# On the OmniBook 800ct Restoration - pt. 1
### Entered in vim on RPoJ via ssh
### 20190120
Last night I stayed up too late screwing around with my
HP OmniBook 800ct. I am in the middle of my work hitch
(thus the posting from vim instead of the Alphasmart), and
0340 comes awfully early...
I had ordered a [2.5" PATA to CF][1] adaptor online and a
2gb CF card (Transcend brand). Last night I disassembled
the OB800 and installed it. I booted to an OEM DOS 6.21
install floppy and fdisk'd it, followed by format /s c:.
Rebooted, and nothing. I had read that people have had
issues with certain CF cards, that it is the cards and not
the adaptor that causes these failures. So I tried a few
other cards and the one that worked is a [SwissBit][2]
industrial CF.
I was happy to have it boot, and didn't feel like taking
it back out to copy the Windows 95 OSR2.5 install directory
over to it. So, I did a complete install of MS DOS 6.21 and
Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on it. My OEM disk sets of
these two OS's worked great. They are my personal property,
but had been sitting in my desk at work for 14 years (I
still have a technician's workbench in our shop, but also
now have an office). I need to pull the OB800 back apart
and copy over the install files. Another option would be to
copy the OB800 cardbus drivers for DOS to floppy disk and
then I can use a CF card to copy the installer over (via a
PCMCIA to CF adaptor). This would minimize the risk of me
stripping screws. I watched on [LGR's youtube][3] that you
can indeed connect a USB floppy drive to an OTG cable to an
android device - this is another option... CF in a card
reader on another, newer laptop sounds faster and easier
though.
Once Windows 95 is installed I need to install the Palm
Desktop software, and the Appple Newton Connect software.
I also have copies of MS Office 97 Pro (on legit CD),
Adobe PhotoShop 5 (thanks ex-employer), Winzip 7, vim 8,
and other packages I want to install. I found while
searching through old CF cards one that had HP OmniBook
530 and HP 200LX software on it. So I think I'll keep my
200LX serial cable warmed up because it may be cool to
throw into the mix as well. I am thinking of soldering up
an octopus serial able so I can plug in the Palm III
cradle and an Apple 8 pin din serial cable at the same
time. Only one would be usable at once, but no cable
swapping would be needed. I have plenty of DB9 ends and
raw cat5 cable laying around.
I need to locate the DOS version of dd and make a DOS boot
disk with the OmniBook 530 PCMCIA drivers so I can backup
that laptop's hard drive. It runs on a PCMCIA type 3
microdrive. I have no other device that I can plug it into
to image it to a file. Maybe instead of dd, I'll use
Norton Ghost (pretty sure I have an old copy laying around)
to image straight to a CF card in a PCMCIA to CF adaptor.
The OB 530 is going to be my Win3.11 machine, and the OB800
will be the Win95 one. I have a copy of Doom 2 on CD I
bought many years ago. I want to toss it on the OB800 once
this project is done and give it a spin. I am not a big
gamer, but I have a soft spot for Doom.
I have been looking into kermit protocol since it was
mentioned by solene on mastodon. It is old enough I should
be able to use it as a go-between from the OB800 to a
Raspberry Pi if I cannot get WiFi to work (I have a PCMCIA
wireless adaptor that worked when I had Debian 4 installed
on that computer). Contingency plan A anyways...
[1]:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0036DDXUM "Syba Dual Compact Flash CF to 44 Pin IDE/PATA 2.5" Adapter Enclosure, Black SD-ADA45006"
[2]:
https://www.amazon.com/Swissbit-Industrial-Compact-Flash-Memory/dp/B01814JGAQ "Swissbit 4GB Industrial Compact Flash SLC NAND C-320 Memory Card"
[3]:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQ "LGR YouTube"
