Olivetti Echos P75 (Model 860c)
Small notebook with touchpad (which was quite new technology in mid-90s), color LCD, sound card and Pentium processor. It has 8MB of RAM on board, RAM can be expanded by SIMM modules.
Not much is known about this notebook, but I found it has some legacy technologies, such as RTC battery soldered to mainboard (WILL LEAK!) or sound card in external module (in 1995 most notebooks had sound chip soldered in mainboard) and some new things in this class, e.g. bay for replaceable drives.
Olivetti Sound Cards & Media Devices Driver
Look up the support site for the manufacturer of the sound card or the chipset if it is on mainboard sound, and then download the most current drivers from the site. Installing them should overwrite any corrupted files and correct the problem if a corrupted driver is the source of the issue. Sound The Olivetti Echos come with a SoundBlaster Pro compatible card. I received no documentation or floppies for the card, but I found some settings in the Windows setup, getting the basic parts to work. All in all I have received the following information on using the sound driver under Linux. Page 50 1.5Kg (With Battery) Built-In 3.G Antenna - Optional 3.5G Modem Mini Card Service Audio More service information, please refer to Olivetti Built-In High Defi nition Sound Card (2 Channel) Built-In Dual 1.5Watt Stereo Speakers Card Reader The above specifi cation is for users’ reference. The fi nal con- 4-in-1 Card Reader. Olivetti Underwood Lettera 32 (1963) The first thing you notice about this typewriter is how compact and solid it feels. It’s like they’ve shrunk a standard model to pint-sized proportions. It’s got all the great lines of an Olivetti and feels like the previous generation Lettera 22. It’s definitely a newer, more improved version of. Olivetti SpA - Company with sole shareholder TIM Group - Management and coordination by Telecom Italia S.p.A. Registered office in Strada Monte Navale 2/C, 10015 Ivrea (TO) Italy - Phone +39 0125 7751. Fully paid in registered capital of 10.000.000,00 Euro, V.A.T. Number 0,. registered at the Turin Chamber of Commerce.
This computer has one problem, described in some web sites: Many units today suffer the 'white screen' problem. some users think that it's a oscillator-related problem, I think it's connected to corrupted settings flash memory. This memory corrupts frequently and information about screen contrast, brightness and source selection is lost, making white screen (increasing contrast manually resets it to very dark, then brighter) and may even hang system at boot (BIOS can't read what's connected to display part).
| Manufacturer | Olivetti |
| Origin | Italy |
| Year of unit | 1995 |
| Year of introduction | 1994? |
| Type | Laptop, PC |
| CPU | Intel Pentium, 75MHz |
| RAM | 8MB onboard +16MB SIMM |
| Floppy Disk | 1x 3.5' 1.44MB in a bay. |
| Hard Disk | Originally 1.2GB |
| Other media | [with expansion bay] |
| Graphics and display: | DSTN Color LCD 640x480x16bit Card: Chips 65545 |
| Sound: | PC Speaker, ESS ES1688 sound card |
| Keyboard and pointing device: | Small PC keyboard without numeric part Touchpad. |
| OS: | Windows 95/98 |
Power supply: 1 - Ground | |
| I/O: | - Serial port - Parallel port - VGA out - Sound I/O - 2x PCMCIA - Drive expansion bay - Dock connector - PS/2 connector |
| Possible upgrades: | Memory (2 SIMMs), CPU (Socket 5). |
| Additional peripherals: | none |
Echos P75 has quite modern BIOS with Setup, but BIOS support battery (2,4V rechargeable) must be removed and substituted with something else or it'll leak and damage mainboard.
Unfortunately I can't say more about this computer because I don't have HDD cable for it. It needs 1:1 cable with male-female connectors. Male goes to mainboard, female to hard disk.
To disassemble:
0. Remove battery, hard disk, floppy/CD.
1. Open notebook, pull out two plastic tabs on the top of keyboard.
2. Open keyboard towards you, carefully pull keyboard's ribbon cable from connector. After removing screw remove shielding/heatsink.
3. Remove sound card from mainboard by removing two nuts from Mic/speaker connectors, then remove the card out the mainboard. You may leave it floating on cables.
Now you can replace CPU (in Socket 5) but if you put something more than Pentium 133MHz it'll overheat. After you changed CPU remember to change DIP switches which can be found under sound card (CPU freq = Bus freq * multiplier):
| Switch 1 | Switch 2 | Bus freq [MHz] | Switch 3 | Switch 4 | Multiplier |
| OFF | OFF | 60 | OFF | OFF | 1,5x |
| OFF | ON | 66 | OFF | ON | 3x |
| ON | OFF | 20 | ON | OFF | 2x |
| ON | ON | 50 | ON | ON | 2,5x |
In some cases BIOS may display all settings >=100MHz as 'Pentium 100MHz', but speed will be as set by switches.
Olivetti Sound Cards & Media Devices Drivers
4. Now we have to remove a whole top part - Remove one screw, in bottom-left of keyboard hole, now flip the computer and remove all bottom screws (4 or 5?). Carefully unlatch and separate top part from bottom, disconnect touchpad cable from mainboard.
5. Now you can take bottom part, remove RTC battery and replace it with something better. You have some space near PCMCIA slot, so you can solder diode and go with wires near expansion bay connector to the back of PCMCIA slot where you can put another battery, original is 2.4V.
Reassembly: Remember not to shut sound card between top and bottom part. Remember about touchpad connector, keyboard connector, shield/heatsink, it's really needed.