Thinkpads Forum

Some pics I took of my recently-acquired T20:

http://static.flickr.com/142/317862894_1d62ce052f_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/140/317862889_4bd5fbd85c_o.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/130/317862873_9e325c78ba_o.jpg

looks old.
but promisingly working well

Come on, it doesn't look that old!

Looks fine to me but why buy an really outdated machine? collector?

Dont see much productivity in it.

Well anyways good luck with it and I hope it doesnt break down

gunston wrote:looks old....

Looks can be deceiving...

I know a LOT of people that run PIII'S EVEN PII'S...and they don't need anything faster! In my opinion it is all on what you use the system for...a duo core or centrino, etc is overkill if all you do is work with "office" and surf the web (from a cost point of view as well)

You have to remember it is all a marketing gimmick as well...the concept being..BUY...BUY...BUY!...even if you don't really needed!

Furthermore...when it comes to laptops, and in my case and 99% of the user base that I support never take full advantage of the capabilities of the "latest and greatest" since ALL decent laptops and above have speedstep...which kills the proc on battery (the reason most go with a lappy), tell me the performance loss from 1.8GHZ to 600mhz, or my tablet running with a LV proc at 296mhz...is not a cause for concern...a lot of people do not notice the difference, they are not even aware that "something changed" yet they all continue to do their work...unplugged and running at "full speed"

My reason for sticking with a PII is because I can't afford a new laptop. For class and most of what I do at home, this thing is perfect (even runs original Half Life and CS) but unfortunately, it's been put under a very increased workload these past few months since my desktop's motherboard kicked the can and I am holding out until I can afford something high end since I rarely get god results from buying from the lowest bidder. Still, I'm amazed at the amount of stuff I can get this old computer to do each day; XP Pro SP2 runs perfect!

draco2527 wrote:I know a LOT of people that run PIII'S EVEN PII'S...and they don't need anything faster!

I totally agree. With enough RAM and at least a 5400rpm HDD, older laptops like the 600E and the 240 work almost as well as a T43 for basic applications.

Many people buy them to save money. I buy them not to save money, but just to play with them, and because they are so cheap, I can try lots of them and have lots of fun. I'm sure many other people on this forum buy these laptops for the same reason. Somehow these early laptops are more fun than more modern models. Perhaps it's because back then, manufacturers were still experimenting with various designs, so each new model tended to have many unique features. By contrast, more recent models have been evolving less rapidly.

If you got a fast hard drive in it, then it wont seem that old.

I recently (ok a year ago) replaced my t22 w/ a t42. The drive on the t22 was failing.

then I upgraded the t22 w/ a new 7200rpm 60gb drive.

I use the t22 regularly for email/browsing/etc.

Cant really do development on it -- only has 512mb memory.

Best of all, it has a killer 1400x1050 display - though it does need a new backlight -- its orange when it starts up, but once warmed up the orange is gone.

Oh.. and the battery is dead. Only runs for about 2 minutes on battery.
Its mainly a couch computer.

gunston wrote:looks old.

ha, you ***!!

I have a thing for old hardware, especially old Macs. But, I've always loved the Thinkpads, too. I was actually using a PII-powered-Inspiron for a few months before I sold it and got this, so it's an upgrade, really!

I was impressed with its condition when I got it, considering I owned a PowerBook G4 from 2002 until last year that looked like it had been to hell and back by the time I got rid of it. These Thinkpads seem to be very rugged, while still being small and light, and I really like that.

First thing I did with it was swap out the 12GB, 4200rpm hard drive for a 40GB, 5400rpm one. It only has 128MB of RAM though, which makes XP lag like the dickens. I'm going to to max it out at 512MB as soon as eBay allows me.

Either way, for all the basic tasks I need to do on the go, it really isn't a bad machine. And, having paid $200 for it and the newer hard drive, it wasn't a big investment.

I have a ThinkPad 770 running Windows XP Pro (see my sig) and it does all I need it to do. I can actually play Unreal Tournament (slowly and at 320x240, in Direct3D) and Half Life 1, and of course Doom and Doom II. Microsoft Office works almost flawlessly, but more RAM would absolutely help. I recently replaced my old hard drive that had Windows 98SE because it died on me. I couldn't find my 98SE disk, so I decided to upgrade to XP. Surprisingly, it runs faster rather than slower. It could use more RAM and a faster/bigger hard drive. The old hard drive was actually the one that came with my dad's T23, and it was still under warranty so I got it replaced (I'm ultra cheap, huh )

Oh, by the way, I joined yesterday and this is my first post. Woo!

SilentDude56k wrote:Oh, by the way, I joined yesterday and this is my first post. Woo!

Welcome aboard. I have a Packard Bell desktop computer that also has 200MHz Pentium-MMX but less RAM (128MB), and it barely runs WinXP Pro. It can run Win2K slightly faster, and 98SE much faster.

Well, when I went from 128 to 160 MB of RAM, there was a noticable increase in performance. I will soon have 256, which should help lots more.

Gustavo wrote:Looks fine to me but why buy an really outdated machine? collector?

Dont see much productivity in it.

Well anyways good luck with it and I hope it doesnt break down

I forgot how dramatically Word Processing and Spreadsheets have changed in the last 10 years.
;p

I find my old 133Mhz Laptank pretty useful for simple tasks, although you'll find mwe using my Core Duo for videos :p

gearguy wrote:I forgot how dramatically Word Processing and Spreadsheets have changed in the last 10 years.

Did you ever use WordStar 5 and DBase III? I did, 16 years ago!

pianowizard wrote:Did you ever use WordStar 5 and DBase III? I did, 16 years ago!

I used the original releases of WordStar and CalcStar but I won't admit how long ago that was!

Still got a copy of WordStar 2000 around here someplace.

James

Hi !

I agree with everyone who say that old machine can still do the job.

I shouldn't, because I work in a technical support, so, most of the time, I will help people to buy new hardware...

The love of old machine is my secret ! Actually, everyone knows that, and if they need an advice with the oldies, they will come and ask me...

Here, at home, I'm using my 600E more that my desktop machine (ASRock 775V88+, Celeron D 331 w/ CNPS 7000B, 512MB DDR-SDRAM, GeForce Ti4200 w/VF-700, 80GB 7K80 S-ATA II, 5x Creative DVD Drive, 32x Philips CD-R/RW Drive)... Nothing more. As the biggest "application" I'm using is Q3:A, I don't need more.

I like when XP runs smooth, so, I did a lot of system tweaks, and everything runs like a charm, even on the 600E. I'm always here to remember people that XP can also run pretty well on oldies. People laugh and say "but what are you doing with your oldies ? Your home is a museum.". Well perhaps it's a museum here, but they have a lot of problems with their high end machine (high end machines bought to surf and listening to MP3...) and me, nothing ! Well, now, who's laughing ? They have XPs which will startup during 50 seconds, 1 minute, sometimes more, 60 or 70 processes in the RAM (counting spywares, virii and useless junk).

My 600E will startup during 40 seconds, as clean as the emergency rooms of an hospital ! Where PII are as good as P-M or Core 2 Duo !

And we can go further ! Old machines don't need 500W PSUs !

Earth says Thank You !

Go on ! Use your oldies !!!



W.

I agree, old computers can do almost everything new ones can, especially ThinkPads! And, for me at least, a lot easier to maintain!

And some older laptops are worth getting/keeping because they look good. The X2x series, like the X22 that I currently have, are among the most beautiful laptops ever made.

A lot of people don't like the design of the Thinkpads.

Sure that all these laptops totally black are very different. Like an army of burnt boxes of... Hum... Well... I don't know what !!!

But, hey ! We're talking about Thinkpads, and Thinkpads are not everyone's laptop. It's not a candy. Meant to be solid, meant to run everything, meant to be very upgradable (at least for the 600s ).

If you ask me... The "one block design" is the one I prefer.

W.

Aaaah, I forgot ! I love the pics !

Especially the second ! Sort of Star Wars-ish, and awaiting for Palpatine, no ?

W.

I found a local seller who had a pair of 256MB Kingston PC100 SODIMMs, which are of the low-density/8-chips-per-side variety. He was letting them go for $20 a piece, so needless to say I rushed over to get them. Unfortunately, upon testing them at his place, we found that one of the two chips was bad...so he ended up just giving me both for $20.

So now I'm up to 384MB...which, while still not maxed out, is a world of difference from 128MB.

Welcome aboard. I have a Packard Bell desktop computer that also has 200MHz Pentium-MMX........

Whoops! Forgot about this part! The Pentium MMX Mobile, which my 770 has, has twice the L2 cache as the desktop version. You have 256 KB of L2, my 770 has 512 KB. Found this out at ThinkWiki. That L2 cache can make a huge difference!

cinemafia wrote:He was letting them go for $20 a piece, so needless to say I rushed over to get them.

Wow, that's a fantastic deal!

pianowizard wrote:

cinemafia wrote:He was letting them go for $20 a piece, so needless to say I rushed over to get them.

Wow, that's a fantastic deal!

Seriously! Of course it would have been a whole lot better if they both worked...but, I still can't complain. 384MB is plenty for web sufing and office tasks, and really sped up XP in general.

Woohoo! I picked up an IBM 'ThinkBag' yesterday:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/159/3300 ... 55ac_o.jpg

And here it is with all its contents laid on the table:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/141/3300 ... 996a_o.jpg

I wish I had a ThinkBag...

And hey, that's the same power supply I have for my 770! The one that came with my dad's T23 is slim and has no grounding prong...so I like mine better . Something that's nice about the ThinkPad's power supplies is that they all seem to be interchangable. I have a spare one, and so if my dad forgets his, he can just use my spare.

SilentDude56k wrote:I wish I had a ThinkBag...

Best part is it was still unused, even though it's one of the older models, and I got it for $35 from a guy on Craigslist!

SilentDude56k wrote:And hey, that's the same power supply I have for my 770! The one that came with my dad's T23 is slim and has no grounding prong...so I like mine better . Something that's nice about the ThinkPad's power supplies is that they all seem to be interchangable. I have a spare one, and so if my dad forgets his, he can just use my spare.

Yep, that one is actually from a much older ThinkPad, but has the exact same power output and works fine with my T20. The reason I'm using it is because it's not part of the recall, unlike the other AC adapter I have that came with the T20.

I just received a pair of Soft Rim TrackPoints from eBay and swapped out the old, Cat's Tongue one.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/124/3384 ... 99c0_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/152/3384 ... 4795_o.jpg

It's a world of difference! It only cost about $6.50 for the pair with shipping (I just like having a spare one) and I highly recommend it for owners of older models!

I love my antique T22 and to me it is a treasure I hope keeps running for a long time. Here is a photo of two of the most important things to me, dear husband and my T22 - both in excellent running order! (taken on a recent trip). Cinemafia, enjoy the T20!