Questions about an old 760ed Thinkpad

[Devynko]

Hello, I am new to the forums. I have some questions about this old 760ed ThinkPad I got my hands on for free. I have no previous knowledge of these machines so forgive my ignorance. To my knowledge there is no operating system installed because it won't boot to anything. It has only a floppy drive, no cdrom. I would love to install a Linux distro on it, or some version of Windows. How can I do this with only a floppy drive? I've been seeing that it may be possible to install linux over Ethernet. Another question, is it at all possible to upgrade the hardware to a more standard specs of today. Like being able to replace parts and get say like a 64 bit version of Windows 10 running. What is all possible with this machine?

[Thinkpad4by3]

Ok, you need to know a bit about thos machine. It is from 1996 and it will never run anything remotely modern. Even Windows XP wont run. So you are stuck with 95 or 98. Maybe Puppy Linux will work, maybe not. Not sure. You coudl get a CD-ROM drive from this forum or if you have a floppy disk or two laying around, you could painstakingly install Windows 95 from floppies if you can get a USB floppy drive.

There are no upgrade parts to get you to W10 64-bit or anywhere near close. Not even machines a decade later could support 64bit Windows.

[axur-delmeria]

The 760ED doesn't have built-in LAN, so you need a Cardbus LAN adapter (or maybe wifi) to even have the option of installing from LAN.
Modern OSes are unusable on an ancient Thinkpad like this one, due to:

* Pentium I CPU is too slow, doesn't have MMX, SSE extensions.
* max RAM is well below the minimum system requirements
* lack of drivers (e.g. MWave audio+modem)

Win95 and WIn98SE would be the latest WIndows versions that would work well with the 760ED. Not sure about Win 2000 though.

Another question, is it at all possible to upgrade the hardware to a more standard specs of today. Like being able to replace parts and get say like a 64 bit version of Windows 10 running.

Unless you're a hacker on the level of fellow Thinkpadder el-sahef, who shoehorned a Dell Vostro 3360 system board (w/ Core i7 3517U) into a Thinkpad 600X chassis, my answer is "No".

[madicetea]

Ok, you need to know a bit about thos machine. It is from 1996 and it will never run anything remotely modern. Even Windows XP wont run. So you are stuck with 95 or 98. Maybe Puppy Linux will work, maybe not. Not sure. You coudl get a CD-ROM drive from this forum or if you have a floppy disk or two laying around, you could painstakingly install Windows 95 from floppies if you can get a USB floppy drive.

There are no upgrade parts to get you to W10 64-bit or anywhere near close. Not even machines a decade later could support 64bit Windows.

Having had a few of these machines myself, one I got ran Vine Linux 6.0/J (of course) and DOS 7.0/V + Windows 95 (a larger hard drive).
It died only a few months later and was quite devastating. Then I got another 760 from the US with English Windows 98. The hard drive died after the first boot, but I found a different hard drive and am contemplating my next steps.

I also finally got myself a CD-ROM drive for the computer, so I think I might be able to do some good things with it like try Linux Distros, Windows 2000 or ME, and even maybe try my Solaris 2.4. Not sure which to try first really.

But I do not want to use the SERIAL (I don't think USB is an option on this computer) to First Disk Drive to install 30 floppies of ME or 98 (including a boot floppy, of course).

One decade later, though is 2006-7 (760 was released in the 1996-1997 range). This is my T60 and T61 which does support Windows 10 64-bit at near max RAM and a larger HDD (or SSD if speed is the name of the game). That part of the above statement is plain wrong.

The 760ED doesn't have built-in LAN, so you need a Cardbus LAN adapter (or maybe wifi) to even have the option of installing from LAN.
Modern OSes are unusable on an ancient Thinkpad like this one, due to:

* Pentium I CPU is too slow, doesn't have MMX, SSE extensions.
* max RAM is well below the minimum system requirements
* lack of drivers (e.g. MWave audio+modem)

Win95 and WIn98SE would be the latest WIndows versions that would work well with the 760ED. Not sure about Win 2000 though.

I've easily found a couple of Cardbus-to-Ethernet IBM Options adapters for this machine and use one of them frequently. It's hard to see YouTube videos or for that matter, most any videos and it will have trouble playing some video formats (e.g. MP4) even if you download the file.

So yes, other than that, I'd suggest a retro OS too. Maybe even the older the better, considering the age of this machine. And don't expect it to last for long, but you are lucky in receiving such a machine for free.

Another question, is it at all possible to upgrade the hardware to a more standard specs of today. Like being able to replace parts and get say like a 64 bit version of Windows 10 running.

Unless you're a hacker on the level of fellow Thinkpadder el-sahef, who shoehorned a Dell Vostro 3360 system board (w/ Core i7 3517U) into a Thinkpad 600X chassis, my answer is "No".

O.O Who is this monster? This is an amazing achievement! What a crazy thing to imagine though, the keyboard would not have played well with the motherboard you would think - it is sized and angled like that as a feature, and will need some work to be compatible with other planars!

[axur-delmeria]

O.O Who is this monster? This is an amazing achievement! What a crazy thing to imagine though, the keyboard would not have played well with the motherboard you would think - it is sized and angled like that as a feature, and will need some work to be compatible with other planars!

IIRC, the 600X keyboard was converted into a USB keyboard by using a microcontroller. The Trackpoint module was replaced with one from a newer model--newer Trackpoints are built as standalone PS/2 devices, while older ones only have the bare sensors on the keyboard and the controller circuitry is in the system board-- and then connected to the Vostro's touchpad connector (which is a PS/2 port).

[goldeneagle]

Ok, you need to know a bit about thos machine. It is from 1996 and it will never run anything remotely modern. Even Windows XP wont run. So you are stuck with 95 or 98. Maybe Puppy Linux will work, maybe not. Not sure. You coudl get a CD-ROM drive from this forum or if you have a floppy disk or two laying around, you could painstakingly install Windows 95 from floppies if you can get a USB floppy drive.

There are no upgrade parts to get you to W10 64-bit or anywhere near close. Not even machines a decade later could support 64bit Windows.

Windows 2000 runs well on this machine, provided you have enough RAM. I used to use 2000 Beta 3 and later RC2 on my 760ED back in the late 90s with 80MB of RAM, and it ran fantastic.
I'm not sure what the reference to USB is. The 760 never had USB.
I wouldn't bother with XP anyways. XP really needs 512MB to run good. 256MB, even on a Pentium II, is painfully slow with XP.

Also, 2000 should have built-in drivers for mwave, IIRC, including wavetable support, without needing IBM's crappy drivers.