This Classic Toshiba Libretto Pocket-Sized Computer Now Boasts USB Type-C Charging
A compact USB Power Delivery trigger board and a 3D-printed adapter give a 1990s pocket PC a real quality-of-life improvement.
Mononymous vintage computing enthusiast Robert, of the YouTube channel Robert's Retro, has a piece of pocket-friendly computing history that just got a lot more modern — thanks to the addition of USB Type-C Power Delivery (PD) charging to a Toshiba Libretto 70.
"I want[ed] to add USB-C charging to this little Libretto," Robert explains of the project, which comes after work to rebuild the computer's battery pack after years in storage. "This is made possible by using the Power Delivery feature of USB-C, where other voltages can be negotiated — namely, one of those is 15V which makes it perfectly compatible with this tiny Libretto."
Toshiba's Libretto line of sub-notebook computers, launched in 1996 and discontinued in 2002 before a brief resurgence in 2005 and again in 2010, pre-dated the netbook craze and did it in a considerably smaller form-factor — despite offering hardware capable of running a full-fat installation of period-appropriate Microsoft Windows. The Libretto 70, released as the Libretto 70CT outside Japan, includes an Intel Pentium 120MHz MMX processor, up to 32MB of RAM, and a 1.6GB hard disk, with a compact 6.1" color TFT display.
It's this model that Robert has been restoring, first by rebuilding its battery pack and now by doing away with the proprietary power supply in favor of broad compatibility with USB Power Delivery (PD) battery packs and chargers. "What I've done," Robert explains, "is I have created a 3D model, and it's basically a replacement for the outline of the barrel jack [power connector] but instead has a USB-C PD trigger — one of those tiny little boards that you can get, and this one is set up for 15V. All we need to do is reconnect the power that goes to this current jack to the terminals on this [trigger board]."
At the same time, Robert replaced the system's damaged display with one from a donor Libretto 50 and upgraded the memory to the maximum 32MB allowed — though the project wasn't without cost, thanks to the ageing case material. "These plastics are just insanely brittle," Robert notes, after the case sustained damage during disassembly.
The project is detailed in full in the video above and on Robert's YouTube channel; the 3D model for the USB Type-C housing is on Thingiverse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.