It should. It uses CS4236B which has integrated (but most likely not OPL3 YMF262) FM, IIRC.

There are other Thinkpad models from the same timeframe (the 7xx series) which have a Trident video chip and ESS for sound.

My father owned a Thinkpad P150 back in the 90s. I was so disappointed that the soundcard didn't have DMA support, so no sound in DOS games 🙁 Can't remember more of the specs, but leileilol is probably right that it was some kind of ESS card.

I see, hmm, will have to run some testing.
How well will it perform with DOS games and stuff?
I will use it only for DOS since i already have a windows 98 machine.

I have the Thinkpad 385ED, I think it's virtually the same spec as the 380.

The CS4236B works as a Soundblaster 2 and/or Soundblaster Pro without any drivers in Dos (in windows you can use the proper Crystal drivers) - you can use the Thinkpad tools to set the resource configuration9 (eg 220/7/1) and run the Crystal software to initialise the chip, it doesn't need any drivers loaded or tsr's running.

So, yes, it plays Dos games quite nicely. Although you don't get stereo fm - only opl2 compatible.

All the drivers are fully available from IBM/Lenovo, right down to the PCMCIA (which I'm using for a PCMCIA fast ethernet card and MTCP, and also for a Roland SCP-55 midi card in games [it has a Dos driver and appears as a standard SC/GM device at 0x330]) and Infrared drivers for Dos.

One thing though, the DSTN screen is very slow compared to a modern TFT, so fps/high speed games like Doom can get quite blurry.

Mine is running 80Mb of ram (16mb onboard + 64mb sodimm) and a 160gb drive - I needed Ontrack to access it as the Thinkpad only supports a few smaller fixed sizes of disk.

Yes i just checked, the specifications are all the same, where 385 has a bigger HDD.

I see, well, i just want to mess around with it a bit. Too bad it isnt OPL3.

Cool, IBM sure does keep its archive. I will take a look at it if i reinstall the system.
Well i wanted to try some games my friend has, monkey island, doom 1, and some other. Ill keep in mind that its the monitor and not the hardware.

I have 32MB of ram, but i have some SODIMMs that have 32MB for laptops, i will try them out, and ive also got an old 5GB HDD, will try it too.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated!

The 380 series laptops use 144-pin EDO SODIMMs and the largest module you can use is 64mb. Combined with the 16mb on the mobo, you'll have 80mb. There were a few different hard drive sizes available. The 385 differs in software configuration. Replacing the hard drive in the 380 requires removing a lot of the plastics; it's buried in there but it's not impossible; just be careful and download the IBM Hardware Maintenance Manual.

If it's an ED model, the CPU's going to be 166mhz. If you have a TFT screen on it, it'll be good for most Pentium era DOS-games. Also note that the computer supports UDMA but the lower capacity drives shipped with this machine don't. Putting a UDMA drive in with a faster spin speed will help performance. If it's over 6gb, you'll need to install drive overlay software.

Ive disassembled it already a few times to replace the hard drive and memory before. I know how to open it and put it back as it should be.
But I'm not sure whats the screen type. Also it has a 3GB hard drive in it.

I have one other lap top whos screen has a yellow line on 1/6th of it, on the right side. And it has EDO RAM in it, plus i think it also has a Pentium CPU. And it has a 5GB HDD.

I believe the TFT screen was a at-purchase cost option - most of them would have been DSTN.

Hmm, how can i test is it TFT, does it say somewhere? Should i disassemble and look?

I have Thinkpad 380ED with TFT screen myself, I have to say that for a laptop that old the TFT screen is really nice. I bet you will notice if you have the DSTN screen when you play some faster paced game on it.

If the screen is TFT, the image will look decent. If you have ghosting, muddy colors, etc, it's passive matrix. I don't think I'm being biased when I say you'll know it's passive matrix because the thing looks too crappy to be taken seriously. If you're not totally sure still, look at the machine type, printed on the bottom of the machine. It'll be 2635 followed by a dash and three characters. You'll be able to look the number up on Lenovo's support site. For example, 2635-6AU is a ThinkPad 380ED with 3gb hard drive and 12" TFT.

Aha! Here it is:

EMEA | 2635 6A0 | TP380ED | P166MMX | 3GB | TFT | W95

So its a TFT, cool.

Since I also have a 380ED I have one question. Mine has a FRSTN matrix of crappy quality (I remember playing on an Acer laptop with a STN matrix in 1997 and I don't think it was that bad) - is it possible to replace the screen with a TFT one? I transplanted displays between T42 laptops (I love ThinkPads because of the provided HMMs) and it worked like charm, but will a TFT matrix work with a laptop configured for an STN matrix?

Don't know about that, maybe if the connectors are the same 😀

But i can safely say that IBM 380ED is one god like Laptop. I recently installed Borland C/C++ 3.1 onto it and take it to my college to learn C programming in spare time. OPL sounds damn amazing, and trying out SID OPL player sounds great. I am very happy with it.
Windows 3.11 runs smooth (as if it shouldn't 🤣), but i only use it for Total Commander.
Massive and awesome, 10 random people asked me is that some sort of a Sega the same day 🤣

I did some looking into swapping the screen on my 380ED. It is possible to do it, since the TFT models use the exact same motherboard and such... but the catch is that it requires changing out pretty much the whole lid assembly. The inverter, cables and bezel are all different.

In other words, I don't really think it's a worthwhile upgrade. By the time you track down the necessary components, you're likely to end up with more time and money invested than if you just got a complete one with a TFT already equipped.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

I did some looking into swapping the screen on my 380ED. It is possible to do it, since the TFT models use the exact same motherboard and such... but the catch is that it requires changing out pretty much the whole lid assembly. The inverter, cables and bezel are all different.

In other words, I don't really think it's a worthwhile upgrade. By the time you track down the necessary components, you're likely to end up with more time and money invested than if you just got a complete one with a TFT already equipped.

So it's basically changing the whole, how they call it in the HMM, "LCD Unit". I wouldn't buy single components for the swap, I was thinking about the case, when I get a non-working 380ED with a TFT screen and swap the whole LCD assembly.