Toshiba T5200 Laptop

In Vintage Computing \ Toshiba

Toshiba T5200 Portable Computer

The Toshiba T5200 is a great vintage laptop with a striking orange VGA gas-plasma display and great expansion capabilities.

Specifications:
Processor 80386 20MHz
RAM 2Mb, expandable to 14Mb
Floppy Drive 1.44Mb 3.5″
Hard Drive 40MB or 100Mb
Display Gas-Plasma VGA 640×480
Video Chipset Paradise (256k Ram)
Keyboard 91/92 Key (full size keys)

External Connectors:
1x AC Power Input
1x VGA Monitor
2x DB9 Serial Ports
1x DB25 Parallel Port


Displays Types are an 11.5″ Orange Gas-Plasma panel on the T5200 or a less common 10.4″ Color LCD on the T5200C models. The Color LCD purportedly provides a very poor quality picture and poor color reproduction. The Gas-Plasma displays are quite striking and one of the more attractive and unique features of the T5200.

Hard Drives were Conner brand IDE hard drives of 40Mb, 100Mb, and 200Mb capacities however the BIOS also supports some 20Mb drives. The BIOS is hard-coded to support a handful of specific drives that were available at the time which can make replacing the hard drive a challenge (See T5200 BIOS Modifications for more information).

Expansion Capabilities include two standard ISA slots and a proprietary Toshiba expansion slot. The upper ISA slot is 16-bit and the chassis can accommodate a full length card. The lower (8-bit) ISA slot can accept a half length card and is obstructed if card is installed in the Toshiba slot. Network cards and modems were available for the proprietary Toshiba Expansion slot.

Toshiba T5200 proprietary 40-Pin SIMM compared to a standard 30-Pin SIMM (ClassicBits.net)

System Memory is on a daughter board with 2Mb fixed (soldered) and can accept up to six proprietary 40-pin SIMMs for combinations up to 14Mb total. There is also a single 30-pin SIMM slot for parity.

NOTE: The Toshiba T5200 service manual states maximum 8Mb RAM however 14MB can be achieved.

In a 1989 episode of The Computer Chronicles, Toshiba America product manager Keith Comer states that the T5200 comes with a 40MB or 100MB hard drive, 2MB RAM, and can be upgraded to “14MB using the new 4 megabit RAM chips we just announced.” He also states the machine is priced at $9,500-$11,000 depending on hard drive capacity.