed to get out of the office.

[pipschannel]

That's a pretty rare and valuable "EISAP" mainboard (EISA+PCI) with those dual socket 7s! Cool stuff!

[bcredeur]

I love how you said “industrial age” and commented about it, when it actually said “industrial usage”

But it’s ok, it gave me a good laugh 😂

This thing is really cool

[_Hertz]

The Dolch we used had proprietary network monitoring software for packet analysis. It ran Windows (which required an M$ license) and their program ( which also required a $$$ license and used the network card's MAC address to verify it).

It performed well but was prone to crashes due to improper shutdowns.

[shmehfleh]

I used to work with a fibre channel network analyzer that was basically one of these form factor PCs with two dual-channel HBAs installed. It could do some interesting stuff, like insert all sorts of weird errors into the fabric and record what happened. We used it to regression-test new firmwares for Brocade switches.

That sucker probably cost about 50 grand, 90% of which likely went to the software license.

[sluxi]

the Dolch machines are still pretty famous among keyboard enthusiasts thanks to being mechanical with quality doubleshot keycaps and the color scheme they used for them

[pc-yxuh]

loved lunchbox computers back in the day. compaq portable III is a real winner. I'd buy a modern one today!

[whodatis]

In what I can only describe as "huh...", I considered building something like this when I was going to LAN parties every weekend. I literally had no idea this form factor existed.

Thank you for bringing history to now. :)

[ultrametric]

What people forget about EISA because it was so short-lived, is that it was the 2nd plug-and-play solution after IBM's Microchannel. I built EISA servers as part of my corporate work in the early 90s and they were SCREAMERS next to ISA machines. They were better than early PCI machines. I never had any trouble with the configuration disks. First thing I did was to make two copies and tape them to the inside of the case.

[CraigJohnston]

Back before Wireshark existed, the gold standard for packet tracing (sniffing) was the Network General Sniffer and it was purpose built (as far as I remember) to run on the Dolch.
It used a special NIC that could go into promiscuous mode (not common back then) and it would analyze all protocols including VINES-IP, IPX, IP, NetBIOS, SNA, etc.

The network expert would arrive with their Dolch, plug it in, capture packets, and troubleshoot network issues.

The reason the HD was likely removed from this Dolch is because the Network General Sniffer was expensive so I’m sure they didn’t want it just have it out there in the wild for free.

One thing I’ve noticed is that more modern packet “sniffers” don’t do too well analyzing the old protocols. They are great either way IP but a little light on the others. Understandable of course.

[ToTheGAMES]

hey Adrian did you know you can replace those CCFL's fairly easily? CCFL's are in good supply available. You need to dissasemble the screen to measure what size you need however. I've seen Janus Cycle do it a few times.

[CaptainDangeax]

I had one at my work in 1992. It was made by Telemecanique, a French automatism maker. It was running OS2 with a pentium overdrive on a 486 motherboard. The software, PL7/2, was used to program the automates using a graphical language.

[kencreten]

OH NO!!! you refreshed the PDF! I'm pretty sure that was alien plans for a wormhole!! hehehe

[admq]

I got a DX486 Dolch in 91 or so at work to build out a luggable video processor for my boss and his boss to take to sites around the world. The project succeeded and made everyone question why the lab had spent ~250K for a MicroVAX driven, rack mounted video processor with similar capabilities that required ~6kW, and weighed hundreds of pounds but was considered "portable" because the rack had wheels. Fun project and a slap in the face to the conservative old timers who built the rack mounted version which was a "serious" machine, as opposed to the "toy" I built. Amazing what a few years Moore's law will do for you.