[typing]
Greetings yet again!
I was going to do a review this week,
and I wrote it,
and then I forgot the file,
and now it's sitting on a computer.
Elsewhere.
And I'm not going to do it this week.
So, instead, I'm going to do something else that I was saving
for a rainy day.
It's not rainy, but I don't have my review. So,
here we go.
Now, sure, I could just ad lib review,
but I don't feel like doing that since I'm really tired.
So, instead, we are not going to be looking at Dragon's Lair.
However, I am very,
very pleased with this recent purchase.
Dragon's Lair for the PC.
I mean, this thing is really cool.
It's the EGA version of Dragon's Lair.
And it has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm going to talk about,
but,
holy crap.
This thing
comes on thirteen floppy disks.
Thirteen.
Talk about a disk swapping nightmare!
Unfortunately, we're not looking at Dragon's Lair.
We are looking
at this little beauty right here.
It is the
Compaq Contura Aero 4/33C.
It's a 486SX-based
"sub-compact" laptop, I guess you could call it.
Originally came with 4 MB of RAM and a 170 MB hard drive,
DOS 6 and Windows 3.1.
Now what made this thing so cool
was the fact that it was tiny.
I mean, it's freakin' small.
For laptops back then that were usually almost twice this size,
to have a nearly full-sized keyboard with,
well, decent keys,
Everything is integrated in here. You even have a little trackball mouse here.
Buttons on the side,
left and right.
I think this is an 8" LCD screen, full color.
Does VGA and everything.
PCMCIA expansion on the side.
The battery goes
right in here.
For nineteen ninety-whatever the heck it was,
'93, I guess, that this came out,
this was absolutely incredible.
Just to give you an idea of the size of this thing,
how small it really is,
this right here is one of the new
Intel Atom-based HP mini
netbook computers.
It's almost the exact same thing.
And this is the in-style of
useless computers at the moment.
It's also just a little bit bigger
than a miniature,
uh, PSP candy holder,
and about the same width as a pair of giant keys.
The only real downside of this thing is that it *is* tiny.
I mean sure, you have your standard
AC adapter and parallel port, which is great, but then you have this thing.
I mean, what the frick is this?
It's Compaq doing, yet again, another proprietary adapter,
which does absolutely nothing
unless you buy
their crap.
In comparison, Compaq, which is now HP, is now doing the exact same frickin' thing!
This is the side of the HP mini,
which also has one of these frickin' proprietary adapters right here
if you want to hook in something like a monitor.
Thankfully, they're nice enough to at least give you a serial port and PCMCIA
if you want to plug in things like modems,
or... a DISK DRIVE!
I mean, seriously.
No disk drive.
Probably the biggest downfall of this thing is that proprietary adapter
and the fact that there is no disk drive.
Thankfully, it's really easy to get the disk drive up and running.
You just get one of these things, which is
pretty much just standard PCMCIA
and plug it in right here.
And there you go!
You're ready to run 1.44 Meg 3.5" floppy disks.
The problem with this setup is, yes, everything is really portable,
but, unless you have a desk, or something flat to sit it on,
you're gonna have your things dangling out everywhere.
I mean, you're gonna have
probably an AC adapter,
you're gonna have the floppy drive,
and possibly an expansion in the back for anything else.
Nobody likes their things dangling out all over the place.
You know, it just
flops around.
[exasperated]
Before the Contura Aero and other similar smaller, compact laptop PCs,
things were frickin' huge.
You had business owners,
frequent fliers, people like that, that really wanted on-the-go computing.
But didn't want all of the hassle of bringing this giant machine everywhere.
You had Compaq portables,
you had other Compaq laptops
and those by Toshiba and others like that.
But they were frickin' huge.
The Contura Aero is frickin' tiny,
but you lose a lot in functionality.
So Compaq came out with one thing to combat that problem.
This is the...
thing...
that Compaq made.
I know there's a name for it, but I can't remember it right now.
Basically, what it does is it adds a mouse,
keyboard, PS/2 compatibles, and an SVGA output,
and uses that same
annoying little proprietary useless jack in the back here.
You just plug it in, and
you've got
expanded
abilities.
Which is great, if you're using it for a desktop replacement.
And if that's still not enough functionality for you,
you can buy this beast.
The Compaq Base Unit.
What this does, aside from turning you into a trippy cartoon,
is allows you to use your Contura Aero as basically
a desktop replacement.
It really is a giant fricking base unit.
All the same stuff on the back with a few extras,
AC adapter, parallel, SVGA, serial
and keyboard and mouse.
Plus somewhere to charge your battery
while you're using the base unit,
as well as just generally looking like a fax machine toner cartridge.
Or a ship from Star Wars: Episode I.
Same basic idea.
Just plug it in that proprietary jack in the back,
and you're set up and ready to go.
But first I want to show you what it's like without
the expansions in the back and any kind of external video.
For some reason, on boot up,
mine has really, really horrible contrast.
And then you have to adjust it once it starts up
It doesn't seem to save it. I think there's something wrong with the CMOS battery.
I have to replace that and see, but
the contrast ratio really isn't that bad
and for an early '90s LCD screen, it's pretty darn colorful.
Well, there is no sound capability on here. All you have is the PC speaker.
So, there's really not too much to behold in that department,
and not really much as graphics either.
It's just standard 640x480 VGA.
Now, I don't know how much you can notice here on the video camera, but
I'm moving the mouse cursor left and right
as there is a bit of screen lag,
which also translates into some ghosting.
Just kind of looks like you're looking at everything through splooge-covered glasses.
Or you're drunk.
Or both!
It's pretty much horrible.
This should be a good idea here. Let's just look at Tetris.
Yeah.
It doesn't look like you can see it that great
on the camera screen.
Maybe a little bit, but
Things aren't quite moving [chuckles]
how they should.
This was sort of a
big problem on a lot of these LCDs,
really up until like 1995 or so was when I started seeing them improve.
Let's look at something else here with a little bit more movement.
Good old Crystal Caves.
Oh, yeah, yeah. You can see some of the movement problems now on the screen.
If it's stationary, everything looks fine. It looks crisp, the colors are great.
The problem is when anything moves,
especially on a scrolling game.
Yeah, it's just--
Augh! You know, I'm not gonna say it's completely unplayable, but--
You know, I said before that the lack of a disk drive
and the lack of any non-proprietary VGA output and stuff like that was its biggest problem.
Well, no, actually, this ends up being its biggest problem.
Especially if you're wanting to play it for games on the go.
Here's a good example of it not being the biggest problem in the world to have that ghosting ability.
Ha... "ability."
Handicap
CD-Man.
Sure you have things going on,
but the screen itself stays stationary, so
you know where you're going.
So it's not really a big problem. It's where you've gone,
that is the problem.
So, on games like this, it really doesn't matter.
Here's another example of something being completely unplayable,
involving *way* too much scrolling for this poor little screen.
Epic Pinball.
Ugh.
[beeps]
As a bit of contrast here to really get a feel for the difference between the base unit
and the... uh...
base unit,
Let's plug in the base unit into the base unit.
And, as soon as you
clip it in there,
the thing automatically turns on,
and pretty much at this point the base unit just takes over
everything
and displays
to an external monitor.
Here is Epic Pinball running
through the base unit.
You don't have any of the choppiness, lag sort of issues.
None of that milky, glazed-over, splooged, drunk look.
It's Epic Pinball as it should be.
So if you can hook up the Contura to
any kind of desktop component, like that little mini-adapter thing or the base unit,
you're pretty much set for gaming.
I like the Contura Aero.
It's a nice little machine, when it's working properly.
I've been trying to restore this for a while.
Uh...
I'm not sure if I'd recommend buying one, but
yeah, that's really not the point of this.
I like it.
I don't give a crap if you do.
Thank you and have a nice day.
[synthesized rock beat]