Retro Tech Nibble: Tiny Pentium PC from the '90s
the Toshiba Libretto was the smallest, full fat Pentium PC of its day. Part of a range launched in 1996, today we take a look at it, see if it worked and consider just how far we've come with portable devices since the '90s.
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Is there a modern device like this? The GPD range of ultra small PC's seem to be the closest thing to it but they are an outlier in the tech world with this form factor, can you think of any similar examples? Neil - RMC
how modern are we talking?- A friend used to have a Medion mini notebook in about 2006 or 2007- that was slightly before the whole (weird) netbook hype and her machine had a normal Windows installation and a pretty strong CPU for the time (not the netbook 1,6 Ghz Atoms)- she used it for Autocad and Photoshop and it did that well as long you balanced it on top of 2 books to get some air under it....it was also about as loud as an airplane in a WW2 movie...
Around the time of the Libretto there was the Sony Vaio C1 series, then around the mid 2000s there was the Sony Vaio U series, but after that cheap netbooks with atom CPUs kind of rendered these kind of devices obsolete, and then in the early 2010s the netbook sort of died when affordable tablets came along.
There's also the Sony Vaio PCG-U101: 2003, 256mb ram, celeron something or another, and the size of an external cd drive from the same period.
CES had some really cool prototypes from alienware kzhead.info/sun/nKuJlNqMpqmAank/bejne.html it's like a switch. I like it.
I remember seeing something modern, but like this, on Linus Tech Tips a few months ago. I'll have to do some digging! about 6 months ago, they did one called the GPD P2 Max ultrabook, but I'm sure there was one a bit before that. (kzhead.info/sun/mtSjosaAfaiVl3k/bejne.html)
OK, background info. Ah memories! It was mine. I paid about £1200 for that including my mate's PC World staff discount and I used it alongside my Psion 5 after giving up my beloved Z88. Apart from being a tech geek I was constantly on the road in my job as a sound engineer for TV, Film and Radio so that Libretto found itself in a lot of hotel rooms and planes around the world. Eventually my teacher wife realised that it was perfect for transporting her teaching resources around hence the rather esoteric mix of files! The route planner and pub guide were essential for a tired, hungry and thirsty documentary crew on the road. And yes, it was upgraded, I put 98 on it. Glad to give it to a good home with Neil RMC. I didn't wipe the hard drive for the reason that Neil gives, it's a snapshot in time (and I trust him!). This was a working machine and I hope it shows.
Man, how awesome. Thanks for sharing that with RMC so we could get this wonderful look at it!
Wish I had an old school libretto from that era.
When I saw this in a Conrad electronics catalogue back in 1997 it looked like the most interesting thing in the world.
I am a simple a man: I see a Winamp icon on a desktop, and I Like the video.
Really whips the llamas as*
Too bad Winamp died. One of the best media players of it's time. Just like VLC is now.
@@povilasstaniulis9484 How? It's it still available
Seeing that pretty much washed my brain in milkdrop visualizations for a few seconds
Winamp 2.77 Best digital music software evar!! Beats Llamas ass!!
Honestly I still love tiny laptops. I was so sad to see the netbook trend die out rather than accelerated, because the idea of a pocket-sized full PC is something that I absolutely adore. I even got used to typing on tiny keyboards!
Me too, smartphones really killed the netbook market. But with current tech, there would be a lot more tiny netbooks that could be super powerful.
Me three. I was looking for a small but powerful computer that I could throw in my shoulderbag, but no, not available -_-
What do you mean die out? Peakago, GDP Pocket 1 & 2, CHUWI Minibook, OneMix 2S, OneMix 3
Ahh the memories of using my Samsung q1 ultra
Yess I used an Acer aspire one netbook with Windows 7 starter later upgraded to ultimate. I used it in Jr high for notes. Ah the memories 😂. Jr high from 09-12 got the netbook in 2010 I think. If anyone needs a portable netbook just buy a chromebook.
Oooh, I remember the slobbering I had on these little notebooks. Then I looked to the (high) price, then to my teenager's empty wallet, and I became sad each time. And now I have a 70CT and a 100CT Librettos, they're some of the most prized items of my retro-PC collection. And as there's a fully original Yamaha OPL3 FM synthesis chip inside, this makes the Libretto's a superb little chiptune and DOS gaming machine.
That's the most adorable piece of retro tech I've seen in a while!
It is quite the good looking little retro computer isn't it?
Yes, you saw right. Us Welsh call carrots 'morons'.
xD was just going to ask in a comment what a moron was in Welsh
red pepper (the big "fruit" thing, I don't mean powder pepper) is called "morron" in spanish
Stupid carrots. I had a laugh, though.
Almost the same as in Swedish, then. "Morot" (singular).
@@nosferadu Sais.
WOW!! I remember that laptop! I used to work for a major supermarket and just before every stock take in the store, two flight cases would arrive in store, one contained a charging cradle and stock taking guns, the other case contained this laptop and a cannon bubble jet printer and a modem. The laptops job was to capture the data scanned in the stock take from the guns that synced via the cradles. Once the whole store stock take was complete, the laptop would dial up the results to head office and the results then printed out on the printer! It was a mighty little pc! Brilliant video as always Neil, insanely generous donation to the cave! It couldn’t of gone to a better home!!
I had two of those (first one was stolen in San Fancisco) loved them... they were great little machines for travel. I still have a directory on my main backup drive named "Libretto" that contains the contents of the entire little computers hard drive ;-) LOL
wow.....and what do you use by now ?
The nipple on the think pads was also known as the centrally located interface tool ;)
Narked Diver or CLIT for short ;)
Nick Slouka This is what I've called it always, didn't know it was an abbreviation :D
I call it the G-spot... Obviously because it's located so close to the letter G
The whistly tune is back! :D Excellent video.
Ohh! I found a wee Libretto in work some years ago, stashed away in an ancient, very dusty, very cobweb filled [& very haunted? - why not!] storage room (along with a 486 sealed in it's box), fascinating dinky little laptop, I remember it caused a lot of amusement among the other techs.
Looks like it might have once been used by NHS staff at some point, which is who I used to IT tech my booty out for.
Winamp was mentioned & it’s intro quickly played in my head! Nice laptop indeed! That non tearing LCD is nice to see :)
I repaired a whole lot of those machines back in the late 90's. They were quite the pain to work on although not a whole lot worse than many of the Toshiba Tecra series machines, especially the 700 series that were popular around that same time! In 2004 Toshiba released the Portege R100 laptop which I was lucky enough to own. It had a lot of the advantages of the Libretto line in terms of low weight (1.1 kg/2.4 lbs ) and small size (less than 3/4 of an inch thick!) but still had a 12.1" XGA screen a 1 Ghz Pentium M, built in USB, NIC, modem and wifi along with a less cramped but still very compact keyboard. I really loved that machine. And you could add a 2nd battery to it which increased the thickness and weight but gave it ridiculously long (at the time) battery life! Boosted to 768 MB of RAM (256 soldered on the board and 1 DDR SO-DIMM slot) it ran Windows XP like a champ.
Yeah, the 12" displays were really a good size.
Oh man! I loved my libretto. I had the 100ct, and it was great. There really wasn't anything else like it out at the time.. and it stayed that way for awhile, until the Vaio PictureBook came out around 2000.
The Picturebooks were amazing, and the screens were so good. I ran one or two of them around 2008. The main weakness was the silly proprietary DC jack which was really fragile, and the screen hinges weren't as strong as they could've been.
You are a master of entertainment. I could curl up in that voice and fall fast asleep. Another good one, Neil.
I outfitted a whole team of travelling executives with the Libretto and they loved it.. it was so lightweight at 1kg and with docking stations with every office around the world, it saved a heap of space and weight ! Truly for mobile warriors in the 90s with a Modem PCMCIA card, a PalmPilot and Lotus Notes to sync emails from everywhere.
I hac the opportunity to repair some of these when I was younger working at an electronics repair shop (down to board level). Thanks for the video. As usual, composed and well thought out offering. Cheers.
I need one of those in my life! Nice vid thanks for making.
Great video as always! I just realized you are now streaming in 4K, great!
Trying to make the transition....disk space permitting!
always such a pleasure to listen too. always come across as such a polite old fashion gent. you, dan wood, nostalga nerd,and LGR are my all time favs. please do a history of Amiga CD32 if possible as i love it :-)
Always wanted one, could never afford one, but I think I was swayed as this appeared on TV in BBC Bugs, which was very cutting edge at the time! Funny how parallels exist between portable music players and pcs in the 90’s - trying to shrink everything as small as possible! Great video as usual.
Nice Video. I played with one of these in 1997 at a now defunct 'Comp USA' store. The unit was $1700 on sale, but back then it was cool to see how powerful this was compared to some full size laptops which still cost a lot back then.
Well, that start sound gave me all the feels!
Great little machine; I have DOS 6.22 installed on a compactflash card in mine, and use it for DOS gaming.
I bought a 70CT in 2004 (second hand) whilst I was studying for my PhD. I managed to install RedHat Linux on it and ran quite a but of software on it for data processing. The chap I bought it from said that he'd taken in to something like CES in the 90s and Bill Gates had a play with it; he refused to believe that it was a full version of Windows! Sadly, about seven years ago it died...but I used it right up until it died. RIP Libretto...oh for the days when computers pushed the envelope and had character!
Another great video! I thoroughly enjoy your channel and reviews of yesteryear obsolete tech. Totally appreciate your effort.
Thank you Ben
I had a few of these back in the day. I went on a Novell NetWare course and the instructor had a full 10 servers on Libretto's to run a lab!! Amazing!!
I had one of these with a p75 and it was easy to 'overclock' because a p120 was installed under-clocked. Had no heat issues. It was also fairly easy to solder an audio input to the base unit. It also took a 40gb ide no problem.
That is so cool. Great video man.
A very good friend of mine used to buy, fix and refurbish and sell all different Libretto models around 2002-6. I bought several from him, and most of the locals bought one too, started quite the craze for them! They are fantastic little systems for portable computing and playing proper retro pc games!
I so remember working on those at Computercentre for certain Company. What a lovely little machine. I wish I had one.
Hardware envy was a big expense for a man in his 30s working in IT for a bank in NYC... I still have a lot of the hardware from that vintage in my attic somewhere...
I still have mine in working condition ☺️
I still have mine brand spanker in the box sealed
That is really rather cool! For some reason I really want one! Awesome video a always!
Stunning little device . Always liked the look of the libretto laptops .
Such neat little machines. My friend begged his parents to get one of these things for months. After about a year or so, I seem to remember the price dropped at retail stores like Circuit City here in the States and I recall him getting the 60CT for around $1200 or so, as newer models began to surface. I was shocked when he got it, since most of use were currently using busted up used 8086 and 286 laptops. And even those cost $200-400 used at the time but was all we could afford. Still awesome to recognize this iconic piece. And I'm super impressed with the condition and the accessories. Worthy for the cave indeed!
I remember the Sony Vaio PCG-505 being released ~'98 and drooling over it. Heck looking back now it still stands out. Though that enthusiasm was overtaken by the introduction of the thinkpad 240 and shortly after the X series in 2000.
Totally own one - which did boot up last time I tried it a couple of years back. I'll have to get it out now!
There could be a brightness setting in the BIOS. Most standard Toshiba laptops of the time had the setting
what a beautiful little computer!!!. the best part is the "sound blaster pro compatible sound card", if it works fine in DOS, this thing would be a good computer for portable DOS/9x gaming!.
From the description I was expecting a review of a PC made by Tiny! 😂 Would love you do a 'History of Time PCs' or 'Tiny PCs' which were so prevalent in the late 90's
I still have a psion series 5 and a hp jornada 690. I used to absolutely love palm top PC's. It helped keep up with schoolwork as I had trouble writing with a pen.
I remember lusting after one of these beauties in the late 90's..... Nice find indeed
I think I just love the idea that it literally looks like a really tiny Toshiba laptop, they never changed the style for decades.
I still have my 50CT in fully working condition. And the battery still holds a good charge for a few hours as well! Mine is spec'd with a Pentium 75 and 16 MB of RAM. I recently upgraded the hard drive to a 2GB CF card, so now it is very speedy indeed!
I snatched up a very similar Libretto 100CT at a thrift store a few years ago. It really is a great little machine!
I'd forgotten just how much disk access sounded like a faulty wire in an electrical junction box. :p
Stepper motors. They're more commonly found on 3d printers now.
Or a Geiger Counter going haywire
The Unix expert in my work in the very early 2000s had one of these. She used to use it to connect remotely to the big Unix servers by modem and do remote support. The thing was miniscule. A deeply impressive bit of kit.
lovely little piece of kit
Great review!
What a fascinating video! Thank you. I bought an Olivetti Quaderno purely for it’s looks. Even with a 20Mb HDD, it would run Windows 3.0 although the mouse drivers were dodgy and it was slow. I wrote loads of QBasic programs on it including some to help me track files at work. I still have it, it needs to be fixed in places and as well as a rechargeable battery, it was possible to run it from 6 AA batteries.
Love the video, as I got into the small computers, as I have the Apple eMate300, and also the family of NEC MobilePro units of the 880, and the 900, and the classic Vadem Clio unit....
The need for a dock for I/O immediately made me think of Apple's old PowerBook Duo range…
too bad they *required* a dock to be usable.
I used a 70CT in school and I still have my little Libretto in the loft sadly mine is in very used condition but only just still works although I think the hard drive has now failed. The screen did have brightness control though through Toshiba’s energy management software but as you say wasn’t very bright by today’s standards. The small docking station came with the libretto but there was a larger one that you could buy as an optional extra. I used a parallel port CD-ROM drive with mine, along with a homemade serial laplink cable that I upgraded to a Parallel cable later on and in a pinch used The IR (inflared) port. I used to like the toshiba libretto windows 95 startup screen but this was lost when I first formatted the laptop. So many memories.
my mom was given one of these at work when they came out and she lent it to me for a month or so. I loved it and my mother and I have tiny hands so we both had no issues with it. The mouse too was awesome too. Def not a pda. Used it as a laptop as it was intended.
I remember seeing one of these on display at Circuit City and marvelling at how small it was compared to other laptops at the time. I was still in school, so it was out of reach for me, but my dad later had at least (I believe) two of these machines and travelled fairly often. In later years, he put WiFi PC cards in them and used them around the house. I would not be surprised if he still has them stashed away somewhere
I remember really wanting one of these. Several of the guys at work had them, and in fact I used some in my IT department days. Very cool beasts :) I later bought my very own Sony Vaio PCG-C1F, which I followed with a Sony Vaio UX1-XN, the docking station of which is next to me as I speak!
I still have my Libretto (50CT). I absolutely loved it back in the day and it started my love affair with truly mobile computers. I remember the first time I managed to get IRC running on a train via my Nokia Orange 5.1 phone. It was amazing being able to talk to friends on the other side of the world whilst on a moving train! One day it just stopped booting. I tried taking it apart to diagnose it but wasn't able to figure out what was wrong. So now it lives in a bag in the back of the wardrobe. I miss it. And I miss my IRC logs.
I've always wanted one of these! I still find the Toshiba Libretto with the dual screens that launched awhile back is really cool as well. I believe that was only given Toshiba Employees though so it's very rare!
I supported a few hundred of these and used one for a couple years. Great little machine! Once you got used to the keyboard it was fairly usable. I had a dock at work and one at home. It was great for back and forth to work. I used Microsoft's document syncing thing to keep my documents in sync with my desktop. Those and the Tecra 8000s of the era were absolutrle tanks. I put 100,000 miles of air travel on my 8000 for Y2K and it was absolutely flawless.
Back in the 90s i had the same Toshiba Libretto. I used it often on my journeys, for e.g. at the Expo 2000 to empty the Memory Stick from my Sony DSC F505 to the harddrive of this machine.
I had one of those that I rebuilt the battery pack on but sold it. I was thinking it would be funny if this was my old one, but I never had that dock for it. I do still have a higher model libretto 100 (I think iirc) with a cd rom dock. I was using it as my car tuning computer until I got an asus tf100. Thanks for the visit on this, It's a good idea that I might do a video on my other libretto on my other channel.
I had the lower end Libretto 50CT and then, when it died after several years of really heavy use, I got a Libretto 110. These were great for me: I was doing a load of network support so tended to have the small port extender permanently attached to allow serial cable use, with a PCMCIA Ethernet card stuck in the side. Not being a driver, I didn't want one of the then common boat anchor laptops as I'd be carrying it around in by rucksack whilst walking around the site or running for trains. Whilst I did have desktop PCs in the office, this was my main machine and it went everywhere with me (in fact the 110 became my main desktop replacement as well). I can tell you that these were built really well - mine suffered several drops from network racks during its life and kept on working. The 50CT eventually succumbed to the abuse though and a disc crash was the end of the line for it, hence the update to the 110CT.
I remember these, were built in the electrical cabinnets for a monitoring system for truck drivers. It communicats from via the nozzle and fillerneck antennas for truck data. These were decent pc's but not made for contiuse use. The boards fail often and the harddrives even faster. Had to replace them for a mutch bigger industerial pc with build in screen.
Had one... I loved that little thing.
Great review. I had one. I don’t think there is an equivalent today!
I still have one of these, that I bought from a friend back in the day, along with the shown docking station, an external 3.5" floppy drive connected via the card slot, and even more useful, a comm card with both an ethernet port and a modem. I used it a lot on meetings (where it called people's attention) and to code on the road. The battery wasn't enough but the whole thing fits nicely in a backpack. I was pretty happy with it, and gave it several years of use. As an aside, I've found the joystick/mouse disposition pretty confortable to both hold and use the device.
I remember working at Shell Centre in London as an IT contractor in 1997 and they had some of these. I remember being amazed with it and the fact it fitted in my trouser pocket. I wanted one, badly.
This is the mini version of my '98 Toshiba Satellite 300CDT. I have it and is still working! 😎👍
wonderful vid and what a great donation!! I did go to buy one of those a few years back, but they've never been in the impulse buy price range (ones in decent condition like that always a few £100 iirc) Perhaps a vid on reconditioning/refurbing the battery pack/flash drive and perhaps de-grubifying that nub :P
I have a 50CT. Very impressive device. I love it.
Good Sir. Every time i see a new video from you, i go Oooh! with a smile! "Do carry on, i will try to patreon", a poem by Samuel the Arcade Bard. :P
Thank you!
Re-Cell the battery, do a CF-card swap on the HDD, and its a pretty sweet machine to be honest. I'd rather use the Windows 98 UI than Windows 10 today.
I modified my 10 to have 98se machines but keep the 10 gui. It feels better like that :D
@@HoboVibingToMusic how did you do that?
@@TinCole There's a program called CustomizerGod. And you'd need to find all the... Uhh. Icons! Online, there are some sites with em. Easy to find! :P
That was a nice photo of Tenby
I remember playing quake 1 on one of these back in middle school study hall.
Must've been amazing. The idea of a pocketable PC that can play current and last gen games, in other words a GPD Win 2 but stronger, makes me salivate. I don't like how tech KZheadrs talk about these like they've been made completely obsolete by mobile. GPD's products have a cult following and handheld computers have intrigued the masses again with the reveal of the Alienware UFO.
I have always LOVED the Libretto's form factor! I've even considered buying an old vintage unit and replacing it's internals with a more modern system.
I had one of those, amazing at the time
I got the one with a 80486 from a local auction. Impressive power and small size for it's time. It is soundblaster compatible, plays dosgames like a charm. The keyboard is small, but it's has the full compact layout. Remember most laptops a desktops from that era were very bulky.
Loved my librettos from the 50 to the 110, only stopped using when I moved to the ultra thin Sony VAIO. Used to use it on the train then dock in the office.
This thing is awesome!
PCMCIA = People Can't Memorize Computer Industries' Acronyms
"Personal Computer Memory Card International Association" sounds like acronym to me!
Please enlighten us people of internet what acronym is please.
@KanadianSpaceProgram Do you feel superior today? How much did you have to reach for that feeling today, seems pretty far as you're arguing about acronyms on KZhead. Whatever gets you through the day, buddy.
Well I stand corrected. Thank you for enlightening me! I hope I did not cause a war or genocide due to my little misunderstanding.
@KanadianSpaceProgram The issue is that you're being awfully pedantic about it. What you'd probably say is in the OP is an initialism. That isn't even in my phone's dictionary. I don't think people are necessarily to blame for a lack of awareness of rarely used words. Blame the education system for that. In the meantime perhaps you should target people who actually make stupid grammatical mistakes, such as writing "would of", "alot", etc.
I used the Libretto 70CT back in the day, it was excellent playing Doom and Heretic on the bus home after work. It was even good for programming to a degree, had the docking station which helped.
I remember these back in the day when browsing through the PC mags. Mobile PC gaming. It couldn’t get any better than this. When iPhones were but a glint in Steve Jobs eye. Toshiba did make some great laptops.
I played with a demo unit of one of these at a trade show back in the day. It was crazy to see a full windows laptop that small at the time.
I still have a working Libretto 50CT running windows 95. It is the heart of my recording studio, running a still useable MIDI sequencer (Cakewalk 3.02), and controlling all the analog synthesizers & samplers. I did replace the 1.6 GB hard drive with an 8 GB CF card (kind of like a primitive SSD).
That mouse with buttons on the back is pretty clever. That would be a cool add on for tablets. I can see it being useful. Not for gaming, but general use it could be respectable.
i love the old libretto series and have been trying to get my hands on one for some time but since i couldn't get one, i instead went for the Gateway 2000 handbook's. i have the C&T F8680 and 486 models of them.
At the same time as this laptop was released I was working for IBM and spent time Honk Kong and Japan. In the Hong Kong office all the staff were equipped with a 'small form factor' ThinkPad of a similar size (very slightly larger I think). It was entirely compatible to the 'full size' version, and was really very easy to type on. To my k knowledge it was never marketed outside of Japan, and used in specific IBM offices in Asia, where desk/office space was prohibitively expensive. Needless to say I offered to sell a kidney to get one, but was 'politely declined' :-) .
I developed software for these back in the day. We’re used for managing field operations for service personnel and gathering data of factory equipment conditions. Was quite challenging trying to make things fit on the screen properly how they wanted. But a nice little thing, wanted one myself but never got one. I think it was the 100CT though.
I still have mine, in the loft. The port replicator was not an optional extra, it came with it. I used mine when i was working for UNISYS as a software developer. Very handy machine....
I bought a second hand Libretto 50M in 2002 while touring Akihabara, Japan. It was the touchscreen model. Put windows 98 and a 20GB hard drive on it, got pen services working and used it as my mp3 player in my 6th form year at high school. It fit neatly in my inside blazer pocket, only my ear buds cd be seen during class.
Methinks this thing was designed to be used by Japanese businessmen on domestic business flights or the _Shinkansen_ and then the documents you'd been working on transferred out through the PCMCIA port once you got back to the office. It's several years before its time - a USB port or three would massively expand its flexibility.
1:50 In uni my girlfriend at the time had that exact Compaq. My friend had the Toshiba Liberetto when it was brand new. Great little machine. He used it for Labtech.
I had a libretto 110... Excellent bit of kit...
Oh my gosh this is an adorable little laptop
I remember wanting one of these badly! I also remember Sony making one even smaller. Thanks for the video!
I used one as a full size desktop replacement for a while. I traveled a lot at the time, and In an era when there was no such thing as cloud sync, it was the easiest way to take everything with you on a trip without a ton of manual copying.
We used to use these in anger for our work. Great little computers at the time for our field work with switch/firewall/router configurations.