DOS computer Toshiba T 1910 (late 1980's) brought to life again and use it in electronics

Please consider this video as infotainment. But it shows (on the other hand) how to get an old laptop of the late 1980’s into life again.

Video NOT made for children.

The problem was in this case (as far as I could see) that the harddisk was stuck, my idea was that the gear was not OK or corrosion on the spindle axis. I could be wrong, so that (also) tiny corrosions on the motherboard were decisive for disfunctioning.

Could be that I have/had to check the motherboard also. That is by the way completely normal after (say) 30 or 40 years (late 1980’s-2020). Even inside the completely hermetical closed box of such a harddisk this can happen: tiny corrosion on the gears/capstan and everything that moves inside such a harddisk, say the arm/wiper that picks up the magnetic (digital) information.

Anyway I “tapped” the harddisk & other connections on the computer board to life again and (sorry to say) in a quite/very coarse way. Tapping fiercefully all over again with my hand.

But don’t really get angry on such an old laptop, don’t drop it from the table to make it work again. Never use a metal hammer to do these “tapping”, use e.g. small pieces of wood to get to certain mechanic oscillations in the low Hertz range. Consider that the “tapped” oscillation inside the box of such a harddisk must be controlled, too fierce taps will damage the arm, disk and the interior.

After all, when it worked again, it started the boot sector. That ment: it worked again. I will let this harddisk run for minimal 24 hours, even for 3 days continiously, to remove all kinds of tiny mechanical corrosions of this 1980’s/early 1990’s harddisk and make the pickup arm move again properly.


The DOS computer program/system has good properties and is (quite) easy to understand. I wrote many calculation programs for electronics/radio etc. in GWBASIC, running under DOS.


Of course, nowadays, modern handheld calculators or programs on the www or “Excel” (reliable and useful) can do the same job.


Advice: don’t trust all electronic calculation programs (except Excel) at forehand on the worldwide web. Always (!) go back to books and/or original documents & formula’s. When you want to program electronic calculations: program them with the original (scientific) electronic formula’s, don’t use the “made overs” by (some) individuals that can be found on the on the www.


All the videos hat I have published on You Tube can be found via my Channel Trailer: Link is

https://youtu.be/xbgQ8T3oqh4

In thematic order you can find these video’s under the “comments” section.
Important: to find all the links to the (+/-700) video’s on my YT Channel, select, in the comments section, “NEWEST FIRST”

My books about electronics are available via the website from “Lulu”, search for author “Ko Tilman” there.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=ko+tilman&type=

There is an important video via which you can buy a document where I give links to many of my video’s, published between 2010 and 2018.

Link is: https://youtu.be/XXRsA24NUE0

My books are also available via Barnes and Noble and via Amazon.

Regarding all my video’s: I constantly keep them actual, so the original video’s with the most recent information are always on YouTube. That is the source, and search there. When my video’s are reproduced or re-edited on other websites/channels you can not (!) be sure about the original content (=really working electronics with real properties for a purpose) and important adaptations to the circuits.

Be aware of that, I saw on the internet my circuits reproduced in a poor or not proper way.

I also found that people probably republish my circuits under phantasy names and/or with phantasy properties. Sometimes they want to find gold with them. I take distance from all these fake claims; I cannot help that it happens, sorry. Upload 10 January 2020