Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
I bought a vintage Sharp PC-5000 laptop on eBay, and like usual, it didn't work. This is from the 1980s and is an early laptop with an 80 character by 8 line display. The thing that makes this laptop interesting is that it is one of the few computers that contained a built in bubble memory drive. Bubble memory is an early nonvolatile storage technology that I have featured in several of my vintage computer videos. This laptop runs DOS 2.00, a combination of parts of it in ROM together with a disk structure that is in the bubble. In this video I repair the power supply, repair the keyboard, and speculate on some problems with the screen. I spend some time to load up and try out the built in BASIC intepreter. I also wanted to thank folks over at the Vintage Computer Federation forum, especially voidstar78 who was kind enough to share some diagnostic resources. For more vintage computer videos, see smbaker.com
I bought a vintage Sharp PC-5000 laptop on eBay, and like usual, it didn't work. This is from the 1980s and is an early laptop with an 80 character by 8 line display. The thing that makes this laptop interesting is that it is one of the few computers that contained a built in bubble memory drive. Bubble memory is an early nonvolatile storage technology that I have featured in several of my vintage computer videos. This laptop runs DOS 2.00, a combination of parts of it in ROM together with a disk structure that is in the bubble. In this video I repair the power supply, repair the keyboard, and speculate on some problems with the screen. I spend some time to load up and try out the built in BASIC intepreter. I also wanted to thank folks over at the Vintage Computer Federation forum, especially voidstar78 who was kind enough to share some diagnostic resources. For more vintage computer videos, see smbaker.com
