Sony VAIO PCG-C1MZX, the last and most powerful PictureBook ever made, also looking for recovery media
Posted by Andreyhg@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 21 comments
itsasnowconemachine@reddit
Oh no, it's got RealPlayer installed. Kill it with fire!
itanite@reddit
Nice! i had several of these including this one. The bigger batteries were so nice for all-day use.
The chip was slow as fuck though.
SamirD@reddit
Whatever you do, once you do have a booting setup, please make a clonezilla image of it.
Justthisguy_yaknow@reddit
Does that take the VGP-BPS3A battery pack?
ChasingKayla@reddit
Omg I have wanted one of these for years! I also like the PCG-C1MVP.
john-derose@reddit
Had one! Extra capacity battery was like $400 back in the day…
The-IT_MD@reddit
Hateful little things… back in the day.
mcwiggin@reddit
You should check out the Vaio Library. It's an amazing online resource for Vaio laptops. They have links to a bunch of the recovery disks on the internet archive. Here is the page for the PCG-C1 https://vaiolibrary.com/index.php/C1_(Overview)
Andreyhg@reddit (OP)
I am myself one of the Vaio Library maintainers, and no, there is no recovery media for C1MZX there.
thomasbeagle@reddit
Very "But I am Pagliacci!" vibe here.
Computers_and_cats@reddit
I miss Sony and their quirky laptop antics... 😿
lipoff@reddit
I've always wanted one of these!
pigeon_simulator@reddit
Part of the era where they had those semi-transparent MemoryStick slots so you could see from above if there was media inserted. Shame they did away with that cute little anachronism.
Andreyhg@reddit (OP)
This is PCG-C1MZX, the most powerful PictureBook to ever exist that was only sold in Japan. The CPU is 933MHz Transmeta Crusoe TM5800 on VLIW architecture which relies on Code Morphing Software (CMS) to translate x86 instructions into VLIW instructions on the fly. It has 256MB of RAM (384MB max, which I have), and a 60GB 2.5-inch IDE hard drive. Now that I got the unit and PCGA-CRWD2 optical drive, I wonder whether anyone has the original recovery media it came with? I looked all over the Internet and haven't found the preserved recovery CD images for that particular model. Currently I resorted to just installing Windows XP SP3 and most of the apps I found for C1MHP (a European model that is pretty close to this one in terms of specs), but still would love to have the original installation of Windows.
mcwiggin@reddit
You may want to look at the recovery CD's for these models. They are close, share the same CPU and I have found the recovery CD's usually have the drivers and apps for all models released that year. They did not press CD's specific to a single model.
https://vaiolibrary.com/index.php/PCG-U
Andreyhg@reddit (OP)
That's not entirely true. For example, I used both U1 and U3 installs (they were both released in 2002, a few months apart), but U3 had some extra apps which U3 didn't have. Also, some of the apps have had major redesign compared to those that came with U1. I understand that there are models that are pretty close and I already have their recovery images downloaded, but the thing I'm looking for is the CDs for this specific model. Any other CD won't let the recovery process start because of the model lock, and still backporting, say, a C1MHP image onto my C1MZX is not what I'm currently looking for since I already basically done that to at least have some kind of OS on it.
rambald@reddit
What year was that beauty sold?
Andreyhg@reddit (OP)
This particular model was sold in 2002, and it was also the year when C1 line was discontinued. Would be so much better if it lasted at least a year more to get an Intel ULV chip, like the one in PCG-U101.
sputwiler@reddit
Yeah but then you wouldn't have a Transmeta chip
Andreyhg@reddit (OP)
I still have my PCG-U3 with the same 933MHz Transmeta Chip, so it isn't that big of a deal
Hondahobbit50@reddit
Man I miss subnotebooks. Still have my omnibook 800ct, dock, drives, etc....great deal at $150 in 2001 on eBay for a bd present. Thanks Mom