Let's be honest, to make a laptop do the job properly you still need an external USB device and microphone(s) before it will do the job. A little Zoom does all that and more, and is far less messy. No, really.

A decent USB device could cost as much, possibly, as the cost of the laptop - certainly more than a decent digital recorder.

Whilst I understand you may have about 'other devices', I strongly urge you to re-think. The Zoom, Edirol, Tascam el al devices are far more versatile than a MiniDisk ever was, with far fewer issues.

The real let-down with Minidisk, for me, was the fact you had to offload the audio in real time - even on those with a USB connection! The digital devices either plug in via USB or you can use a card reader.

My own device is a Marantz PMD660, which is better when used with external microphones as there's far too much handling noise from the internal ones. That isn't true of the others.

You'll still need Audacity (free!), or something similar, for editing on the PC, of course,