Comments on: Compaq Portable III (Model 2660) with External Expansion Chassis

By: Greg

Greg — Wed, 21 Apr 2021 13:36:34 +0000

@Tim Yes, the Portable IIIs have an RS-232 (9-pin serial) port as standard equipment on the back. Compaq also offered an authentic Hayes-manufactured modem in Compaq's proprietary form factor that fits under the disk drives. Came with a replacement trim piece (plastic cover) for access to the phone jack. Snap out the old cover and snap in the new. The modem was Compaq part 2661; 1200 and 2400 bps models were available. Same modems worked with Portable 386s, which was physically identical. Let me know if you want one; I have a working modem for sale.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 28 Feb 2020 18:01:48 +0000

I’ve got one of these in storage somewhere. Gotta dig it out soon. I can’t remember if they had an RS-232 port on them or not or if one was available if not. Does anyone know? I’d like to use it as a portable terminal with a WiModem232 to call BBS’s.

By: Mirco

Mirco — Mon, 14 Oct 2019 21:42:06 +0000

Hi, you can tell me the pinout scheme voltage of the 4-pin red molex connector that powers the LCD screen. please.

By: John

John — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 01:59:38 +0000

Does anyone know how to take the cover off of a Compaq portable III power supply? Thank you!

By: freaked

freaked — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:51:31 +0000

dunno why, but the symbols > and < were removed after posting…they should have followed SHIFT+

By: freaked

freaked — Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:50:31 +0000

@Remi You just have to press CTRL+ALT+> and CTRL+ALT+< to switch between the internal Plasma and external RGB display. In reality you need to press 4 keys at once on an English keyboard: CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+

By: Remi

Remi — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:13:23 +0000

My Portable III had different mechanism for splitting the keyboard. It was very difficult clamps (broke 3 of them), and no screws at all. Keyboard is looking identical though.

By: Remi

Remi — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 19:13:55 +0000

Nice job. Just fixing up this model as well. I miss the user manual though. Do you know how I get display on an external RGB-L (CGA) monitor?

By: Norm

Norm — Thu, 04 May 2017 00:14:13 +0000

Very informative dissection. I’ll have to implement your fix for the keyboard connector to mine. Fyi, the clock, backup battery and 64 bytes of non-volatile RAM to store boot settings are all in the DS1287 chip. Fyi, if a replacement is ever needed, a DS12887 is a 100% drop-in replacement, and can still be purchased for about $8.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Sun, 27 Oct 2013 23:52:32 +0000

Very important..The display isnt LCD but one of firsts very rare plasma tecnology monitor