VOGONS


Reply 40 of 878, by Bondi

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keenmaster486 wrote:

Tomorrow the Thinkpad 755C arrives. I will give a full report as to its usefulness.

755C has a very poor sound card onboard.
I put a quote here:
"The sound chip used in the Thinkpad 755C/Cs is a Crystal Semiconductor CS4248. It is a AD1848-compatible Windows Sound System chip, providing a 16-bit stereo 48KHz DAC, ADC, and a software-controlled mixer. It is pin-compatible with the Analog Devices AD1848K codec chip. It supports u-law and A-law PCM compression natively.
This chip is only a codec/mixer, so there is no support for AdLib/OPL FM synthesis, nor a hardware emulation of the Sound Blaster DSP interface. Both of these functions are accomplished via DOS software emulation drivers provided by IBM."

I can add that it kind of works only in a limited number of real mode games. And sounds very strange. It does not work in games that use 32-bit extenders (DOS4GW).

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

Reply 41 of 878, by bjwil1991

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The IBM ThinkPad 701c was actually a good DOS laptop, except the CPU was a DX4-75 (meaning the FSB is 25MHz) and no CD-ROM drive unless an external one on a PCMCIA card or parallel port (port replicator needed to do so) CD-ROM drive was installed. Has an ES688 chip, but the graphics card leaves something to be desired.

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Reply 42 of 878, by keenmaster486

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Bondi wrote:

"The sound chip used in the Thinkpad 755C/Cs is a Crystal Semiconductor CS4248. It is a AD1848-compatible Windows Sound System chip, providing a 16-bit stereo 48KHz DAC, ADC, and a software-controlled mixer. It is pin-compatible with the Analog Devices AD1848K codec chip. It supports u-law and A-law PCM compression natively.
This chip is only a codec/mixer, so there is no support for AdLib/OPL FM synthesis, nor a hardware emulation of the Sound Blaster DSP interface. Both of these functions are accomplished via DOS software emulation drivers provided by IBM."

Wait... what?

This is not good. I did not know this.

Why the hell would they not include SB hardware compatibility in a laptop from 1995?? That's bad.

Now I am a little nervous about trying to use this thing. I guess I will find out when I get it just how bad it is.

I specifically got this one instead of the 755CD (which has the MWave codec) because I was trying to avoid bad audio support. 😵 😵 😵

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 43 of 878, by bjwil1991

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My ThinkPad 380D has the Crystal sound chip. Not bad, but not great. They want to use their own version of the sound card. Even my grandpa's old IBM Aptiva 2168-M55 has an MWave card integrated. Toshiba made a portable that had a full ISA slot so that a sound card can be installed and the CPU was upgradeable for the system as well (in a matter of speaking).

Heck, if there was a way to install Sound Blaster chips inside of the laptop, I would be happy, or even an ESS AudioDrive ES1688F chipset.

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Reply 44 of 878, by dan86

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Might be a shot in the dark, but has anyone tried a older Sager/Clevo from the 90s?
The Clevo 6200AT has an ESS AudioDrive sound card, mmx Pentium and pci trident video card of some sort.

Last edited by dan86 on 2019-12-18, 15:05. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 45 of 878, by keenmaster486

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The Thinkpad 365 series has ESS audio chips.

If this 755C doesn’t work out after all, I might try to find a 365X. The 365CD I have is OK, but not great; I’d like a floppy drive tbh, and its CD drive doesn’t even work. Plus there’s some weird idiosyncrasy about the video chip that makes certain DOS games play at a high framerate but a slow speed. It’s strange.

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Reply 46 of 878, by bjwil1991

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There's the 365XD that has a built-in CD-ROM drive, but requires an external floppy drive.

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Reply 47 of 878, by keenmaster486

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I have the external floppy for the 365CD. I want internal floppy, though.

I wonder if it’s possible to swap them out.

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Reply 48 of 878, by bjwil1991

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The 365X would be a good candidate. The CD drive is possible to swap with the floppy drive. Looks like the keyboard can be propped upwards to access the innards. Does your 365CD have the ghost (DSTN) display or crisp (TFT) display?

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Reply 49 of 878, by keenmaster486

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My CD has the TFT. I agree that the 365X would be nice.

Or a 701C... hmm...

Edit: by the time this is all over, I may have several Thinkpads that I need to sell to recoup the costs of this “adventure” and slough off extra items. Sigh

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.

Reply 50 of 878, by Bruninho

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keenmaster486 wrote:

My CD has the TFT. I agree that the 365X would be nice.

Or a 701C... hmm...

Edit: by the time this is all over, I may have several Thinkpads that I need to sell to recoup the costs of this “adventure” and slough off extra items. Sigh

More research before buying could avoid all that, but it's just me. 😜

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JOBS, Steve.
READ: Right to Repair sucks and is illegal!

Reply 51 of 878, by bjwil1991

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If only Creative Labs made a Sound Blaster 16 on a PCMCIA card.

Wait a minute. There were some companies that did make PCMCIA sound cards back then, even the Panasonic 4x CD-ROM drive had Sound Blaster compatibility with the integrated speakers.

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Reply 52 of 878, by Bondi

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keenmaster486 wrote:
Wait... what? […]
Show full quote

Wait... what?

This is not good. I did not know this.

Why the hell would they not include SB hardware compatibility in a laptop from 1995?? That's bad.

Now I am a little nervous about trying to use this thing. I guess I will find out when I get it just how bad it is.

I specifically got this one instead of the 755CD (which has the MWave codec) because I was trying to avoid bad audio support. 😵 😵 😵

You can pair it with IBM Dock I (3545) and you'll get an ideal DOS gaming machine. This dock has a buil in CD-ROM drive and standard ISA slot and can take a full size ISA card. There is one for sale on ebay right now.

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

Reply 53 of 878, by Bondi

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bjwil1991 wrote:

If only Creative Labs made a Sound Blaster 16 on a PCMCIA card.

Wait a minute. There were some companies that did make PCMCIA sound cards back then, even the Panasonic 4x CD-ROM drive had Sound Blaster compatibility with the integrated speakers.

It has SB compatibility only in Windows. You'll get only AdLib sound in DOS with these Panasonic CD-ROMs.
There is a great thread about PCMCIA cards here PCMCIA Sound Cards

PCMCIA Sound Cards chart
PCMCIA software, manuals, drivers

Reply 54 of 878, by Unknown_K

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keenmaster486 wrote:

My CD has the TFT. I agree that the 365X would be nice.

Or a 701C... hmm...

Edit: by the time this is all over, I may have several Thinkpads that I need to sell to recoup the costs of this “adventure” and slough off extra items. Sigh

Finding a 701c in good condition will be expensive these days. The rubber coating on 90% of them is crap by now and the battery leaks,

Collector of old computers, hardware, and software

Reply 55 of 878, by bjwil1991

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So the ES688P is better for DOS in every way (Adlib/SB FM and MPU-401) over the Panasonic multimedia device. If I can find that PCMCIA card, I would be all set.

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Reply 56 of 878, by cyclone3d

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Have you thought about any of the older Dell Pentium 1 laptops or the Sony Pentium III laptops?

I have a Dell that has built in ESS and a good number of different Sony laptops.. even the Transmeta CPU based tiny ones have Yamaha YMF (with PC/PCI hardwired).

Sadly, the Sony ones seem to be quite scarce on eBay lately. Glad I got a good collection of them while they were cheap.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
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Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 57 of 878, by bjwil1991

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Which Dell Pentium 1 laptop would you recommend? There's the Latitude XPi CD that has a Pentium MMX.

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Reply 58 of 878, by cyclone3d

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bjwil1991 wrote:

Which Dell Pentium 1 laptop would you recommend? There's the Latitude XPi CD that has a Pentium MMX.

That is the one I have. I bought mine as-is because the plug on the power adapter was broken. Worked fine once I got a good power adapter for it.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 59 of 878, by keenmaster486

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I would just like to vent my frustration for a minute here.

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OK -- now here's the current status:

The 755C arrived, and worked as expected, including the audio chip with horrible SB compatibility, which I didn't know about when I bought it (curses, I thought all CSxxxx ISA chips were essentially the same!!) So you have to load drivers to get it to work in DOS, and although things like Adlib music work, they sound atrocious. None of the instruments are correct. It's like an elementary school band trying to coordinate their playing over the phone.

But I still see some use for the 755C.

On the bright side, it is a wonderfully well made machine. I love the construction and build quality. The keyboard is identical to the 365 series (excellent). The trackpoint is precise, and the trackpoint buttons are very crisp and clicky, unlike the 365. The floppy drive is very, very nice. I love having the drive right in the machine instead of having to use an external drive. I also rarely if ever use CD drives, especially for 486 things, so that's perfect as well. The finish on the laptop is a nice sort of hard rubbery coating, but not like the softer coating on newer Thinkpads that easily scrapes off. The 640x480 TFT screen is very nice. And to top it all off, my Orinoco WiFi cards work perfectly in it, which is not the case with the 365, in which they refuse to work no matter what.

Ultimately the 755C is a very tempting machine for writing, productivity, retro internet things, etc -- basically any Windows 3.1 stuff. But it's useless for DOS games.

I am discovering that being able to play DOS games on my laptops means less and less to me. I have a 486 desktop for that, not to mention DOSBox. Plus newer games work great on my newer Thinkpads anyway.

I think I will keep the 755C, and use it for any Windows 3.1 productivity and networking things. The 365, since I have already invested so much work into it, I will keep on as an auxiliary machine and the only Thinkpad I have that will run Commander Keen without issues.

So here will be my final setup:

Thinkpad 755C
DOS/Windows 3.1 productivity and networking machine

Thinkpad 365CD
Early DOS gaming, perhaps some productivity.

Thinkpad 560X
Some DOS games & networking, Win31 productivity/networking, but primarily Windows NT 4.0 productivity & networking.

Thinkpad 600E
Late DOS games that require lots of speed, Windows 9x productivity & networking.

I also have my Thinkpad T41 and T420s, which I use for more modern things since they are both running Linux, although the T41 is dual booting with Windows XP so I can do ~2005-era XP things with it.

This is absurd. I have old laptops coming out my ears. I wish I could get it down to just two, or maybe one, but I don't know if that's going to happen.

The Thinkpad 755 also needs a new battery. The old one will not charge. We will see what comes of that.

The moral of this story is: there is no perfect laptop that can do ALL your DOS gaming and ALL your productivity things. Or at least, not in the Thinkpad realm, that is -- and Thinkpad is where I'm staying because of the keyboards. Seriously, the keyboard is such a big factor for me -- plus that Thinkpad prestige and design, and the fact that they have aged much better than other 90's machines, due to their use of black plastic that does not yellow or otherwise discolor with age, and cleans up better in my experience.

I have put so much work into these Thinkpads, repairing, upgrading, and restoring them, installing software on them, getting them to perform to their best potential, etc., that at this point I feel like I have to use them regularly for it all to be worthwhile. I can actually see myself doing that. So over the next few months I will try to pay attention to which laptops I actually use. I don't like having extra things sitting around that I don't use. So if I don't use it, it's going away.

I put a lot of work into making everything I own useful in some way. If it sits there doing nothing, unless it is a decoration, I consider it deadweight and not worth having. I will either get it doing something or get rid of it. That's how I feel about these old laptops -- they can and should still be useful.

Edit: oh, and to drive that point home, I used my Thinkpad 560X to write this post, on Windows NT 4.0 with RetroZilla, over my home WiFi. There's usefulness for you.

World's foremost 486 enjoyer.