Thinkpads Forum

Noticed a 370C for sale locally, cheap. I don't have any need for it but thought someone here may.

Anyone want it?

What does 'cheap' means out of pure curiosity? (Do you know if it works?)

5 euros for the machine and another 5 for shipping.

What does 'work' mean?
The screen lights up. Includes a power supply.
Floppy drive is intact. Machine looks clean.
In the photos the only think I can see from the screen is one shot showing 'Serial HDD - 2 FDD - 2 PCMCIA - '.

There was a surprising and unexpected twist.
In the final moments of the auction there was a bidding war for the 370C!
Another guy started off the bidding at 5.55 euro, with three whole minuets left.
My hands were shaking and my breathing quickened. "There it goes, my last chance to own
perhaps the most forgotten thinkpad of all time, the 370c..." I muttered as I watched the auction end.

Oh, sorry, I overslept it. Shame, I'd go up to 7 euro without blinking! Real men know no hesitation!

7 euros? But, I only paid 5.74 for it!

The 370c is on my desk now.
Where is the HMM for the 370c?
Where is the ram?

"
ERROR

08611

"

On the test screen the memory fails with the following information:
Dev 002
ERR 83
FRU 2010

I turn on the machine and it reports:

11904 KB OK
8611

Other times it reports:

03712 KB OK
201
8611

The trackpad does NOT move left to right but does move up and down.

I disconnected the keyboard and trackpoint cables and reattached them.
The error messages remain.

There is a slot on the right of the machine which houses the flip-out modem.
Above that is an empty rectangular space 4.9mm X 48.15mm.

HMM: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... tpvol2.pdf

Removed the (presumably bad) memory.
It was under the FDD and labeled "IBM ThinkPad 8MB Basic IC DRAM Card Made in Japan".

Now when booting I see
03712 KB OK
8611

Then two beeps and the ERROR page.
I click enter and the device testing page appears. I navigate to 'Memory' and click enter.
'Memory' test runs, beeps and then 'OK'!

Cool.

The 365 HMM defines 8611 as "System bus error–I/F between 8042 and IPDC."
I don't understand what that means.

Read page 220 in the (linked) HMM.

RealBlackStuff wrote:Read page 220 in the (linked) HMM.

I removed the keyboard and trackpoint cables, cleaned then and reattached then.
It's still showing 8611.

I assume this machine is no longer under warranty.
The only thing nearly similar to a 370c was a 380ed, which I bought for three bucks.
(also had an R30, R31, R32, T42).
I bought the 380 and a pcmica ethernet card.

The 380ed hmm is, I assume,
http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... ol4hmm.pdf

It boots, beeps once and then shows a screen with arrows point to an 'F1' key and a drawing suggesting a floppy disk should go in the floppy drive.
The machine doesn't have a FDD or a HDD.

Adding in a pcmcia/CF card with a modern 32-bit linux didn't change anything.
I put the CF card in a pata adapter and inserted the adapter to, what I think is a female pata connector on the planar.
Booted, screen shows '016000 KB OK IBM THINKPAD' beeped once and froze.
I'm not certain I have the adapter inserted correctly. Perhaps it's upside down, perhaps it's not in the correct position, etc.

Planar is FRU 83H6524.

If I press 'delete' from the drawing page I get error I9990305
"Check that the operating system is installed in the HDD.
If not, install the operating system."

The machine has a female 80-pin IDE but I don't have a drive.

jaspen-meyer wrote:

RealBlackStuff wrote:Read page 220 in the (linked) HMM.

I assume this machine is no longer under warranty.
....

The machine doesn't have a FDD or a HDD.
...

Adding in a pcmcia/CF card with a modern 32-bit linux didn't change anything.

Warranty? From 1995? Nope.

It may need a BIOS/firmware upgrade to see/boot from PCMCIA..... but you would need a floppy at the least to upgrade it. Plus, I don't know if that model has the good battery check. You have quite a challenge there.

The 380 now boots from the PCMCIA card (CF disk).
In the setup menu I set PCMCIA as the first boot up.

Now it just needs an OS!

Perhaps I'll need to find a 32MB 144-pin DIMM to put in there.
HMM says 48MB is the max. I tried both 64MB and 128MB. Both caused memory error 83.

First OS I tried was Tiny Core (ver 6).
It starts booting then gives this error: Maybe some boot parameters will let it run on the machine's 16mb of ram.

Other OS suggestions?

Well, for ThinkPads of this old era I think Win3.1 and DOS are safer bets...

Oh... 5.60... that's less than I pay for internet connection to see this forum:) Just to think I 've been passing Czech Republic this summer. (I think I paid more for the highway pass).
Well anyhow, I would stay as far from M$ as possible, find some small Linux...

To clarify - I was stumped by the 370c. While trying to get it running I bought a 380ed.
The 370 is on the shelf collecting dust.

The 380ed has a ton of processing power, a 150mHz processor and 16mb of on-board memory!
There is also an dimm slot (currently empty) which'll hold up to 32mb ram.

The machine is completely silent, other than a few seconds of fan noise at startup.

The 380 is using a CF card in the pcmcia slot to boot into a bash shell (d a m n s m a l l linux 4.11 in failsafe mode, kernel 2.4.31). I'll try other OS's if I find 32mb of ram.
Also will set up an ethernet pcmcia card for networking and update the kernel.

ALL of the screws are missing from the bottom of the machine!
But there are screw sizes shown in the HMM.

The keyboard sometimes doesn't register key presses.
I assume the machine hasn't been used in 5+ years. Will the keyboard
magically start working or do I need to do something to it?

Where can I get a 32mb DIMM for the 380?

I tried 10 different 32mb DIMMs at the local store and either they failed; the memory test or didn't appear in the basic test log (test and then click ctrl+a).

HMM says there are "16MB (on system board)" and there is one 144-pin
DIMM slot" which can take: 8MB, 16MB or 32MB non parity DIMM.

HMM lists these SO-DIMM FRU's as parts:
8mb 42H2767
16mb 42H2768
32mb 42H2769

HMM says max mem is 48mb total: 16mb (on board) + 32mb DIMM.

thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:380ED says 80mb total: 16mb + 64mb chip 76H0268 42H2817.

Which is correct.

Well, the HMM generally shows the maximum that was available at the time of the model's release, while thinkwiki indicates what users have tried, and found to work, at a later date. So, in their own way, both are correct.

Neil wrote:Well, the HMM generally shows the maximum that was available at the time of the model's release, while thinkwiki indicates what users have tried, and found to work, at a later date. So, in their own way, both are correct.

I hope you're right - I ordered a 64mb DIMM (FRU 42H2817).

The 370c is working.
I disabled the trackpoint in bios and disabled serial and parallel ports then installed a custom made minimal version of linux.
It's a work in progress, currently uses 2mb of ram and offers a basic /bin/ash shell with busybox.
The machine boots in about 10 seconds and is silent.

FRU 42H2817 works in the 380ed. Both the OS and bios now show about 80mb of ram.