Thinkpads Forum

I picked up this Thinkpad 600X from Freecycle today, however I have to say this default typeset is horrible, and is driving me insane.

Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about (click images for larger versions):



The problem with this typeset is I'm using this as a DOS machine until I find an OpenStep supported network card (Wavelan = NO SUPPORT) although using such a horrible look is...horrible.

Just for reference: Here's what (the working half of) my Thinkpad 560X looks like:


Is there any solution to this "problem" or am I stuck permanently with this annoyance? I can't seem to find any settings in BIOS to change this, and I have the same typeset whether it be PC DOS 7, MS-DOS 6 or the Windows 2000 loading screen.

Admin edit: Resized/compressed/cropped original inline images to reduce size.

It almost looks like the screen is running in graphics mode as opposed to standard text mode. I was going to suggest looking into the autoexec.bat, config.sys and ansi.sys files to see if it's changing the video display but if you say you're booting the system with different versions of DOS, then it might be something that's been hardwired into the system. I don't think it will be in BIOS but it could be something that's been set in CMOS memory. A quick check would be to pull out the CMOS (aka, backup) coin battery in the memory bay and see if that reverts the system back to the "normal" text display. A word of warning however: if there's a supervisor password set, you better know what it is before you pull the battery otherwise your system will end up as a brick.

The alternative is that somebody has replaced the font information in the video ROM. Here's some information I found that might be useful, however I don't know it applies to the 600X Thinkpad:

http://www.procon.com.au/hvfullsc.htm
http://www.procon.com.au/HVVCBIOS.htm

It looks to me like screen expansion is turned on. Press Fn-F8 to turn it off and the characters should return to normal-although it will no longer be full screen.