First post, by bjt
- Rank
- Oldbie
I've been playing with the idea of a 486 system for a while, but was resisting it because I know what a time sink a new build would be. However this kind of fell into my lap 😀
Bought an unidentified Thinkpad on eBay for 99p + postage. I knew it was a 486 but had no idea what spec. Luckily it turned to be a 370C:
- 486 DX4-75
- 20MB
- 540 MB HDD
- 10" colour TFT
- No sound hardware
Has a broken catch, exterior's banged up but basically all there. Battery shot of course but I don't plan on using it off AC. It wouldn't boot at first but reseating the HDD fixed that. This is a great spec for DOS games but as is often the case with laptops, sound was an issue.
eBay provides all however and soon enough I had a Thinkpad Dock I for £15 inc postage. This dock has built in speakers and an ISA slot, perfect for a SB Pro 2. I hope to find the matching CD-ROM kit some day - it takes a non-standard 1" high SCSI drive.
The speakers didn't work at first but again taking it apart and reseating the audio board connectors fixed that. I have to say IBM hardware has awesome build quality, and the hardware maintenance manuals make taking these apart a piece of cake. My favourite part of the whole thing is the carry handle 😀
Pics!