Thinkpads Forum

Recently I got the opportunity to get a Thinkpad 701 from my techniphobe grandmother (it was my granfather's). I'm not shure about the specs or exact model, because she lives in NYC, but is it worth paying for NYC-Hawaii shipping for the computer? If so, is the 701 worthwhile to run Word 97 on it? I don't know much about it, but last year, I cleaned the spyware from it and took off most of it's programs. The battery only works for 5 min, and the screen is fine. All the keys work, and the mouse moves smoothley. the dock and pawer cable are included. A leather bag is included. Is it worthwhile to try and run an old version of Linux on it? I am a Fedora fan.

Thank You!

If you don't think it's worth it i'd love to pay the shipment to my home address :D

The 701 works fine with Windows 95 and Word 97 Win98 is slightly slower.

Linux ... well eats lots of resources but you can work with Linux but i'd recomend you to compile everything yourself to trow away unecessary overhead.

Of course the 701 runs best with "his" operatingsystem OS/2.
OS/2 V3 or 4 and the machine seems to fly like a bird - erm of course like a Buterfly

Klaus

ps for more information you can take a look at my 701 homepage:
http://www.extrema.de/thinkpad

And if Klaus doesn't beat me to it, I'll be happy to drive the 1 1/2 hours up to the city and take it off Gram's hands!

It's pretty rare for a 10YO laptop to draw an admiring crowd, but my venerable 701C can still do so at techie gatherings.

Regards,

James

okay, I'm taking it... sorry

Anyone know a way to get on word 97 without a CD drive?

Also- any way to network it to a dell winXP so that I could intstall it through the winXP CD drive? Last one: is it possible, with a similar network, to plug a USB pendrive into the winXP, and save and acces files from it on the thinkpad?

Thanks!

I have had several of these units. They will run Win95 and Win98 ok. I used 98 Lite on one and found it worked well. I have seen several with OS2 on them and they looked fast and stable with that operating system.
You will need to up-grade the Hard Disc to something like 4Gig or so. There is a limit in the BIOS. Don't remember what it is but I used a 40gig with a overlay at one point without difficulty.
Network works well with both 95 and 98 on these units. Get a PCMCIA card (not "cardbus") and it should work.
This would allow you to use the cd or pen drive on the desktop and find it on the laptop throught the network.
I used a older "Zip Drive" that had a parallel connection and drivers for DOS. Booted from a DOS disc and installed the "Zip" drivers then installed from there. This works fine. Otherwise you will need a network card with DOS drivers and install the network before you install the operating system. I Don't think the install will survive the first re-boot!
If you do use the network approach copy the appropriate files onto the hard disc in the 701 and then install from there.
Good luck. I always enjoyed my 701's. They really are interesting computers.

Thanks William!

the computer is already running win95, so I think i'll keep it on there. the PCMCIA card needs to be a ethernet cable adaptor, right?

also: with win95 (i don't think i'll upgrade), is it possible to get a PCMCIA card with a USB port on it? USB is only compatible with 98SE and above, I have been told.

Thanks for your help!

the 701 is going to be hand carried over when my granmother comes to visit in November.

Ben,

There's no way to get USB on the 701. You need a 32BIT (Cardbus) PC card port and the 701 doesn't have one.

Regards,

James

okay...

unfortunately, my6 grandmother decided against shipping it. she is bringing it with her when she comes for thankgiving. Oh Well!

I'm late but I'll throw in my two cents worth of confidence. My 701C runs 95B well and has word 97 and excel 97 installed. It did run AOL OK till I wised up. I also use a parallel Zip drive and a 16 bit network card and both work fine. I have used it for email and word processing while traveling and it works pretty well. But it is a bit slow. If you have patience you'll love it.

Forget MP3's

got the thinkpad yesterday... and all the aspects of it are the top of the line ones, but i found something odd... in System, in control panel, it says (in one of the tabs) PC Card: 32 Bit

what the...?

also, it is small and light enough to look good compared to my freinds' laptops

***EDIT***

it is under Control Panel>System Properties>[TAB]Performance

it says :
PC Cards (PCMCIA): 32-Bit

Also, the icon for cards in Control Panel says

PC Card
(PCMCIA)

it runs faster than i remembered, and the keys have a nice, solid fell to them, almost like a Desktop keyboard.

Is there a card out there that can get 802.11G on it? the other post about wireless on 701 only mentions a 802.11B card.

bplaut wrote:Anyone know a way to get on word 97 without a CD drive?

You can buy an inexpensive parallel port CD ROM drive. That's what I use with my 365X, which doesn't have a CD drive either, and it works fine.

BTW, congrats on the 701. I'd love to have one myself!

I'd love to have one myself!

I would happily trade it for your 365X

bplaut wrote:got the thinkpad yesterday... and all the aspects of it are the top of the line ones, but i found something odd... in System, in control panel, it says (in one of the tabs) PC Card: 32 Bit

what the...?

There's a possibility that this is an upgraded machine and has a new MB. Check the processor under System and see what it reports. If it says 133MHz, then you've got an upgraded MB with the 586/133MHz processor.

This MB has a Cardbus enabled PC slot!

Regards,

James

i can't seem to find the proccessor spead... in the place i am used to it being, on the General tab ofSystem Properties, it just says

System:
Microsoft Windows 95
[Serial Number]
[IE Serial Number]

Registered To:
[Name]
[Occupation]
[another serial]

Computer:
80486
8.0MB RAM

***EDIT***

I looked at the info under Fn+F1, and found that the processor is a 80486DX4, with no other specs. same problem.

The ThinkPad 701C has a 486DX4 75 and the 701CS has a 486DX2 50.

Not quite. The Cs is the DSTN (passive screen) version and the C is the TFT (active screen) version. Both came in either a DX-2 50 mhx or a DX-4 75 mhz version.