Dunno if heracy, but I brought a win 98 laptop intontheb21st century by adding usb C charging.

Posted by aspie_electrician@reddit | retrobattlestations | View on Reddit | 14 comments

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FrancisJXavyer@reddit

I wish I had the know-how to do that!

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Lukeno94@reddit

Not heresy at all - a very sensible idea indeed. I've got the slightly later M34 model, which traded the trackball for a trackpad and is quite different looking in general.

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TechIoT@reddit

Not heracy, purely down to choice.

If you can't find a charger and they're roo expensive or unobtainable, this is the way to go,

My toughbook shares the same charger as a Sony VAIO machine I have so they all work

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aspie_electrician@reddit (OP)

the newer toughbooks also work with the older thinkpad chargers. (the ones used by the X40, pre T60 days)

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TechIoT@reddit

Interesting I'll have to test this theory having got an A21M

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aspie_electrician@reddit (OP)

A21M

I currently use an IBM thinkpad charger to charge my CF-52...

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I'm right there with you! I have some adapters from USB C to barrel jacks! Haven't modded any machines for that, but did replace a battery pack with LION batteries and had to rig in a charging circuit vs. using the jack on the system, wrong voltage and I didn't know how to get it down where it needed to be, so just cut off the whole pass through charging.

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invisi1407@reddit

I think most of these older laptops will accept higher voltages without problems, at least for short durations.

I got an old HP laptop once, I think from 2004 or so, and had no charger. Rigged a lab bench PSU and a barrel jack. Configured the PSU wrongly (serial vs. parallel connected two outputs) and ended up sending 42V instead of 21V to the laptop for a good 10-15 seconds.

No damage whatsoever. It didn't turn on, though, which was my clue that something was wrong. :D

At 21V (expected) it turned on just fine.

Most non-USB-C laptops will probably accept something within 18-24V or something without problems.

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