Beginning My Adventures Finally!

Category: Geeks r Us

Post 1 by Eleni21 (I have proven to myself and the world that I need mental help) on Thursday, 25-Feb-2010 13:03:44

Okay, so now everything really is coming into play here. I found a very nice IBM Thinkpad 560 in good working condition for $1. It's got a 100 mhz processor, 40mb ram, and a 2gb hard disk. It comes with external floppy, external cd rom, pcmcia card, modem card and telephone cord. I wish it had 64mb of ram and a 6 or 7gb hard disk and that the processor was a bit faster, but at $1 and some shipping, who can really complain? Best of all, there are DOS drivers for everything on that model at the Lenovo site

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-60522.html

So my audio, video, pcmcia etc. are guaranteed to work under PC-DOS and I see no reason why they wouldn't work under Enhanced DR-DOS as well. I've got a few days to think about this, so in the meantime, I'm gonna ask Spiros about his Dell Latitude to see which kind it is and if it's fully DOS-compatible. My guess is yes, since Dell is one of the few companies still known to support the os (IBM being the other/check out there 3000 g series), and besides, this is a very old one. It's got everything built-in, from serial and parallel ports to cd rom, floppy and pcmcia, so it's a bit heavier than the Thinkpad, but it's the same size and the speed is 363 mhz, the hard disk is several gb at least and I'm sure the ram is better, though I might have to slim it down. Either way, I've got the perfect mid-sized laptop for DOS. I found that amazing Toshiba Libretto 110CT again for $30 or so but I need to make sure it truly works with native DOS, I don't know how comfortable the keyboard is and, since I'll probably win the ThinkPad X32 for XP, I won't have the money in any case.

Post 2 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Thursday, 25-Feb-2010 15:06:30

1 dollar? I doubt that.

Post 3 by Eleni21 (I have proven to myself and the world that I need mental help) on Thursday, 25-Feb-2010 15:28:22

Yep, $1.00 with $12.27 shipping.

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-Thinkpad-560-External-CD-ROM-Floppy-Drive_W0QQitemZ220560605472QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item335a6fc120#ht_620wt_962

Post 4 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Thursday, 25-Feb-2010 23:45:07

Amazing!

Post 5 by Eleni21 (I have proven to myself and the world that I need mental help) on Thursday, 25-Feb-2010 23:52:50

lol That's what I thought. I'm so tempted to get this. *smile* 100 mhz still sounds like a little, but it's certainly better than the KeyNote Gold that I've got now and it's higher than even a 486 so I donno. I'm not having any luck finding DOS drivers for the Dell. It says ""DELL     Model  No: PPL Personal Computer Latitude  CPi  A-Series IC  Class:  B  ICES-3" on it. I'll have to search more. Sad too, cause it's a really nice little machine with everything built-in.

Post 6 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Friday, 26-Feb-2010 12:10:43

You should have no problem overclocking but be careful. Dos drivers can easily be installed with some puttering.

Post 7 by Eleni21 (I have proven to myself and the world that I need mental help) on Friday, 26-Feb-2010 12:24:13

Why is there puttering involved and will overclocking damage the system? I've heard of it being done but don't exactly know what the process involves and don't want to ruin a perfectly good system. How fast do you think I could get it to go?

Post 8 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Friday, 26-Feb-2010 13:48:48

Just slightly...otherwise you will blow out the system. As far as the drivers, puttering is always involved when dealing with an older machine.

Post 9 by Eleni21 (I have proven to myself and the world that I need mental help) on Friday, 26-Feb-2010 13:54:35

Ah. Better leave it alone then. *smile* As for the drivers, I hope they don't give me too much trouble. But these aren't third-party. They come directly from IBM. As for any others I might find, I guess I'll learn when the time comes.

Post 10 by margorp (I've got the gold prolific poster award, now is there a gold cup for me?) on Friday, 26-Feb-2010 23:06:15

The drivers shouldn't give you any trouble.