Retro Modding a Broken 386 Laptop for $25

Overview

I picked up this broken Packard Bell 386 laptop on eBay for just $25 plus shipping. While the LCD is cracked, this early 90s machine has a lot of potential for a retro modding project. In this unboxing video, I explore the laptop’s features, assess the damage, and outline my plans to replace the broken black-and-white LCD with a modern color VGA display. Join me as I start this journey to transform a vintage machine into a usable retro gaming rig.

Key Moments

• Unboxing the vintage Packard Bell laptop with original LapLink software and accessories
• Examining the model 38625 NB: a 386 running at 25MHz with 4MB RAM and 120MB hard drive
• Discovering the broken LCD panel and planning the retro mod approach
• Exploring the laptop’s features: VGA out, built-in modem, PS/2 ports, and elegant spring-loaded covers
• Planning the restoration: replacing the LCD with a color VGA display and adding sound via parallel port
• The challenge: working with brittle 1992-era plastic

Full Transcript (Edited)

Hey YouTube, this is a short little unboxing video that I’m going to be showing you guys. I’m trying to be diligent with my YouTube uploads even if they’re small videos like this, just because life is pretty busy. YouTube is not my full-time thing but I still like showing you guys what I’m working on.

This is something that I picked up on eBay this past week. It caught my eye and the price was very low. It is broken but I hope to do something with it, like a retro mod type of laptop. So let me show you what I got so we can kind of see what my vision is here.

All right, so first thing is software. This came with LapLink, the ultimate laptop file transfer tool in the office and around the world. I wonder if these floppies still work. This is the five and a quarter version. Let me know if you want this software uploaded somewhere, maybe I’ll put them in archive.org or something. This is LapLink 3.0. This is an empty envelope.

What else do we have here? We have the charger which is 7.5 volts 1.4 amps and 5.6 volts DC 2.4 amps. It uses this weird plug. I actually might have another laptop that could use this adapter just to get it going, but maybe I’ll do that on another video. Oh, and here’s a hint: it’s a Packard Bell.

All right, let me put this aside. What’s in here? These are… oh, looks like a LapLink cable, yeah looks like a LapLink transferring cable. And the unit itself. All right, let me take this box out of the way here.

So here it is. Here’s a little hint: it’s a Packard Bell. “America grew up listening to us. It still does.” Okay that’s interesting. Let me unwrap it. All right, so there it is. Let me clear up a little bit of my workbench here. Yeah, it’s an old Packard Bell laptop. Let me show you around it a little bit.

So on this side I can see that during shipping, this massive battery wanted to come out. It’s got this door on here. Let me see how that works. All right, so let me show you the back a little bit. This is a Packard Bell model number 38625 NB 4M. So that must be a 386 running at 25 megahertz with 4 megabytes of RAM and 120 meg… I mean sorry, not gig, 120 megabyte hard drive, possibly. Yep, four megabyte and 120 megabyte of hard drive space. That’s actually not bad for a laptop.

What year was this made? Let me see, does it say somewhere on here? No, but maybe the 95 at the end of the serial number is from 1995, or actually no, the opposite. Maybe the 92 from 1992, the 26th week, and then the rest of the numbers are the actual serial number. That’s probably what’s going on there. So maybe we have a 386 from 1992.

One thing I do want to do right now is get this battery out of here so it doesn’t leak or cause any problems. This thing probably weighs a ton because of this battery and I don’t think I’m going to get it working with that battery. All right, so let me at least close it. All right, at least the battery’s in there. I’ll figure out how to take it out at some point.

Let’s take a look around it before I open it up. I’ll leave that for the last bit, a little bit of suspense. On this panel here we have VGA output and a built-in modem. There’s nothing in the front. On this side we have a floppy drive and another little cover with PS/2 keyboard, keypad… oh, a nice keypad and mouse! That’s nice. I like that you can plug in a mouse right there.

And I really like these spring-loaded little protective covers that they have all over it. It makes the whole computer very sleek. You don’t see any ports even in the back. It’s a very, very nice design, nice and clean. That’s what caught my eye on this.

Then you have in the back the power input. This is a little cover, comes off like this. Well, that feels flimsy. It’s probably never been used. It’s got… there are no labels on these on this side but I’m assuming serial, maybe another serial and a parallel. I doubt it has two parallel ports, although this does have a lot of LapLink software with it and I think LapLink was mainly a parallel solution. So maybe… I don’t know, I gotta see which one of these… oh wait, never mind, it’s right here: external floppy disk drive right here. And that’s probably why they have this plug right here so that you don’t accidentally plug in something that is not supposed to be in there. This is the parallel port and the serial.

All right, so let me close this before I break off the cover. And this is an external bus, I guess for add-ons and things like that, or dock station or some kind of dock maybe. All right, not bad. Let me close this. I’m surprised that none of these little covers are missing because they’re so flimsy.

And finally, let me see. I need both hands for this. Finally, there you go. Very nice little computer. I think this is black and white. And the problem with this unit is this guy, the LCD panel. It’s broken.

The keyboard is really nice. Oh, I don’t know if it’s really nice but it’s kind of spongy, but it’s got a nice size for a laptop. I can definitely see myself writing some code or something on this. Up here it’s got standby or charge, power, floppy drive access lights, hard drive access lights, and some function key helper. You can write down like what F1 does for Lotus or something, Lotus 1-2-3. It’s got a nice… yeah, pretty good.

I really like how that feels. If you put your hands on the keyboard, it’s perfectly sized for my hand at least. It’s got arrow keys. If that were color, a 386 with arrow keys, pretty good.

Now one thing I’m not sure here is it’s unclear to me if this has any sound built in. I highly doubt it. I didn’t see any PCMCIA slots. So if I wanted sound on this, I’d probably need to add something through the parallel port.

All right, so what is my plan for this broken laptop? Well, in a follow-up video I’m probably going to try to start it up and see what happens, then plug in an external monitor so that we can take a look at what the output is without fixing anything. I’m assuming that it’ll probably boot up with an external monitor and it will show some output. I’ll probably be able to get it to boot into DOS somehow, assuming that this floppy drive works.

And then I am going to start looking at ideas for how to replace this LCD with something from eBay or Alibaba or something that gives me color from the VGA signal. So if I can replace this unit, all the internals, with something that I can use the VGA signal to display a really nice color image, then this might turn to be a nice little retro modded 386 computer for some retro gaming.

And then if I add the AdLib sound card through the parallel port, we might be doing pretty well. Yeah, so I’ll see if I can get that project started. In a follow-up video I’m gonna power this up like I said, and we’ll get started. So this is like part one of many.

All right, so if you like this kind of stuff, sign up, subscribe to my channel, hit the little bell, and let me know in the comments what you think. If you have other ideas of what I can do with this thing other than my hack to replace this screen with a modern VGA display, then let me know because I’m curious if other people have other thoughts on this model. All right, thanks till next time.