The indigoparadox Web Zone

Toshiba T200 Tablet

Back to computers

Web Zone Navigation

Related Web Zones

Our Friends

1. Introduction

CPU486 DX2 40MHz
RAM4MB + 4MB Expansion Card
Video
Hard Disk1GB Compact Flash
Ports1x PS/2, 1x RS-232/DE-9, VGA/DE-15, Parallel/Proprietary, External Floppy/Proprietary, 72-pin Port Replicator Expansion

This information pertains to a particular specimen and may reflect upgrades, repairs, modifications, or factory options not present by default.

2. Disk Limitations

The BIOS does not seem to recognize disks over 1GB, but even this is rather generous for the time period.

Photograph of the back compartment of the T200 tablet computer. The service panel is removed exposing a Compact Flash card in an adapter attached to the IDE connector with multiple angled multi-row pin extenders. Photograph of a computer hard disk. It has the peculiar characteristic of an IDE connector pointed perpendicular to its length, unlike most disks.

A somewhat stranger limitation is the physical configuration of the hard disk. The drive is smaller than a standard 2.5" disk and its connector is oriented in a direction orthogonal to the length of the drive, which is very unusual. This necessitated the use of 2.0mm-pitch dual-row angled male-female extensions to fit a standard Compact Flash reader inside of the chassis. A standard 2.5" hard drive seems to be out of the question due to the physical size constraint.

3. Display

The display backlight may be turned on or off using the pen controls on the silkscreen bezel. It's a classic passive monochrome LCD similar to what you would see on an early PDA or calculator.

Photograph of a Toshiba tablet computer. The screen backlight is on and SimCity for Windows is visible running on the computer. Photograph of a Toshiba tablet computer. The screen backlight is off but it's an old-timey reflective monochrome LCD so SimCity for Windows is still visible running on the computer.

4. Pen Computing

The display requires the use of a special pen. There is a fold-out compartment for the pen on the side of the unit. The pen also does not seem to need a battery. The BIOS may be configured with the pen, which is useful since there is no built-in keyboard.

Photograph of a computer circuit board attached to the rear of the display inside of the tablet chassis. A chip with the marking

The tablet seems to be made by Wacom and, as there is no keyboard, is essential to controlling the device. There is a PS/2 port to attach an external keyboard, but this is unwieldy.

Driver support is iffy. Currently, the most reliable way seems to be to install MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 on the Compact Flash card in another PC and then overwrite the installations with the contents of this partial dump. This contains some spurious program groups and paths but these are simple to clean up.

5. Motherboard

For completeness and reference, here are some images of the motherboard:

Photograph of a computer circuit board. Large plastic sheets conceal the PCMCIA card slots and a variety of large passive components assumed to be part of the power supply occupy the upper-left portion of the board. A linear connector in the middle connects it to the display board above. Photograph of the other side of the same computer circuit board while it is still mounted in the tablet chassis. A 486 CPU is visible, along with a number of custom Toshiba chips.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Disk Limitations
  3. Display
  4. Pen Computing
  5. Motherboard