To resurrect their broken vintage NEC ProSpeed laptop, babtras added a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer and a modern LCD screen. Sometimes old components fail beyond repair and replacements are unavailable or prohibitively expensive. In such cases, it is worth reviving a vintage computer using modern hardware. That’s what Redditor babtras did by putting a Raspberry Pi into an ‘80s NEC ProSpeed 286.
A Raspberry Pi 4 Model B single-board computer was used – it is compact enough to fit easily inside of the case. The original keyboard had a PS/2 connection, so babtras was able to use a cheap PS/2-to-USB adapter with some jumpers in the keyboard’s ribbon cable connector. Instead of putting in a battery, babtras decided to stick to with the ProSpeed’s original power supply. Its hard drive connector provides both 5V and 12V, which is perfect for this project. The 5V rail powers the Raspberry Pi, while the 12V rail powers the LCD panel. To make the USB ports accessible, babtras fabricated a custom panel that fits onto the back of the machine for panel-mount USB extensions.
Babtras replaced the original LCD panel with something new. The new LCD panel fit into the same space as the original with a custom-fabricated Plexiglass frame. The panel came with a controller board with various connections, including HDMI.
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