IBM ThinkPad 701CS
Forum: Laptops
Topic: IBM ThinkPad 701CS
started by: notyouraveragetechie
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 09 2008,01:49
I recently got a ThinkPad 701CS, one of these:
for free due to the fact that the battery exploded some time ago (thankfully not damaging the battery contacts or the laptop itself) and the crappy IBM OS/2 Warp v3.9 OS.
It doesn't have a Parallel port (so no parallel CD-ROM), no USB, refuses to boot off of my 8mb PCMCIA flash card, the crappy OS doesn't support DOS drivers of any of the PCMCIA CD-ROMs I have, so no bootloader, but it DOES have IRDA and floppy boot support.
Any help?
Posted by curaga on July 09 2008,09:29
Wow, is that one of the butterfly keyboards? 
The specs from thinkwiki:
| Quote |
| One of the following processors: Intel 486DX2 50 MHz Intel 486DX4 75 MHz CT-65545 video controller with 1MB 10.4" DSTN display with 640x480 resolution 4 or 8MB memory standard 360, 540 or 720MB HDD ES688 audio controller Folding TrackWrite keyboard 14.4K Modem IrDA 1.0 (2) Type II, or (1) Type III PCMCIA slot |
RAM might be tight if you want to have graphical, it's ram can be upgraded to 24MB though which should be comfortable. Sound whould work automatically. You *need* atleast 8mb to boot any current linux floppy, some older ones work with 4mb.
I'd say boot with a suitable floppy, and then transfer stuff around with either a 16-bit pcmcia lan card or irda.
DSL can also split itself into floppy-sized pieces, but moving a floppy 40+ times back and forth is.. not comfortable. Noisy and slow.
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 09 2008,16:07
Yeah, it is a butterfly keyboard.I can't find any 16bit LAN cards in my house, I'll have order one. I already have a new battery and more ram on order.
I'd really rather not use the 40+ floppy install. I did it once and never want to again.
Posted by curaga on July 09 2008,17:18
tomsrtbt is "the" disk people use for this kind of stuff:< http://www.toms.net/rb/ >
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 09 2008,17:43
| Quote (curaga @ July 09 2008,17:18) |
| tomsrtbt is "the" disk people use for this kind of stuff: < http://www.toms.net/rb/ > |
Sweet, thanks a lot.
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 09 2008,18:24
The laptop refuses to boot off of the floppy you suggested.I messed around a bit and found this laptop dual boots OS/2 AND Windows 3.1/DOS.
I found a 16bit LAN card in a box of old parts, and it won't recognize it. It does recognize my 6mb EEPROM PCMCIA card, although no other laptop I own does.
Posted by curaga on July 09 2008,19:23
Tomsrtbt is a bit non-standard in that it's on a 1.72mb floppy. A bit of trimming would make it fit on a 1.44mb one, which is bootable on more drives.Or you could search for other linux floppy distros with suitable networking support.
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 09 2008,20:52
I found a driver for Windows 3.11 for my Addonics PCMCIA CD-ROM.I just need a driver for Windows 2000 (what my ThinkPad 600E runs) for my 6mb PCMCIA flash disk so I can transfer the CD-ROM driver to the ThinkPad 701CS, as both the IBM OS and Windows 3.11 recognize and explore the flash disk.
That'll make is so I can do the poorman install of DSL.
Now to wait for the flash disk driver...
Posted by curaga on July 10 2008,08:30
Why not boot DSL on your new laptop? It's quite possible for your pcmcia flash disk to be supported out of the box on DSL.
Posted by notyouraveragetechie on July 10 2008,16:35
The way the IBM uses Windows is it emulates Windows 3.11.There's no way to access my computer and explore the CD-ROM.
I'm stuck as I can't do a loadlin install and a poorman install is nearly impossible.
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