oeuvre wrote:

Everyone in this hobby should own an older ThinkPad at some point. Even if it is a late IBM one with Pentium M. New laptops don't even come close to what these were.

Well, ThinkPads aren't bad in general, but I can't stand the trackpoint 😜

bjwil1991 wrote:

I have a ThinkPad 380D, R40, and T42.

How does the audio sound for DOS games on the 380D? I notice it has a CS4236 in it. There's a 380D locally that I could grab (looks in good shape, and from the photos I'm pretty sure it has a TFT display), but I've been hesitant on it because I have a 600X and T20 both with a CS4624 and the sound in DOS games is passable on it for the most part, but not stellar (in particular, the volume on FM output is always really low).

LGR just posted a video on the Monorail PC, which, from what I can tell, looks like very similar specs to the IBM 380/385 line, right down to the 10.4" DSTN screen, 2.1GB hard drive, and even it looks like the same sound chip (he says it is a Crystal audio chipset, I'm assuming it is likely the same one given the era).

Gered wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

I have a ThinkPad 380D, R40, and T42.

How does the audio sound for DOS games on the 380D? I notice it has a CS4236 in it. There's a 380D locally that I could grab (looks in good shape, and from the photos I'm pretty sure it has a TFT display), but I've been hesitant on it because I have a 600X and T20 both with a CS4624 and the sound in DOS games is passable on it for the most part, but not stellar (in particular, the volume on FM output is always really low).

It’s mainly a collectors item. IBM website offers good driver support in DOS and Windows but
The hardware is old an was never really very good. The TFT display is old and known to go bad.
Finding a replacement is not easy.
The plastics are old and brittle. The BIOS is propriety and limited for ram and hard-drive size.
IBM propriety hardware.
I used a small Bluetooth speaker with mine and a wire connector.
The built in speakers are NOT great.
These notebooks where never meant to be for gaming. They where mainly MS-Windows workstation replacement.
For Ms-Office and apps.

If you want a nice laptop for gaming look at a MacBook G4 or IBM Thinkpad 15” with nicer display.
The IBM’s thinkpads provide the best driver support.

Commercial
https://youtu.be/XIJWfXfGI4o

🤣.

I asked for his thoughts on what that particular Crystal Audio chip in the 380D sounds like, not for general advice on buying retro laptops.

I have a 380D with CS4236, and the sound in DOS is good. Definitely much better than on my 755CX with mwave. 😀

InterAct PC Gamepad 6 ($8 shipped)

Gered wrote:

bjwil1991 wrote:

I have a ThinkPad 380D, R40, and T42.

How does the audio sound for DOS games on the 380D? I notice it has a CS4236 in it. There's a 380D locally that I could grab (looks in good shape, and from the photos I'm pretty sure it has a TFT display), but I've been hesitant on it because I have a 600X and T20 both with a CS4624 and the sound in DOS games is passable on it for the most part, but not stellar (in particular, the volume on FM output is always really low).

Probably slightly improved or very similar to the CS4235 (PhilsComputerLab has a review on one) - of course, whether the audio quality meets your expectation would depend on its circuit design and how well those 22+ year old machines held up over the years.

As for the CS4624? I have a T21 and don't see anything egregiously bad about its FM output - it would sometimes work better on Adlib mode, though. You could always disable onboard audio and use a docking station with a PCI sound card.

Predator99 wrote:

Nice XT board...where do they all come from at the moment..? Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? Re: XT BIOS image […]
Show full quote

wiretap wrote:

Purchases of the day (seller photos): - Dec (Philips) 8088 motherboard (don't know if working) https://imgur.com/Q4EQh1Ch.jpg […]
Show full quote

Purchases of the day (seller photos):

- Dec (Philips) 8088 motherboard (don't know if working)

Nice XT board...where do they all come from at the moment..?
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Re: XT BIOS image collection

Try to get it running!

In the mean time I have 2 of mine repaired and can say that these boards are great. I equipped with a ET4000, CT1350B and CF-card with XT-IDE and its really fun. The onboard-floppy is usable, but not the IDE-port. Playing Commander Keen in 10 MHz mode is very smooth and close to a 12MHz 286!

Good to know- Turbo-Mode:
Ctrl-Alt-DEL: Boot 10 MHz
Ctrl-Alt-INS: Boot 4,77 MHz
ALT-Shift-Shift: Switch Speed

Got around to testing the Philips board. Mine boots up as-is when I put in the ATI VGA Wonder-16 connected to VGA. No issues encountered. I do have to replace the keyboard port (which is just a pin-header right now) -- so I ordered a 5-pin DIN connector to solder on. This motherboard should fit nicely in a MATX case. I think I'll move it up to nix one of the ISA slots, and use the one with a XT-CF/XT-IDE that doesn't need a PCI slot on the rear of the case.

Looks like it came out of a Headstart LX-CD. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/28/science/pe … common-man.html

dionb wrote:

Ooh, 755CD - that brings back memories. Took notes in class with one of those around 1999-ish. I was the first student to use a laptop in class (history major in a provincial university, not the most high-tech environment), it raised quite a few eyebrows, particularly as I decided that torturing myself and that DX4 with Win98 wasn't a great idea, so I just ran DOS on it and took notes in EDIT.COM. When the lectures were so bad it wasn't worth taking notes I fired up Colonization 😉

I can do you one better. In 2000 I took lecture notes on a *monochrome* TP750...with prehistoric WIFI. I can't remember if it supported 802.11B or not...maybe just 802.11A. Surprisingly my uni did have WIFI at that time. Strangely, like you, I was the only person taking notes on a laptop, despite it being an engineering school.

wiretap wrote:

Predator99 wrote:

Nice XT board...where do they all come from at the moment..? Re: What retro activity did you get up to today? Re: XT BIOS image […]
Show full quote

wiretap wrote:

Purchases of the day (seller photos):

- Dec (Philips) 8088 motherboard (don't know if working)

Nice XT board...where do they all come from at the moment..?
Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?
Re: XT BIOS image collection

Try to get it running!

In the mean time I have 2 of mine repaired and can say that these boards are great. I equipped with a ET4000, CT1350B and CF-card with XT-IDE and its really fun. The onboard-floppy is usable, but not the IDE-port. Playing Commander Keen in 10 MHz mode is very smooth and close to a 12MHz 286!

Good to know- Turbo-Mode:
Ctrl-Alt-DEL: Boot 10 MHz
Ctrl-Alt-INS: Boot 4,77 MHz
ALT-Shift-Shift: Switch Speed

Got around to testing the Philips board. Mine boots up as-is when I put in the ATI VGA Wonder-16 connected to VGA. No issues encountered. I do have to replace the keyboard port (which is just a pin-header right now) -- so I ordered a 5-pin DIN connector to solder on. This motherboard should fit nicely in a MATX case. I think I'll move it up to nix one of the ISA slots, and use the one with a XT-CF/XT-IDE that doesn't need a PCI slot on the rear of the case.

Looks like it came out of a Headstart LX-CD. https://www.nytimes.com/1989/11/28/science/pe … common-man.html

Cool, congratualtions! Can you dump your BIOS please? I looks quite different than the Philips one. Thank you!

ragefury32 wrote:

Probably slightly improved or very similar to the CS4235 (PhilsComputerLab has a review on one) - of course, whether the audio quality meets your expectation would depend on its circuit design and how well those 22+ year old machines held up over the years.

As for the CS4624? I have a T21 and don't see anything egregiously bad about its FM output - it would sometimes work better on Adlib mode, though. You could always disable onboard audio and use a docking station with a PCI sound card.

Yeah you're absolutely right that there are many cases where the CS4624 sounds fine. As you say, selecting Adlib when possible generally helps, but doesn't fix everything. Doom E1M1 comes to mind. But it's definitely not the end of the world. 😀

stamasd wrote:

I have a 380D with CS4236, and the sound in DOS is good. Definitely much better than on my 755CX with mwave. 😀

Haha, the MWave is a really low bar, but that is good to hear!

Regarding the 380/385 Thinkpads...

Intel486dx33 wrote:

...The BIOS is propriety and limited for ram and hard-drive size...

Do you happen to know what the hard drive size limit is? I picked up a watch battery from Wally World yesterday (not exactly the correct CR size, the battery was a hare thinner but still worked fine), and the error went away and Windows 98 fired right up. But I'd like to replace this super noisy hard drive with an IDE solid state drive as I have a whole pile of 2.5" laptop-sized 32GB drives.

wiretap wrote:

InterAct PC Gamepad 6 ($8 shipped)

I have the pro-pad blue version of this controller:

By far the most "comfortable" to use retro gaming controller I've ever used. InterAct was always known for low quality stuff but this particular controller is pretty good.

I saw an auction yesterday with some "PC parts", containing (amongst some rather boring optical drives, power supplies, floppy drives, PCI USB interface cards etc.) a pile of VGA cards:

Asked the seller for details and he sent this picture:

ATI Rage Fury MAXX 😲

The auction started just below 20€, but the seller had "Best Offer" enabled, so I offered 30€ and got accepted immediately. 😲 😎

Other interesting things in the lot:
- Nvidia Riva 128 ZX AGP
- Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro PCI
- Some mystery AGP card, might be Savage3 or something (not the Rage 128 in the photo, obviously)
- NOS Revoltec Geforce 4 cooler
- internal Iomega Zip Drive

Now I just really, really hope that everything is still working.

wow, that's a lucky find 😁

gex85 wrote:

- Diamond FireGL 1000 Pro PCI

I had this card in my pentium MMX, but I haven't ever found it for a reasonable price, agp versions are plenty out there but not PCI ^^

Bought this 486DX-50 EISA motherboard on eBay.

I am not quite sure what the second socket is for as it appears to be smaller than 486/487 and a bit bigger than 386. Looks like it could be for Weitek 4167. I can't wait to have a system with 2xFPUs..

Seller's picture;

Anonymous Coward wrote:

dionb wrote:

Ooh, 755CD - that brings back memories. Took notes in class with one of those around 1999-ish. I was the first student to use a laptop in class (history major in a provincial university, not the most high-tech environment), it raised quite a few eyebrows, particularly as I decided that torturing myself and that DX4 with Win98 wasn't a great idea, so I just ran DOS on it and took notes in EDIT.COM. When the lectures were so bad it wasn't worth taking notes I fired up Colonization 😉

I can do you one better. In 2000 I took lecture notes on a *monochrome* TP750...with prehistoric WIFI. I can't remember if it supported 802.11B or not...maybe just 802.11A. Surprisingly my uni did have WIFI at that time. Strangely, like you, I was the only person taking notes on a laptop, despite it being an engineering school.

What?...
In 2000 I was using an IBM T43 with Win-2000 at work.
The IBM 380/755 was an old computer to be using near 2000
I think I had a Sony Vaio 14” 500-P3 in 1998.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

In 2000 I was using an IBM T43 with Win-2000 at work.

Tell me more about how you travelled five years forward in time, bought a T43 and travelled five years back 😉
IBM Thinkpad T43 was introduced in 2005.

Pretty sure he just misremembered the tank model.