Toshiba laptop aggravation

Hi Joerg,

Joerg wrote:
D Yuniskis wrote:

I had a decent older laptop with *built-in* AC power supply
(eliminates the problem of having to buy replacement batteries
for something that is rarely used :< ). But, I opted to discard
it in one of my periodic "purges".

I've held onto a Compaq "Portable 386" (lunchbox, not the
luggable). Big, yes. And had to hack the BIOS to get
support for even a 300 *MB* disk. But, keeps two ISA slots
available for me (something I don't have in any of the
other machines, here).

You can still buy PCs with ISA slots. And you will be able to for a
loooong time. ISA is here to stay because of many industrial uses.

Yes. The advantage of the Portable is that it is much
smaller than a "regular" PC -- including the keyboard
and plasma display -- portable and still has the old
serial and parallel ports (even an *EGA* video out :> )

Unfortunately, I don't have another machine with a 5" floppy
so I can't create the "SETUP floppy" to reinitialize the CMOS
now that the battery died. (<frown> I was smart enough to save
images of all the floppies -- but forgot to save a drive that
could write them... other than the one in the Compaq!)

I am hoping, someday, to have time to see if I can hack a
USB 3" floppy drive to accept a 5" drive, instead (no idea
how closely the controllers in those floppies are wed to
the actual 3" drive! I don't expect much joy...)

In a desktop the controller can do it, at least in my Dell here (Foxconn
mobo). But the BIOS does not support 5-1/4" :-(

Yeah, so doesn't buy you much. :< I am hoping that the
controller in the 3.5 usb floppies is smart enough to
see the difference in a 5" -- much like you can repurpose
an external USB CD-R/W to be an external (hard) disk.

I suspect the 5" went disappeared too soon for the makers
of these controllers to support it. :-/

I still have a 5-1/4 inch 1.2 MB drive. Might i help you?

JosephKK wrote:

I still have a 5-1/4 inch 1.2 MB drive. Might i help you?

Thanks for the offer. I've got a couple of 5" drives
(but not currently attached to a machine -- as none of my
machines have "unused" bays

But, I rescued a 3" USB floppy drive that uses a *real*
3" floppy. I'll see what happens when I attach a 5"
drive in place of the 3" and see if the controller is
smart enough to see the difference or if it was
designed expressly for 3" floppies.

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?


Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 07:49:37 -0800, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?


Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

I just bought four used Win98 laptops. They have real parallel ports
and floppies, and '98 programs can do direct port i/o, so they are
handy for lots of things. I use them to run uP background debugger
pods. And I use them as "print servers" with my Epson wide-carriage
fanfold printers (copy file from XP onto a floppy, carry over to
laptop, print.) The Epson Windows USB drivers always install in Polish
or some strange language that I can't understand, and don't seem to
want to print in fast mode now matter how you play with them. From the
laptop parallel port, they print full blast with no drivers at all.

I use them with real PS/2 mice. Those mousepads are awful.

It's weird to buy a computer for less than a scope probe.

John

In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?


Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.

T wrote:
In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...
Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.
I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.


Tell that to someone with severe disabilities.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
T wrote:
In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...
Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.
I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.


Tell that to someone with severe disabilities.


Not just that. When you work with your hands a lot like I have to during
EMI improvement sessions you'll inevitably get calloussed hands and
fingers. Then the tapping stuff becomes really erratic. Heck, I had to
get finger-printed for a visa recently and had to press real hard onto
the optical reader glass until they could get a clear scan. And on my
Samsung netbook the whole touchpad becomes really unreliable after 2-3
days of EMI grunt work. To the point where I just had it and bought a
Bluetooth mouse.

It may be ok for office people but not for use dudes

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:57:24 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
T wrote:
In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...
Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.
I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.


Tell that to someone with severe disabilities.


Not just that. When you work with your hands a lot like I have to during
EMI improvement sessions you'll inevitably get calloussed hands and
fingers. Then the tapping stuff becomes really erratic. Heck, I had to
get finger-printed for a visa recently and had to press real hard onto
the optical reader glass until they could get a clear scan. And on my
Samsung netbook the whole touchpad becomes really unreliable after 2-3
days of EMI grunt work. To the point where I just had it and bought a
Bluetooth mouse.

It may be ok for office people but not for use dudes :-)

I despise touch pads and joy sticks, so a small RF mouse is an
immediate addition to any small laptop, like my Lenovo X61s.

Hi Joseph,

JosephKK wrote:

I still have a 5-1/4 inch 1.2 MB drive. Might i help you?

Thanks for the offer. I've got a couple of 5" drives
(but not currently attached to a machine -- as none of my
machines have "unused" bays :-(

But, I rescued a 3" USB floppy drive that uses a *real*
3" floppy. I'll see what happens when I attach a 5"
drive in place of the 3" and see if the controller is
smart enough to see the difference or if it was
designed expressly for 3" floppies.

In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...

Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?


Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.

I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.

In article <hnibiv$2ko$1_at_speranza.aioe.org>,
D Yuniskis <not.going.to.be_at_seen.com> wrote:
JosephKK wrote:
I still have a 5-1/4 inch 1.2 MB drive. Might i help you?
Thanks for the offer. I've got a couple of 5" drives
(but not currently attached to a machine -- as none of my
machines have "unused" bays :-(

Do any of them have a PC-AT equivalent floppy controller inside?
A floppy will work just sitting on the tabletop.

Do any run Linux or could run MS-DOS + rawrite.exe? (Another very
useful old MS-DOS program is anadisk, which can read, write, and
format anything the hardware can deal with. Found wherever the old
Simtel archive went...).

But, I rescued a 3" USB floppy drive that uses a *real*
3" floppy. I'll see what happens when I attach a 5"
drive in place of the 3" and see if the controller is
smart enough to see the difference or if it was
designed expressly for 3" floppies.

The 1.2 meg 5.25" (And the 8") drives rotate at 360 RPM, the 3.5"
(and 360k 5.25") rotate at 300 RPM. Bad odds, IMHO.

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:57:24 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
T wrote:
In article <7vshopFngbU1_at_mid.individual.net>, invalid_at_invalid.invalid
says...
Richard Henry wrote:
I have three Toshiba laptops due to ignorant purchases over time. All
three have a mousepad in front of the keyboard which has an auto-click
function - if you tap it with a finger, it moves the focus to the
current cursor location. The problem with all three is that during
normal 10-finger typing, thumb movement near the pad causes an
inadvertent auto-click, messing up my typing.

I want to turn the auto-click function off. Anybody know how?

Hoping it works like on my laptops: Go into the Control Panel -> Mouse
-> Hardware -> Tapping -> uncheck the box "Enable Tapping". That's it.

While at it you might as well turn off other over-sophistications such
as "click lock". That's what I do the instant I get a new laptop, even
before installing any apps.
I've used trackpads on laptops for years now. I'm always amused by
people who have a visceral reaction to the tap feature.


Tell that to someone with severe disabilities.


Not just that. When you work with your hands a lot like I have to during
EMI improvement sessions you'll inevitably get calloussed hands and
fingers. Then the tapping stuff becomes really erratic. Heck, I had to
get finger-printed for a visa recently and had to press real hard onto
the optical reader glass until they could get a clear scan. And on my
Samsung netbook the whole touchpad becomes really unreliable after 2-3
days of EMI grunt work. To the point where I just had it and bought a
Bluetooth mouse.

It may be ok for office people but not for use dudes :-)

I despise touch pads and joy sticks, so a small RF mouse is an
immediate addition to any small laptop, like my Lenovo X61s.

...Jim Thompson