The ‘Luggable’ laptop, how does it look today? Part II — Toshiba T3200 from 1989

Nowadays everybody can afford a laptop. But how did this era begin? Let’s travel back to the time when portable computers were large, heavy and expensive. This is the Toshiba T3200SX from 1989 — a ‘luggable’ computer with 1MB of RAM, 40 MB HDD and a gorgeous 640x480 16-grey-shade gas plasma screen:

As I wrote in my previous articles, almost any specs, images and datasheets can be easily found online. But this will not help to get the feeling of the real use of this or that device. And finally, testing the real computer is just fun. So, when I saw this machine on a local market for only 100 Euros, I immediately decided to try it on my own.

Firstly, I will check the hardware, in the second part I will install the OS and some software, and finally, I can run some code on this laptop. Let’s see how it works.

Specs

The review of the previous model, Toshiba T3100 from 1986, was published in the first part, and as we can see, within several years Toshiba did enough improvements. Let’s check what hardware do we have:

CPU: 16 MHz 80386SX
RAM: 1 MB (640 KB standard + 384 KB extended), expandable up to 13MB
Video RAM: 256 KB, 640x480 VGA
HDD: 40 MB or 80 MB IDE
OS: MS-DOS 3.3 or higher
Extensions: two (8 bit and 16 bit) ISA slots
Price: $6,299 ($13,896 in 2021)
Weight: 7.9 kg

Just for the comparison, the previous model, Toshiba T3100, which was released only 3 years earlier in 1986, has the 80286 CPU, an MFM hard disk drive (which is almost impossible to find nowadays) and an RGB port instead of VGA. The VGA screen resolution 640x480 on the Toshiba T3200 is also much more “standard” and compatible with different apps than the monochrome 640x400 screen on the T3100. The RAM can be expanded much more easily — from the proprietary RAM extension board Toshiba switched to standard SIMM slots. In general, the Toshiba T3200SX is a nice compromise for those who want to test on their own how vintage computers work but does not want to spend too much time and money on the restoration of really old…