[tlug] Old NEC notebook (was: old notebook)

["Norman Diamond" <ndiamond@example.com>]

Michael Engel wrote:

> Has someone of you an idea how to access the bios of an old NEC notebook
> NEC 9821Nw150/S20

To the best of my recollection, NEC provided programs that run under Windows
95 or Windows 3.1 or whatever.  After using such a program to modify BIOS
settings, you had to reboot.

As experiments, you can try holding the F1 key or holding the F2 key or
holding the Del key while booting, and hope that one of them will display
information on how to enter BIOS setup screens without booting.

> I would like to install Linux on it.

Just try it.  There are menu entries in Linux installers that I've seen, to
contend with old NEC keyboards and disk partitions.

> What a weird setup it has: HD is a:/ and the floppy is c:/ and the CD is
> Q:/

It's worse than that.  If you boot the HD then partitions a: and b: are the
HD, c: and d: are floppies, and e: and upwards are on the HD again but only
if the BIOS understands multiple HD partitions.  If you boot a floppy drive
(either one) then the floppy that you booted is a:, and I forgot how the
other letters get rearranged.  But the CD can have any drive letter that
hasn't been taken by a floppy or HD partition, since the MSCDEX program
still works the way it does on DOS/V architecture.

Also, unless you're brave or willing to spend many hours recovering from
various trials, only create one primary partition on your hard drive.
Create one extended partition and create logical drives inside the extended
partition for all of your Linux stuff (and additional Monopolysoft stuff if
you want multiple partitions for them too).

One time a friend of mine got an old NEC 9821 free, and I'd have to say he
still got less than he paid for.  I changed the HD to one that was larger
than the original 120MB, and then discovered that NEC and Microsoft knew
that HDs would never grow larger than 504MB.  Well, a 1.4GB disk could have
one 504MB partition and the rest wasted, but no, I wanted to use the entire
drive.  While trying to format a second partition, NEC and Microsoft divided
by zero.  When I tried various other setups, the thing was unbootable.  Even
with a bootable floppy inserted, which should become drive A: when booted,
the BIOS still inspected the HD's MBR and went off into never-never land
instead of booting the floppy.  Many times I had to remove the HD,
temporarily put the HD in a real computer where I could zero the MBR, and
put the HD back in the NEC to try again.  I finally ended up with one 504MB
primary partition, one extended partition (I forgot if it was 504MB or
900MB), one 504MB logical drive inside the extended partition, and 400MB of
wasted space.  But finally the thing booted and it could access twice as
much disk space as the upper limit that NEC knew would never be breached.
My friend was so grateful for the experience I gained in this exercise, he
applied the greatest respect and diligence that could ever be expected for
an old NEC, by accidentally forgetting it and leaving it behind when his
residence was torn down by his previous landlord and he had to move.  Hmm,
come to think of it, since he thus avoided payment of sodai gomi fees, maybe
he did get what he paid for when he got it.  But I still came out the loser.
Even though it was an experience.