Compaq Presario 5113EA
A recent donation to the museum was this Compaq Presario 5113EA which was part of Compaq's 5000 Series of desktop PC's.This PC has Windows ME installed, which was the OS on my very first Laptop, the HP Omnibook 3000. Compaq was eventually bought by HP, so there's a tenuous link between these two machines!
This desktop has a Intel Celeron processor clocked at 800MHz, 64MB of RAM, a 20GB hard disk, a 3 1/2 inch floppy drive, and a DVD ROM drive, there is a 56Kb/s modem ISA card for connectivity to the internet
The front of the PC has a jazzy blue translucent plastic cover which surrounds the DVD and floppy drive, other colours were available, but this one is blue. There's a large momentary power button in the middle with power LED above the hard disk activity LED is to the side
The plastics looks like they have yellowed due to its age
There are spare 5 1/4 inch and 3 1/2 inch bays available, with two USB 1.1s behind a flip cover
The two USB sockets, floppy and DVD drives
Close up of the power button, 5000 series logo, and the typical Intel and Windows stickers from the era
The lower half of the front panel opens with a lot of concerning cracking noises to reveal some CD/DVD storage, and the Windows licence sticker, Microsoft does not care about ME anymore and this PC is never going near the internet again, so 'av at it
The sides of the PC look a little odd due to the front panel, and there's a large sticker with the specs
The rear of the PC is typical for the era, with all the expected ports, 2 x PS/2, 2 x USB 1.1, 25 and 9 pin serial, VGA, line in/out and mic audio, and a 15 pin game port, there is a modem card installed as well
I found another sticker on the bottom
It looks like this should pull out and do something, but it doesn't
Visually, pretty much the same as all PC's of the time
A Cooler Master processor fan
CR2032 battery which still works and keeps the time
The label on the side of the PSU
The back of the DVD drive, floppy drive, and hard disc
Two slots for Ram, only one is populated for 64MB
Four ISA slots
Modem card installed
A sticker, "Replace with Compaq spare"
Processor and fan
An IC with Intel printed on it, I should really look up what it does
The RAM stick removed
The modem card removed
Monitor, keyboard, and mouse
All together
The USB keyboard, it has dedicated media and task buttons to make your life "easier", also look at the odd cursor key arrangment
It feels like it has cheap rubber dome key switches
A PS/2 ball mouse, it works fine. It has a Logitech logo on the bottom, and it seems weird to me why the keyboard is USB while the mouse is PS/2?
An Acer 4:3 LCD 15 inch monitor from 2004, with an Ecology, Energy, Emissions, Ergonomics sticker, I very much doubt this is the original monitor
The back of the monitor, it has a fixed VGA lead, and an audio in socket, there does appear to be speakers on the front, I didn't test this yet
Windows ME
The system properties screen
Tried to get into the BIOS, got the boot menu instead
Second attempt (F10 by the way) and I'm in, not a lot you can do here, and there's a large red scary warning message when you try to exit
The default wallpaper for the Compaq Presario Internet PC, this is at 800x600 true colour, it will go higher, but this is what it was set to when I received it
I like the idea of putting Windows 98SE on it 🤔
For more retro hardware check out my online museum here
