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Holy Goodwill, Batman!

Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 7:27 pm
by aarontring
How many trademarks did I just violate?

I just have to pass this on! I was visiting the local Goodwill and never got to look for my original goal, because in the back was a computer section! For $10.00, I picked up 2 365x's, one of which was almost pristine until I accidentally walked into a post on my way out. Now, one hinge cover is cracked. Oh, well.

Neither has a HDD or battery, but both boot up to the cool "Insert System Disk" graphic. The one that was whole has funky lines on the screen, but the other one has a good screen and broken hinge covers. Both run the BIOS system test with "OK" results for everything but battery and HDD, obviously. I take that to mean it's fine, but it makes beepy noises I haven't decyphered, yet. I've got the HMM from ThinkWiki (actually just a link to Lenovo, but hey), but I was so excited at my luck I had to share.

All the power adapters I could find on eBay and on links found elsewhere on this forum are basically the same as the one for my 390X, so, unless someone has a line on the real deal, I'm holding off on buying a new one. On that note, does anyone have a reason, besides the power adapter, why I can't just pop the HDD from my 390X into it, just for the purpose of a boot up test? I've got a dual OS, so it should boot up in Win98, right?

Thanks.

Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 9:47 pm
by dietpepsiaddict
Holy lucky find batman!!! :D

You have no idea how lucky you are! I check the goodwill computer section every once and a while but all they have are these old white, discolured, completely unusable due to oldness, gross crapboxes with a 3.5 inch screen! If I found any IBM I would snatch it up! Up here in Mid-Ontario, Canada things like that are extremely ( in case you missed that I said: extremely) hard to come by. It's quite sad actually. :( . So consider yourself very lucky.
Except for the part about smashing it off the post on the way out, which kind of blows, but nevertheless...

Holy Goodwill Batman... is right! Sweet Dicovery! 8)

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 2:57 am
by phool@round
I don't think Batman would have walked into a post.......

You can try to boot up with your 390's disc, can hurt it worse than hitting a post....... probably will blue screen though. How much for the power supply that's keeping you from buying one?

Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 8:38 am
by aarontring
Apparently, last week they had a T-series and an A-series, each running XP, for $125! Actually, at the time I was there, they had a NetVista for the same price, the kind that looks like Darth Vader's iMac. Also, while I was there, someone else was buying the TP 750cs that I really wanted, but I almost talked him out of it.

As for the power supply, I'm not really balking at the price, even with shipping, but if it's just going to be another of what I already have, why bother until I have one of them to a point where it's usable on a regular basis. I think I will be more patient, though. Now I need to find an OS on floppy or get the 365xd CD drive, not to mention the HDD. I'll post what progress I make as I make it, but my priority is getting an old HP Pavillion tower I acquired for free up and running for my son to play his internet games (just Flash games, not MMOs) and getting an old Toughbook for my stepson to transport back and forth to his dad's. I will try to do more on these, because you guys have hooked me! I even saw an 8GB PCMCIA flash memory card on eBay. That's as big as the rated HDD potential I saw on ThinkWiki.

And, speaking of Canada, I am in no way making fun or making this up, but I was poking around in the menus on my cable box, and it turns out it has a language display setting. I wouldn't find that odd, except that the choices were French, Spanish, English (US), and English (Canada). I didn't select English (Canada) at the time, because (please forgive me) I couldn't stop giggling. Aside from all of my favorite shows being produced in Vancouver, except Due South in Toronto, my only exposure to Canadian colloquialism is Strange Brew and the Kids in the Hall. I think I should stop there, and I'm sorry.