A quick little entry regarding the NEC VersaPro NX I got a couple weeks back.
I was browsing around and happened to find the CD-ROM base for this NEC laptop on mercari. For less than 10$ it was a no brainer to pick it up. No idea if it worked, though...
NEC offered 2 or 3 "bases" for this laptop. One of them was a battery base, and then there's this CD-ROM base. They are incredibly hard to find, so I got quite lucky. Buyee even had a intl shipping coupon for mercari at the time, so I got "free" shipping.
Fast forward a week or so and look what shows up at my door (packaged in an envelope of all things! Seriously!?! This is why I hate Buyee!!) Thankfully just a little cosmetic corner piece chipped off... No further damage.
It was at this point however, that I realized I had a bit of a problem on my hands...
If we look to the left of the base, there is an AC adapter hole... And no AC adapter came with the item. I looked back at the mercari auction and as it would turn out the seller explicitly said it will not come with the AC adapter... Ugh.
But as it would so happen, On the same day, my two latest Librettos arrived, and they came with a completely overkill Toshiba Dynabook power supply that just so happened to have the exact specs needed to power this base & the same jack size.
Looking to the right is rather unremarkable. We can see it has a PS2 mouse/keyboard combo port. Also the latches for the base are found on each side.
On the back is where we find the goodies. A USB port, serial, parallel, VGA and the proprietary floppy disk connector. Curiously amongst all that is a fan vent as well? I have no idea why this is here, or what it would be cooling...
But before we test that out, look what else came in the mail! (it was a good day!)
My 64MB RAM module from memory masters is here. We might as well take this opportunity to toss it in and see what happens. Unfortunately, this is where things started getting messy.
When I put the module in and tested the PC (docked to the base), everything seemed OK until it randomly shut down after POST... Weird... Tried restarting it, got past POST but then shut down while loading Windows 98 with a bunch of corrupted characters on screen. I figured maybe the base had something to do with this, so I undocked it, same deal- shutdown during Windows 98 loading.
As soon as I removed the RAM module everything returned to normal, even while docked to the base.
I was quite disheartened by this, but I wasn't going to give up yet. As a last ditch effort I soaked the RAM module in isopropyl alcohol and scrubbed it with a tooth brush, same deal with the RAM slot on the system.
Since having done those two things, it's magically been working fine. But I still have my doubts...
By the way, if you're trying to find a compatible module to use, here's the factory soldered RAM. Use the datasheets for it to find a compatible module.
With RAM woes seemingly out of the way, it was time to test the CD-ROM drive itself. Seeing as we just checked out the ちっちゃな雪使いシュガー software last time and decked out the NEC with some awesome season fairy swag, what better media to test the drive with than the OP&ED for the anime.
And so, with high anticipation and excitement...
I'm pleased to report that it works great!
I also tested the other stuff like USB and PCMIA. I was able to get two USB ports plugged in, one on the system and one on the base. Seeing as there was no software needed to get it working, it should theoretically just be a port replicator, but I wasn't aware that you could also get away with using the ports on the system at the same time. I wonder if I could use 3 PCMCIA devices at the same time?
By the way, thanks to the hole in the wall blog site I mentioned in my original entry for this laptop, I was able to find the model number for the correct AC adapter to use with the CDROM base. If you're curious, model # is NEC AC Adaptor ADP57 (15V 4A)
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