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ravhall @discuss.online

2mo ago

Hey! I found this old laptop for $500. Do you think I should buy it? Can I run Linux? Arch obviously.

;-)

50 comments

I'm in tears, I've finally found the version of this toy I had as a kid.
Thank you so much for this shitpost, sincerely.
- One person’s shit[post] is another one’s childhood 😘

You joke but it would be an awesome project. Maybe replace the screen with a real LCD, shove an rpi inside etc.
- "diy dr.k" on YouTube did something similar with a barbie kid's laptop
- Yeah, it’d be really cool if it could run real OS inside it, and can play sound from the builtin speaker it apparently has
- It does seem like it'd be pretty cool, though much rather them than me lol. I think shoving an rpi inside though would really betray the implicit spirit of the project. That would just be "can a raspberry pi run linux when I put in a plastic case shaped like a children's toy?" The answer would pretty obviously be yes. People are saying the processor in it means it probably couldn't run Linux which would make it a bit of a non-starter but there apparently other OSs that could be made to run on that kind of processor and that'd be cool to see.

I don’t know. You should make sure it doesn’t have a Realtek Wi-Fi card. Otherwise, it looks fine. I found the Linux Hardware report for it here: https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=7144bb41
I think the price to performance doesn’t look the best, though. Maybe go for a Thinkpad instead?
- Bravo.
- Realtek work great since 6.2
  
  I think it’s mistly okay. I had a bit of misery with my 8852BE on my new Thinkpad E16 (the card would just disconnect from the system until the next reboot occasionally), which was solved with some kernel parameters I found online.

If it’s like the older vtech educational toys it uses some z80 processor, so you won’t be able to run Linux but you can a few different hobbyist microcomputer operating systems like zeal8bit and fuzix.
- Man, I had a vtech “computer” as a kid in the later 90’s. I don’t remember what happened to it or what it was even actually good for.
  Pretty sure this is what I had.
  https://www.ebay.com/itm/395832416009?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=0qo80bobtii&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=R-vbXi9SRQ6&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
  
  ...that's the POWER model: the unit posted above is the consumer version with the SX chip, no math coprocessor and fewer function keys...

You may want to also post this to !linuxmemes@lemmy.world

Bet it can run doom.

"It belongs in a museum!"

Someone with NetBSD is already scouring eBay.

Hanna Montana, and you're good to go.

$500 might be a stretch, It weren't for the horrible keyboard, and horrible screen, it might be worth putting a raspberry pi into as a sleeper project.
Yes I realize it's a joke.

I bet my left nut it runs NetBSD flawlessly.
- What am I going to do with your left nut?
  
  First, I'll use a pair of rusty sizors to extract them, then I slice it into thin strips and fry with a little olive oil and garlic
  I recommend with a grain of salt
  
  Use your imagination.

I wonder what CPU it has. You should tear it down and see if you can get some custom code running.
- What I should do it toss a pi in there and tease everyone

Is that just a model, or is there actually a display in the middle that does something?
- Yes, there's a monochrome display in the middle. It's kinda like a TI-86 calculator aimed at children.
- There is a small LCD in the middle. This is a different brand, but the same idea.
  https://www.amazon.com/LEXiBOOK-Educational-Activities-Mathematics-Dactylography/dp/B0B6HKB3JF/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?crid=XVKE22F1A9PU&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9._jFDRprRJyu_XHpllOiAD4EFd7M5TO_Vcv04A8bmlKrWhihcRTAwURR8E4SY2YDz0wIOOIXYdk5kuIW3d4ExVZUWZoBysCLuYa1wefCzFT-uNDungtHodL6wCmByJK1cqVgR6cZ3hpqClTZG55B1LeRtCcZiPzUQMbtR0FylQDvKWS-_JiLxhZSMQRhbU3p4M6Fxl2esLEcekrnqLMCtSw.ihoLtqVN1JKbG4eKr3MbxCrVKkoUgy9D7jjvqUw1MP8&dib_tag=se&keywords=vtech+laptop+for+kids+6-8&qid=1729988226&sprefix=vtech+laptop%2Caps%2C143&sr=8-4
  
  FYI you can trim 80% of that. https://www.amazon.com/LEXiBOOK-Educational-Activities-Mathematics-Dactylography/dp/B0B6HKB3JF/ Amazon sure loves its tracking data.

More importantly, can it run doom?

this might unironically run linux depending on the specs
- On a Z80?
  
  Hey, if you can do it on a 4004.....
  (Yes yes, you'd have to write an x86 emulator and it'd be slow as heck but I mean, you could.)
  
  Unironically, of course.

Be sure to wear your hacking goggles while flying through hyperspace, wouldn't wanna catch any bugs in your eyes at such fast speeds.
- Oh, I’m not moving. I just always have wind in my hair. 😎😎😎😎

@ravhall half a kilobuck just to make it happen? guess if that floats your arch boat, go do it and report back on your success!

yeah its very possible, Take a blow torch and arch linux iso (you need wizard to take it out of your pc you can find the wizard hiding in your tor browser he built a house inside of the tor browser.) then take a blowtorch and burn the iso into the pc front now it should be running arch btw.

I you're going to hack one, this one is much cooler
https://www.ebay.com/itm/186640570101
there's a teardown here:
https://hackaday.com/2020/04/27/teardown-vtech-whiz-kid-luggable-computer/
- Wwwwow. Yeah that is cooler. Is that just a repurposed oscilloscope?
  
  Realistically with that screen size you could put anything in that thing. How do you get the impression that it might be a little smaller than it looks though.

50 comments