Thinkpad 755CDV: drivers & tips

[karmaflux]

I am the proud owner of a Thinkpad 755CDV in great shape. I'm running NT 4 on it at the moment, but I'm looking for display, audio, and general drivers for things like battery meters. I can switch to Windows 95 or 98 if necessary, but this 486 DX-4 100 with 24MB RAM isn't exactly a speed demon.

If I can't find drivers, I'm probably going to put linux on it and use it as a programming terminal.

Also, is there anything I should know about this system? I used it in a presentation this morning with the nifty overhead projector feature, and I was wondering what otehr tricks it has up its sleeve. The trackpoint buttons lock down, and I was also wondering what the idea was there.

[AlphaKilo470]

I'm not sure about the CDV, but the 755CD I used to own had video inputs as well as outputs. They require a special dongle though, but they should be easy to find on eBay.

As for drivers, you'll have to look around. IBM's English support site has pretty muched killed off all support of ThinkPad's made before 2000, but you might be able to find drivers on their foreign sites. I found all the drivers I needed (and in English too) for my 760XD on a spanish IBM site.

[gazingwa]

the trackpoint locks down so you don't accidently click.

As for tricks, look away from it and it does the Charlston... realy


Drives should be available from nt... search for the thinkpad driver matrix... should have it

[karmaflux]

Well, I'll post my findings here in case anyone else needs this information. After some searching, I found that there is no web link to IBM's drivers, but the files are still on the ftp site. Howewer, IBM doesn't have the x bit set on the directories, so the public can't do an ls -- you can't browse the ftp.

I poked around and came up with ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/allfiles.txt -- that's the directory content listing. So I just put in ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/ and tack on the name of the software package I want, and viola! it works.

Thanks for your help, folks!

[AlphaKilo470]

Not really entirely relevant, but this thought did pop into my head when the 755 was mentioned. The 755 alongside the 380 and 350 has one of the nicest laptop keyboards I've ever typed on. Only thing I don't like about it is the lact of a palmrest. Wish IBM would have used a similar keyboard on the 760.

[os2sam]

I just installed OS/2 on my 755CD. IBM's OS/2 Device Driver web site is still up and the OS/2 package also has the Win3.x utilities. Im pretty sure that these are the same utilities that shipped for Win9x and NT.
I don't have the url handy right now but if you can't find it let me know.
Sam