Old Thinkpad in the house
by Volker Weber
I have an IBM Thinkpad T21 called Charlie which I bought 2000ish. A very good machine upgraded with a larger disk and more memory, it has served me well until 2004 when I bought my iBook. Still, once in a while I need a Windows notebook, so I kept it around. Charlie has had its ups and downs. It is on the third battery, has had a broken screen inverter and similar quirks. But it was still going strong.
Old Thinkpads are great. They have excellent keyboards, they don't easily break when abused, so Charlie made for a good companion in times where I needed a Windows machine. Would you believe there are customers who want to scan a computer for virus and malware, and since they cannot scan a Mac, they want you to use a Windows computer? Or security people who need to see a Windows screen to make sure this is indeed a computer? You are starting to get my need for a Windows machine once in a while.
And then it happened. A couple of months ago Charlie started to fall into a coma. Sometimes after 10 seconds of use, sometimes after an hour, it would shut off, tried to come back up, only to fail again. I talked to somebody who fixes notebooks for a living and he suspected it is something this side of the power supply. Fixing this old machine was not a good option, and neither was buying a new one. So I did without Charlie.
Last week I told a few people about my predicament. And asked whether anybody had an old Thinkpad sitting around collecting dust. Some people promised to look, but it was Marco who found a T22. Last Friday he told me about it, and today it arrived. It is even a better machine than I had. Now at 1000 MHz instead of 866, and 512 MB instead of 384, the screen is 1400 instead of 1024 px wide. I took Charlie's disk and stuck it into Marco's machine, and I was up and running in a minute.
The T22 has taken a beating. The screen looks like somebody stepped on it, one of the hooks that keep the lid closed is missing. But the keyboard is still stiffer than Charlie's. And the keycaps look less worn off. So I am pretty sure that it has been used less, but travelled much harder. From the looks, I think I call him Scooter. :-)
Thank you, Marco!
Comments
has marco got anymore IBM's floating about?...anyway Marco is sure a good friend
Joseph, he is.
I still have a 600E (366 PII) and a 600X (500 PIII) that server light duty as web browser/solitaire playing (mother-in-law when she comes to visit)/Citrix login boxes. They are tanks and still keep plugging away, especially given their earlier lives - they were company laptops for the dot com consultancy I worked for; I received four of them for free from the MIS dept because the office was closing and these all were "non functioning" (broken screen, bad mobo, etc.) I managed to rip them apart and cobble back together three of them, gave one to my parents, and still have these two.
That’s the reason why I use windows laptops professional at work – some years ago (working / Owner in an Artwork Company and Agency for Marketing and New Media ) I see it totally different. So I love both: My Windows Laptop Machine and my Mac Mini Intel Dual Core at home ,-)
I still have an A21m, just in case my home computer gets broken, so for backup purposes only. However, what a shame using it for this purpose only ;-) And yes, its keyboard (and also the housing) is very robust. I miss that when using current laptops. I hate it when you are typing and the keyboard is moving back-and-forth. Argh, terrible. Fortunately, my HP notebook I use at work has also a quite good keyboard. Maybe because it's color is black as well :-)
@Kevan: You had four non-working machines, reworked them and got three working ones. Now, is it stupid to ask, which you gave to your parents? The fourth? ;-)
hey volker,
i also have a t22 sitting around here for the daughter of the boss, but the leyboard doest not work anymore. do you have a spare keyboard now?
Christian
Chris, I have not started to scrap the T21 for parts.
I've got an old IBM Thinkpad R30 workhorse (2001 model). I recently wiped it clean, installed Ubuntu (no probs) and a Windoze partition for the sole purpose of running the Domino Designer. Only prob so far was a faulty disk a couple of months ago and I need a new CMOS battery. I'd always recommend a Thinkpad if a PC notebook is needed.
Otherwise I got a 12'' Powerbook early last year which since then serves as my daily bread and butter machine ;-)
I once saw a Thinkpad that somebody had accidentally reversed their car over.
The unit was a mess, screen broken etc.
For fun we connected it to a power supply (battery was crushed), an external keyboard and a screen.
It booted up...I wish we had video phones back then...it's a great memory.
I still have a 600E as test-webserver running and a T20 as workhorse for my Windows programs. The battery of the 600E hold power for less then 5 minutes (But i don't need it as a mobile), the T20 still works for about 30 minutes :(
A while ago i changed from my G4 Powerbook 12" as primary mobile workstation to a X41Tablet ^^
i have just today become the owner of an IBM X30...PIII, with 40 GB and 1.2GHz. i am loving it. i never knew IBM's were that nice to use.
i have recently become the proud owner of a T40...and i am digging the laptop big time
I have an r30 circa 2000 with 128mb ram and PIIIM 1ghz CPU. A great machine except for the fact ubuntu hates it as apparently it needs a bios flash to fix some apm/acpi bug but to do that it wants a full battery but mine expired some time ago. Does anyone have any old tp batteries goin cheap? (I think some T/X series ones fit the r30)
I have an old ibm thinkpad r30 but I dropped it and the screen has broken what should I do i really dont want to buy another computer just fix the screen
james.bennet1@ntlword.com
You will have to buy a new laptop?
Does your R30 battery still work by the way?
yes the battery does work and if i hook it to another screen it works
I have a Thinkpad R30, celeron 900, 312Mb RAM, I have used Debian an it works nice, but now that i am using Ubuntu I see this running slower, sometimes it doesnt crash but windows get freeze for 2 secs. It's bothering me.
It does not work with ubuntu 7. Dont upgrade!
Works fine with debian (netinstall) . Use the irqpoll option.
