Thinkpads Forum

I just got an ibm thinkpad 380dx fro a garage sale for 5 bucks as I thought it was an interesting looking machine. it would not boot to the os(windows 98) so after reading up a bit I purchased a cmos battery and changed it out, it booted right up and I adjusted the time and its seems to work fine. I would like to use it for web browsing but as far as I can tell it has no plug in for a cable and has no wireless capability. what do I need to gey this old classic on the internet. I have a wireless system hooked up in the home and would love to get online with this old machine. any help would be appreciated.I am going to install a small linux distro such as puppy on it also. have already ran the live cd of puppy and it seems to work fine just no net.

welcome to the forum.

pcmcia wireless card should work.

will get one, is it a simple install? any certain kind or type? and ty, glad to be able to find such a great source of info.

You can use something like a Linksys WPC54G, but you have to be running W98 SE.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Cisco-Linksys-WPC54 ... 1c1ab7875e

shouldnt this pc have a modem in it already? where and how would I add a ethernet card if I cant find a wireless card to work with linux?

I used one of those and the wired card was a PCMCIA addition. No on board capabilites and no wireless when I had one of those. ... JDH

I am going to get the pcmcia card them, am watching some on ebay and maybe that will do the trick then, just need to make sure its compatible with linux.

The WPC54G does indeed work in linux... Using one on my 760XL (with yenta patch until Debian moves to 2.6.34 kernel at least), i dunno what chipset the 380XD has, if it is the same TI1130 you may have the same bug as the 760 series... see http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/760ed_yenta_patch

I haven't seen the 380 series coming up with that issue though.

If still using Windows 95... US Robotics USR 2410 Wireless PC Card (also Linux compatible, but only b not g) http://cgi.ebay.com/US-Robotics-USR-241 ... 45f9d7dd02

If you must use a modem, and assuming you meant 380XD, i haven't heard of a 380DX... it has usb ports... so something like a Zoom 3095
or PCMCIA... US Robotics XJ1560J (X-Jack, no dongle to mess with)

For just coolness... IBM's own FRU: 12J2785 (one of these was in an old 760 i bought ) [also xjack]

The 380 is a tank of a machine - Thick and heavy.

Now beware: For the price of a new PCMCIA card, I purchased a working IBM Thinkcenter loaded with XP Pro and with a 1 year warranty from the vendor (not IBM). You can probably get an XP Thinkpad for the price of a new PCMCIA card.

.... JDH

Ozzy thanks for that info, helps me to track down specific hardware. I got 5 bucks invested in this thing so far and dont mind spending a few dollars to make it web worthy. Its running windoze 98 right now and will have puppy in it eventually, have already ran the live cd of puppy and everything seems to work. although it doesnt want to load to the hard drive. I am reading up on that and will figure it out. And you are so right about the tank thing, thing is heavy duty for sure.

you should make some room for puppy: try "gparted" free
partition editor from the folks at GNU, shrink the existing
w98 partition, and make another maybe 1GB for puppy

so you are suggesting I dual boot? dont really need that as I would never use the win 98 thats installed. was planning to just let puppy have the whole yard to play in.Isnt gparted on the puppy install disc?

I dual boot mine via a 2nd 4GB CF card, slowly converting all my antique hardware over to CF-->IDE adaptors with 133x cards, i keep the spare velcro'd down to the lid/keyboard. Swapping OS's is easier then swapping an UltraBay drive

Plus CF cards let my already weak batteries last MUCH longer.