what can be done with an Intel 486SX 33MHz CPU?

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alfio · #1 Post by **alfio** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:07 pm

assuming one were to pick up an older TP, say something like a ThinkPad 360P, what can one do with it? word processing? some sort of agenda program? this may seem like a silly question but i'm too young for 33mhz...

or, stated more accurately, i was too poor in 1994 for a laptop.

what sort of OS do these older machines run? what sort of hard drives? TIA

alfio

lenmullen · #2 Post by **lenmullen** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:30 pm

I think they came with Win 3.1, but you should be able to run win95. I ran Win95 on a 486dx with 8m of RAM and a 210m disk way back then.

Someone posted this howto.

Depends what you want to do with the machine. Are you going to network it?

* Intel Pentium II 33MHz Processor
* 4/8/12MB RAM
* 344MB Hard Drive
* Standard 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Drive
* Onboard Video / 8.5" TFT Display
* 1 VGA Port
* 1 Serial Port
* 1 Parallel Port
* 1 PS/2 Port
* 2 PCMCIA Slots
* Power Cord & Adapter Included

Whatever you do, you will want to get your hands on the pen drivers...

http://members.driverguide.com/driver/d ... erid=14902

whizkid · #3 Post by **whizkid** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:40 am

If you're up for it, the RULE project (Run Up-to-date Linux Everywhere) could use some help. I'd like to get my 750P running again too. It has a 33MHz 486 too. I've crammed 36MB RAM into it, which is very tight, but I've had a 12GB drive in it. (Only the first 8GB is seen in DOS, though.)

#4 Post by **jdhurst** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:44 am

Having passed through those machines, it is a boat-anchor and not much more. I have a Toshiba Libretto 50 that is more powerful than the TP you describe, and my Libretto is a useless boat-anchor. There really isn't much you can do with them, and the OS's are so old they are security risks. The above is my point-of-view only, please understand, and of course, please proceed as you wish. ... JDH

whizkid · #5 Post by **whizkid** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:21 am

My 750P will run the latest Slackware (or one from the latest), but not with a GUI... yet. There's no reason it can't run the latest Linux kernel, with all its security fixes, if it's compiled for a 486 and has all the new hardware drivers cut out.

It would work fine as a file and print server, or a firewall, or just a good way to learn Linux internals. I'd really like to get the pen working on mine too.

But I wouldn't run an old version of Windows on anything, and you're right that the newer versions won't run on it. That's just fine in my book.

lenmullen · #6 Post by **lenmullen** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:30 am

Well, JDH, the forum is called ThinkPad Legacy Hardware so I think there's a port for alfio in this harbor

My initial reaction was the same as yours, but I see parts and batteries on eBay, drivers on driversguide.com, and discussions on google. It amazes me that thinkpads are so well built that after 20 years people still have these things.

Now I'm off to play a little Bruce Lee on my Atari 800 (which is nearly 30 years old).

leoblob · #7 Post by **leoblob** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 9:35 am

My TP360 still works perfectly. The original 170MB drive started to make noises, so before it failed, I replaced it with an 810.

I ran WIN3.1 on my TP360 and it ran quite well. I think that's the OS it was really intended to handle. I did have WIN95 on it, and it was slow, but barely usable (with 12MB RAM). It has DOS on it at the moment.

There are parts still available for these ... www.kahlon.com I think that today, these machines are mainly conversation pieces or keepsakes... or if you want/need a machine that can run WIN3.1. I don't know anything about Linux, but that sounds promising.

alfio · #8 Post by **alfio** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:18 am

lenmullen wrote:I think they came with Win 3.1, but you should be able to run win95. I ran Win95 on a 486dx with 8m of RAM and a 210m disk way back then.

Depends what you want to do with the machine. Are you going to network it?

thanks for the info everyone. i posted about a hypothetical 360P but i was really asking about all TPs from that generation, i just think that one is particularly cool.

i don't think i'd try to network this or any other machine that old but i would like something more than a conversation piece. if i can run some version of linux or windows on something this old i'd be able to get the basics i'm looking for, i.e. very basic word processing and some sort of agenda/calendar program. i'd probably look into a PCMCIA USB to be able to shuttle .doc files in and out.

so yes, i'd like to not get stuck with a boat anchor, hence the questions.

alfio

teetee · #9 Post by **teetee** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:33 am

All the old and "oh-my-god-it's-so-old" machines in our lab are assigned for the equipments. They are dedicated for data collecting purpose. I actually learned something by setting those computer up including 8088 x3 and 8086 x1. It took me fair amount of time and effort to find the compatible 8-bit ethernet card and setup automatic data synchonization protocol between the client and server. No linux though since the commercialized software for the data collection was developed for DOS v1-v3 only and I believe the company discontinued the software update even before linux became popular(1992).

Data collection and/or dedicated interface as an attachment to different equipments, those are the only two productive purposes I can think of for those old computers.

Well I also remember I once enjoyed playing a PC game by Taito called Bubble Bobble on my old 386-dx desktop. That could be another purpose.

lenmullen · #10 Post by **lenmullen** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 10:50 am

little a wrote: so yes, i'd like to not get stuck with a boat anchor, hence the questions.

alfio

In that case, I think you should consider a 600x or a 600e.

whizkid · #11 Post by **whizkid** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 11:31 am

Any PIII should be genuinely usable for a while yet.

600X, 570E, 390X, 240X have some or all models with a PIII. There are even more with a PII that will do in a pinch.

lenmullen · #12 Post by **lenmullen** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:42 pm

whizkid wrote:There are even more with a PII that will do in a pinch.

Right. The 600 family includes p2 and p3 models. Generally, I don't have a problem with a p2 that is solved with a p3. The only place my 600e fails me is playing games. A 600x isn't going to solve that.

The 600s are ubiquitous. This leads to good support, parts availability, and great prices.

Equipped with a DVD player, big disk, lots of memory, and a wireless card, a 600 class machine is a durable travel companion -- you can watch a DVD, check your mail, or surf for local attractions.

Last camping trip we endured a couple of days of rain. Fortunately we had a bag-o-600Es in the trunk and the kids (not all mine) quietly enjoyed Age of Empires, Doom, and Duke Nukem while the adults enjoyed the rain.

By the time we got home, my Dell D600 had suffered a drive failure (tech chastised me for having it out in the moisture), and a couple campers were looking for 600Es on eBay.

At home, these laptops run OpenOffice.Org just fine and the kids use them for chatting when they are doing something else on their desktops.

Wrong forum for this, I suppose, but you can't go wrong with a 600e.

alfio · #13 Post by **alfio** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 1:54 pm

the legacy model would be my 5th thinkpad (yikes! should i be going Thinkpads anonymous yet?). i've got my T43, my new X31, a 600X, and i just picked up a 600E - so you see i've already taken care of any real 'needs', this would be solely for the fun of it.

i'd really like something like a 230Cs, small + portable and linux capable.

alfio

cparker · #14 Post by **cparker** » Thu May 17, 2007 2:17 am

Getting back to the original question on the 486, they really were dos machines and did a great job with that OS.

You would run software such as Lotus 123, worstar or wordperfect or even MSWord (all for dos) or maybe best of all XYWrite. In addition to those programs, I also ran lots of software compilers on it (like Borland turbo Pascal or Turbo C). It was a very useful machine, seemed amazingly fast compared to the earlier 20mhz 386 I had previously.

I had the 486 33mhz machine for years until I replaced it with a Pentium 90mhz version, also running dos, but much, much faster. But windows 95 can run on 486 cpus with at least 8mb of ram. You could run some office applications in it and, of course, basic utilities. To use it with a browser would probably be possible, but you would need to find a lightweight version, say an early version of Opera. Don't even try IE or Firefox. In any case, with only 8mb of ram you might easily find yourself getting lots of disk thrashing around. I had a 50mhz 486 laptop once with 8mb ram, and I put in win 95 and it was really only good with office apps such as word or excel. I gave it to a relative who needed to learn office, and for that it was pretty good. Once you have 16mb or ram the 486 will be much more capable, but I'd still limit it to a lightweight Opera version. I actually still have a 486 Toshiba laptop that still runs. It's a 75mhz 486 with 24mb of ram. I have windows 98se installed and it's kind of a fun machine. I should probably bring it down to Starbucks sometime and show it off when I'm feeling kind of "retro".

leoblob · #15 Post by **leoblob** » Thu May 17, 2007 9:42 am

They came with WIN3.1 installed and they have plenty of muscle to run it. You can run Lotus Smart Suite for WIN3.1 (if you can find a copy). The programs are very well written (no bloat) and were designed to run on a 386SX. I still use AmiPro and Approach from that version of Smart Suite every day on my WIN2K machines and they run perfectly. Also try MS Word 2.0 (which was not very good, but would still work...)

IMO, if you're going to (try to) get this machine onto the Internet with WIN3.1... forget it.

WIN95 is very slow. I would still forget about getting the machine to go on line.

Website · #16 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Thu May 17, 2007 10:01 am

I use my 360P to play Solitaire on...it is pretty kewl using a pen to play on a Thinkpad. I also have a 750P that I am trying to get going, too!

With all the Thinkpads that I have, I honestly don't get a chance to play with each and everyone of them....infact, I just got to pull out my 770X to see if a "dead" battery that I just bought, was infact dead....hehe...it wasn't. Windows states that it will last for 3:02 hours!!!

jon42689 · #17 Post by **jon42689** » Thu May 31, 2007 5:36 pm

A word of wisdom... I had a TP 360P, and ended up losing all the pen functionality when I upgraded to Windows 95. There were a bunch of ways you were supposedly able to enable it, but I spent countless hours on it and decided to just upgrade.

#18 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Thu May 31, 2007 6:14 pm

When I still had my ThinkPad 750P, I got pen functionality after installing Windows 95 by installing the Windows 95 Pen Services Package. I know I have a copy of that software somewhere.

I also received a Mitsubishi Amity VP recently and it came with Windows 95 installed and pen services enabled. I have to say the Windows handwriting recognition sucks but the tablet interface sure does make some games funner.

pianowizard · #19 Post by **pianowizard** » Thu May 31, 2007 6:17 pm

I am selling my 12-year-old Packard Bell PackMate 5996CDT desktop computer in the Houston TX area for $5. Includes 100MHz 80486 DX4, 64MB RAM, 2x428MB HDD, and all original CDs. Runs Win 98 very well. Anyone interested?

#20 Post by **jdhurst** » Thu May 31, 2007 7:07 pm

leoblob wrote:They came with WIN3.<snip>
IMO, if you're going to (try to) get this machine onto the Internet with WIN3.1... forget it.

WIN95 is very slow. I would still forget about getting the machine to go on line.

I gave my opinion earlier that the machine is past it and certainly Windows 3.1 and 95 are past it. However, both will go on line very easily. My Toshiba Libretto is Windows 95 and browses with Explorer 4. All very archaic, but it all works on-line. My first on-line machine was Windows 3.1 with Netscape 0.9 and Eudora mail. My current email address that I still use is from that first signup.
... JDH

jon42689 · #21 Post by **jon42689** » Thu May 31, 2007 7:36 pm

If you have that pen services package and some direction on how to use it, I'd be grateful. It'd be sweet to use the pen on my 360P now that it has WIN95 loaded.

leoblob · #22 Post by **leoblob** » Thu May 31, 2007 11:16 pm

jdhurst wrote:
leoblob wrote:...However, both will go on line very easily. My Toshiba Libretto is Windows 95 and browses with Explorer 4. All very archaic, but it all works on-line...

That's pretty cool

I had no idea that was still possible. Is there anti-virus available for those set-ups?

Tholek · #23 Post by **Tholek** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 8:33 am

Heh, I heard you can get Windows 2000 to run on a 760 XD or XL, but I never got that far. W9n98SE served me well for many years on those. [censored] fine workmanship.

#24 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:02 am

My friend Aaron used to have a 760E that he ran Windows 2000 on. It took quite some time to boot but once in, it ran like a charm.

#25 Post by **carbon_unit** » Fri Jun 01, 2007 11:23 am

You could make a quick cash register out of it.
http://pages.prodigy.net/daleharris/pos3.htm
Simple but effective!

what can be done with an Intel 486SX 33MHz CPU?

what can be done with an Intel 486SX 33MHz CPU?

the 486 cpu and OS for it

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