Getting Windows 3.1 / 3.11 working on this machine is worth it even if you only intend to exclusively play MS-DOS games as windows actually looks pretty cool with the orange gas plasma display (at the very least, anyone who has one of these machines should try playing solitaire on the gas plasma display) – the crisp resolution combined with the orange glow makes windows quite a unique experience. Even just getting Windows 3.1 / 3.11 to work to see the awesome screensavers is worth it. We can thank Microsoft for offering a native driver to support the gas plasma display for Windows 3.1.

But what about Windows for Workgroups 3.11? Microsoft does not natively, support the Compaq Portable 386’s plasma display in WfW 3.11. The reason behind it’s removal is that CGA was already pretty a pretty dated standard by the time WfW 3.11 rolled out. I assume they wanted to save space on the installation floppies. But, luckily, it turns out it’s actually pretty easy to enable support for the gas plasma display in Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

Note, these instructions are adapted from www.retrospace.net

• First, download the plasma drivers here – this zip file contains all the drivers and other files from Windows 3.1 that work with the gas plasma display.

• Next, download the Windows for Workgroups 3.11 floppy image files here.

• Next, write the images to disks (skip this step if you are using a GOTEK)

• Load the second disk (or edit the second disk image) and remove the following files : V7VGA. DR_ , V7VGA.3G_ , and V7VDD.38_ . These are drivers for Video 7, which you shouldn’t need. After removing these files, load the files extracted from Plasma.zip onto the second floppy image.

• Next, load the first disk (or image) and then edit the file SETUP.INF in a windows or dos editor

Find the section titled [display] and copy paste the line below right after this statement: vga = 2:vga.drv, “VGA”

plasma = 2:plasma.drv, “Compaq Portable Plasma”, “100,96,96”, 2:cga.2gr, 2:cgalogo.lgo, 2:vddcga.386, 2:plasma.3gr,, 2:cgalogo.rle

If you are editing in the DOS editor, you shouldn’t follow the format of the other entries in [Display] as this driver for the plasma has other fields that differ from the ones listed. Double check what you have typed against the sample format line right under the [Display] tag. If all looks good, hit save, then proceed with installing Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on your Compaq Portable 386. During the installation process, windows should show:

Display: Compaq Portable Plasma

That’s it, no other configuration is required. After installation you should be able to boot into Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with the gas plasma display, but the windows loading splash screen will show Windows 3.1.

If you are using a CPU upgrade such as the TI486 SXL2 (40 or 50), you might run into some issues getting windows to start if you are running the cyrix.exe CPU configuration utility – check here for details on flags to use to boot the computer into Windows.

If you’re looking to get Windows 95 working on this machine, you can, but only with an external monitor. I even tried upgrading from Windows 3.1, with it’s native driver support for the Compaq Plasma Display to Windows 95, but could not get the computer to boot after the upgrade. There is a “solution” called Calmria that emulates the look of Windows 95, but wont support Win 95 software. It looks like due to the CGA display, you can only get Windows 3.11 working.

The post Installing Windows 3.1 / 3.11 on the Portable 386 appeared first on Retropaq.

1. First Impressions
2. The Gas Plasma Screen
3. Booting Up & Opening Up
4. The Floppy Drive
5. The Hard Disk
6. Installing MS-DOS
7. Youtube Video – Compaq Portable 386

Now we’ve configured the hard disk / CF Card correctly, the next step is to install MSDOS.

Choosing Between Compaq DOS or MS-DOS

Now you have 2 choices in terms of what MS-DOS you can install – I recommend installing MS-DOS 6.22 for general use with the computer, but you can also install the original Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 that came with the computer from the factory. Get the Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 disk image files here. Come to think of it, you could install other older versions of MS-DOS, but for general use, 6.22 works just fine.

When I restored my Compaq Portable 386, I found it was actually worthwhile to install the original Compaq MS-DOS 3.31 just to poke around. The Compaq MS-DOS does offer some unique features that allow you to manipulate how text is displayed through the MODE command, but at the end of the day, I found MS-DOS 6.22 more familiar and user friendly.

I won’t go into too much detail on how to install MS-DOS; you can find detailed step by step instructions here if you get stuck with my simplified instructions below:

• First, make sure you have set up the hard disk / CF card properly by installing the cables and providing power, then turn on the computer with the Compaq Portable Diagnostic Diskette in the floppy drive. If you are using a 5 1/2 inch floppy drive, you will need to create the diagnostic disk using the 360K version. If you are using a 3.25-inch disk, then you will need to use the 720k version. If you can’t make floppy disks, you can try to find the disks on eBay or leave a comment below, and I will try and help. Once you have your floppy disk, boot into the Compaq Diagnostics program to correctly set up the hard drive.

• After confirming the hard disks are correctly set up properly, restart the computer and insert an MS-DOS boot disk or MS-DOS install disk – if all went well in previous steps, the computer should boot from this disk, then automatically run MSDOS setup. If you don’t have a setup disk and just used an MS-DOS boot disk, the computer should at least boot to command prompt, showing “A:/>”.

Double Check FDISK Settings

I recommend exiting MS-DOS setup to check that the hard disks / compact flash cards are configured correctly. Exit the setup program (press F3) and type FDISK at the command prompt, and press enter – if all is well, the FDISK program should load and give you a series of choices – press “4” to view the existing disk, partitions, and logical drives. Follow the commands in FDISK to create your MSDOS partition(s) first (in case you want to set up multiple partitions or adjust their sizes), then restart and resume MS-DOS setup.

Once you have successfully installed MS-DOS, boot again from your dos boot disk, and then type FDISK /MBR at the command prompt – this adds the master boot record to your disk allowing your computer to boot from the CF card / hard disk directly. It seems this step may be necessary even after an MS-DOS installation; else, you won’t get a hard disk command prompt.

If, after MS-DOS installation, you get an error message such as “Operating system not found” or something similar, boot to your dos floppy and type “FDISK/MBR.” After executing FDISK/MBR, restart the computer once more. You should now be able to boot your Compaq Portable 386 to its hard disk MS-DOS prompt without needing the dos floppy.

That’s it! As you can tell, restoring the Compaq Portable 386 is relatively straightforward if you’re even mildly tech-savvy- the components are pretty robust, and due to the price of the computer at the time, they were built to last.

In an upcoming post, I will show how I transformed my Compaq Portable 386 from an entry-level 386 to an overclocked, Windows 95 “screamer” (that’s right, I said Windows 95!)

Don’t forget to check out my video review on the Compaq Portable 386:

The post Installing Compaq or Regular MS-DOS 6.22 appeared first on Retropaq.

1. First Impressions
2. The Gas Plasma Screen
3. Booting Up & Opening Up
4. The Floppy Drive
5. The Hard Disk
6. Installing MS-DOS
7. Youtube VIDEO REVIEW

The Original Conner Brand Hard Disks

It’s a good idea to replace the hard disks on older computers, especially those made before the early 1990s. This particular unit had a working Conner brand 20MB 42.9MB hard disk (thanks Thomas!) known as type 43 to the setup / Compaq Diagnostics configuration software. These hard disks were state of the art in 1987 – they were actually one of the first IDE drives available on the market. The Compaq Portables were one of the first attempts to integrate them into a portable computer and make them stand up to the abuse from being constantly moved around (and occasionally being dropped!)

These units were not designed to last 30 years – the lubrication for the bearings and years of use and then lack of use will usually render the hard disks unusable or, at best, unstable. If they are useable, they will be on their last legs – you don’t want to risk using it to set up a new computer and then losing all your data. Remember – these are moving parts – they have a design limit – and are designed to be eventually replaced. 

You’ll find the hard disk in an aluminum caddy along with the 5.25″ floppy disk drive tucked into the side of the Compaq Portable 386. For instructions on how to remove the caddy from the computer, follow instructions here. Don’t forget to unplug the hard disk drive and floppy disk drives data ribbon and power cables. I found it helpful to gently use a pair of pliers to unplug the cables from the motherboard. 

The Hard Disk Caddy

Next, simply remove the screws on the side of the caddy, give it a good jiggle and gently slide out the hard drive.

Hard disks were at one point a new technology – check out this video from 1985 (two years before the debut of the Compaq Portable 386) – from “The Computer Chronicles” talking about Hard Disks. This show aired in San Francisco – during the beginnings of Silicon Valley, so the show can sometimes get a little serious and technical, especially earlier episodes. An interesting product called the “Iomega Bernoulli Box” – a transportable hard disk on a cartridge – is demonstrated at 14:00. The video claims it “can be mailed across the country with no protection” (Riiiight…)

 “Would a home user be interested in a 70 megabyte drive? … Probably not” (19:00) 

Anyways, back to the hard disk on the Compaq Portable 386 – You have a couple of choices for replacing the hard disk – for the die-hard purist who likes to restore computers to their absolute original configurations, you can find “professionally” restored Conner hard disks on eBay – these are expensive and still operate with hard disk technology from 1987.

Your other choice is to replace it with a more modern hard disk using something like Ontrack Drive Overlay software to “fool” the BIOS – but you still have a somewhat fragile and heavy hard drive in your portable computer. The limitation of the BIOS / Compaq Diagnostic program limits what drives you can use without using something like Ontrack. There are only 47 types of hard drive that the software can natively address, and none of these are what we would consider large capacities.

Compaq Hard Disk Type Table

COMPAQ PORTABLE III / PORTABLE 386 HARD DRIVE TYPES  
 Type  Cyl.    Head    Sect.  Write    Land
                               p-comp   Zone
  ------------------------------------------
   1     306     4      17      128      305
   2     615     4      17      128      638
   3     615     6      17      128      615
   4    1024     8      17      512     1023
   5     940     6      17      512      939
   6     697     5      17      128      696
   7     462     8      17      256      511
   8     925     5      17      128      924
   9     900    15      17       -1      899
  10     980     5      17       -1      980
  11     925     7      17      128      924
  12     925     9      17      128      924
  13     612     8      17      256      611
  14     980     4      17      128      980
  15    -- reserved --
  16     612     4      17        0      612
  17     980     5      17      128      980
  18     966     6      17      128      966
  19    1023     8      17       -1     1023
  20     733     5      17      256      732
  21     733     7      17      256      732
  22     805     6      17       -1      805
  23     924     8      17       -1      924
  24     966    14      17       -1      966
  25     966    16      17       -1      966
  26    1023    14      17       -1     1023
  27     966    10      17       -1      966
  28     748    16      17       -1      748
  29     805     6      26       -1      805
  30     615     4      25      128      615
  31     615     8      25      128      615
  32     905     9      25      128      905
  33     748     8      34       -1      748
  34     966     7      34       -1      966
  35     966     8      34       -1      966
  36     966     9      34       -1      966
  37     966     5      34       -1      966
  38     611    16      63       -1      611
  39    1023    11      33       -1     1023
  40    1023    15      34       -1     1023
  41    1023    15      33       -1     1023
  42    1023    16      63       -1     1023
  43     805     4      26       -1      805
  44     805     2      26       -1      805
  45     748     8      33       -1      748
  46     748     6      33       -1      748
  47     966     5      25      128      966

Using a Compact Flash (CF) Adapter

If you want to overcome these limitations, you can use an enhanced BIOS ISA adaptor during the machine’s setup to use larger hard disks or CF cards, but I haven’t tried this out myself yet. An easier option would be to just jump on the Ontrack bandwagon.

What I found to be the best solution was to replace the hard disk with a Compact Flash card to IDE adapter.

These CF cards offer much faster read/write speeds than hard disks, and they are far lighter. They also have zero moving parts (unless you are using an IBM Microdrive), so they are much more reliable than a hard disk.

Like their Hard Disk counterparts, these CF to IDE adapters still needs power (usually through a 4 pin floppy drive type plug). I currently have 2 CF cards with 2 CF adapters in my Compaq Portable 386, one with Windows 95 running and using the full 2 GB with an Ontrack drive overlay, and the other running as a backup / non-hot-pluggable compact flash card to move files and programs to my Compaq Portable 386.

When installing a hard disk with this setup, the first step is to ensure you have a hard disk or compact flash card and adapter hooked up correctly, then boot up the computer with the Compaq Diagnostics configuration utility in the floppy drive. If you can’t get the program to boot, you will need to fix or replace the floppy drive first.

Configuring the Hard Disks

Configuring the hard disks is not the same process as one would expect from a computer from the 1990’s – there is no real “BIOS” – instead, there is a configuration utility that has to be loaded on boot via floppy disk (this process is covered in a previous post). Configuring an original hard disk using this utility is easy if you use hard disks from Compaq of the time – as the software only contains settings for these disks. Simply enter the type number of the hard disk into the utility, save and reboot, then you’re good to go. 

If you’re using a CF -> IDE adapter, you can still use your CF card, but don’t get anything over 2GB as that’s the largest drive size possible when running MSDOS.

That being said, the second constraint of CF card size would be the Compaq diagnostic utility – which limits what size you can use by forcing you to set a “Fixed Disk Type” (equivalent to providing the head and cylinder information on a later 90’s PC). This utility only allows you to select from the pre-defined fixed disk types – the largest available is about 300 MBs – far less than the MSDOS limit of 2 GB capacity.

My 2GB CF card seemed to work well with setting the disk type to “Type 38,” which allocates about 300 MB. The computer seems to work fine with this, but you are limited to 300 MB. If you want to use the other 1,700 MB, you can use Ontrack Drive Overlay, which can bypass the configuration settings and allow the full 2GB per logical drive by overwriting the master boot record, or use an enhanced BIOS ISA adaptor to override the existing BIOS settings for the hard drive.

Make sure your CF card is configured to FAT16 using another PC before using it with the computer. Older CF cards should not need any changes to its formatting. However, newer, modern high speed, high capacity CF cards may not work at all even after formatting. Also, go for compact flash cards graded as “industrial” as they are much more durable. This is especially important if you use intend to use Windows 95 due to the swapfile that it creates. This swap file will cause many small writes and reads to the disk that can quickly wear out consumer CF cards.

After you have the hard drive up and running, you can finally install MS-DOS!

Don’t forget to check out my video review on the Compaq Portable 386:

The post The Hard Disk appeared first on Retropaq.

1. First Impressions
2. The Gas Plasma Screen
3. Booting Up & Opening Up
4. The Floppy Drive
5. The Hard Disk
6. Installing MS-DOS
7. YOUTUBE VIDEO REVIEW

Configuration / Setup Disk for The Compaq Portable 386

The first thing you need to get working is the floppy drive, as you will need to run a configuration utility to set up the computer before you can get past POST. Download the Compaq Setup Diskette here. You will need to unzip the file and write the image file to a 720K disk, then insert the disk and switch on the computer.

The setup / diagnostic programs the CMOS chip that stores settings about the computer’s configuration. Make sure you’ve swapped out the old battery before making changes to the configuration – if you don’t, once you’ve powered down the computer, you will lose all your settings. 

Floppy Drive Options

The default floppy drive that comes with a Compaq Portable 386 is the 5.25-inch 1.2MB variety – it accepts 360KB and 1.2 MB disks. Luckily Compaq configured the Portable 386’s ROM to accept 3.5″ 1.44 MB floppy drives, selectable from the diagnostics utility. However, the boot disk must be a 720KB 3.5″ disk – it won’t boot from the high density 1.44 MB disks.

If you have a 720K disk lying around and a computer with internet access and a 3.5″ floppy drive, then you just need to download and write the configuration utility image to disk. The image files for the floppy can be found here.

Running the Setup Utility Diskette

Once you have completed the setup, you can test it by booting a 1.44 MB Dos Boot Disk.

Alternately you can also use a GOTEK floppy emulator so you can save space and move away from Floppy Disks, which might be hard to find and are getting somewhat unreliable in 2019.

Next step – the hard drive

Or… Check out my full video review:

The post Floppy Drive & Diagnostics appeared first on Retropaq.

1. First Impressions
2. The Gas Plasma Screen
3. Booting Up & Opening Up
4. The Floppy Drive
5. The Hard Disk
6. Installing MS-DOS
7. Youtube VIDEO REVIEW

Now, I, like most people I know, don’t have much patience – I wanted the computer to work out of the box, but there were a host of issues that were quite difficult to troubleshoot and get working before I could even try to get the computer to boot successfully.

Sockets, Plugs & Peripherals

Before we get into that, perhaps it’s best to take a quick tour around the machine to explain all the ports, plugs, drives, slots, and buttons.  

Looking at the machine’s front, you have the screen (covered in this previous post). On the unit’s left side, you have the standard 5.25” Floppy drive (which can be easily replaced with a much more useful 3.5” floppy drive) and a bay for the hard disk. The exhaust takes up the right side to vent the hot air coming from the power supply unit. On the top, you have a comically large, padded handle, running from end to end. Like the screen, it’s is also retractable (the handle makes it so portable and convenient!). I feel like they must have held a focus group on handle-comfort of the Compaq Portable 2 and deduced that they were really lacking in this department, but, the handle on the Portable 386 is a bit overkill.

The rear of the unit houses the serial port, the parallel port, an RGB connector (to an RGB display – not VGA), and also hidden behind a sliding door, a proprietary expansion port for the optional expansion box allowing two full-length 16-bit ISA cards – essential if you want to plug in a VGA card for an external monitor, sound card or memory card.

Note that this computer does not have a battery for power – all references to the “battery” on these units refer to a tiny lithium battery used to keep the CMOS memory from forgetting it’s BIOS settings. In fact, most “portable” computers at the time were not designed to be used “in transit” (like a modern laptop) – they were designed to be moved from place to place and plugged into AC power at your destination. They were marketed to people who traveled or who wanted to take their work home with them. (maybe we have Compaq to blame for all those weekends lost to working from home!)

The Compaq Portable III and 386 take a standard “computer plug” (if you really want to know, it’s called a C-14 type) and auto switches between 110 V and 220 V. Plugging it in and flicking the power switch at the back produces a satisfying click and the machine whirrs to life.

POST (Power On Self Test)

On booting, the computer does some instant basic diagnostics – such as checking the system board for faults and checking the CPU – if all is well, the screen should instantly flicker on in a nice warm orange glow – followed by a RAM counter to check each KB of installed RAM.

The memory check does some basic checking to see how much (continuous) RAM is available – including those installed on the motherboard, the proprietary expansion cards, or those installed on a properly configured ISA ram card via the expansion box.

After the ram check, the machine will try to boot using the CMOS settings provided, meaning it will try to boot from the floppy drive using the drive settings specified. If it can’t find anything a readable disk in the floppy drive, the computer will move on and try to boot from the hard / fixed disk. If you don’t have either set up properly, you will see the message below:

This message is asking you to insert a system or “diagnostic” floppy disk as the computer can’t read the hard disk and needs to boot from its floppy drive. If you see this error even with the correct diagnostics diskette inserted, don’t worry, there is hope! Take a deep breath and grab your power screwdriver – you’ll need to open the computer up to clean or replace the floppy drive and also likely replace the hard drive.

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy opening up computers and exploring what’s under the hood. This older computer is particularly interesting as there are many jumper settings and removable parts that can be fiddled with… without too much frustration.

Disassembling The Compaq Portable 386

The complete disassembly instructions can be found here. You’ll need a set of Torx (star-shaped) screwdriver heads and ideally a power screwdriver. Start by lying the machine screen side down on a flat surface and remove the 6 screws on the back. The screws in the corners are long screws that hold the whole machine together; the two in the middle at the top and bottom hold the rear panel to the rest of the case.

Give the rear panel a gentle jiggle, and the rear of the computer case should come out. Pull up then away to reveal the motherboard underneath. For full instructions on the rear panel removal, see here.

The photo above shows the motherboard after the protective shielding has been removed – you can see the CPU and Math Co-processor on the top right. Below that on the right edge is the socket for the battery to keep the CMOS settings. On the bottom right, you have the serial, parallel, and RGB video output ports. Continuing along the bottom edge, in the center, you will find the ribbon cable connection for the graphics card underneath, and past that is the connection (and space) for the hard-to-find 32-bit memory modem expansion interface for the modem card/memory expansion boards (which can provide up to 10 MB of RAM).

It’s more than likely that one or more of the items below will need to be repaired or replaced; luckily, assembly and disassembly of this computer is relatively easy.

• Hard Disk – these are one of the first IDE drives developed ranging from 20 – 300 MB. Due to age, they likely won’t spin up. If they do, download and archive what’s on the disk while you can. You can replace this with a Hard Disk or, better yet, a CF Card

• Floppy Drive – 32 years is a long time to accumulate dust. Take a look under your fridge for reference. These wide-mouthed 5.25″ floppy drives usually are very dusty and thus fiddly to get working consistently. Be ready to change drive belts and apply lubricant to get them fully working, or, more than likely, you will have to replace it. Alternatively, you can easily upgrade the floppy drive to a 3.5″ – covered in this post – making it much easier to transfer files from your main machine.

• CMOS Battery – You will need this to keep the CMOS system settings in the memory alive. Believe it or not, some people have these units where the lithium battery is still ticking and giving current for the CMOS to save settings. You don’t really want to count on that, though, and it should be replaced – a CR2020 3v button battery makes a good choice. I simply snipped off the old battery’s connections and sandwiched a CR2020 between the leads, checked it with a multimeter, and then secured it with electrical tape. 

• Visually inspect the Motherboard – check for jumper configurations, any blown tantalum capacitors, and see if you happen to have any optional (and extremely expensive) memory expansion boards. These are so rare that one seller on eBay has listed a unit with one of these installed at US$999.99 – here’s my 10MB upgrade card below – it’s aftermarket, made by Kingston Technologies.

So hopefully, you now have an idea of what you need to replace. If you have to replace both the floppy disk and the hard disk, or if you are not sure if your hard disk is working or not, and your floppy drive is not working, definitely, replace the floppy drive first.

If your floppy drive is working but you can’t get boot to your hard disk, see what your choices are for replacing the hard disk

Don’t forget to check out my video review below:

The post Booting Up, Then Opening Up appeared first on Retropaq.