
Thinkpad 701 overclocking and AMD-X5 133 MHz mod (2014) - PascLeRasc
https://blog.noq2.net/butterfly-on-speed-thinkpad-701-overclocking-and-amd-x5-133-mhz-mod.html
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krylon
Hehe, I have a 701 sitting around here. Still works, to a degree.

On the other hand, the battery is long gone, there is no floppy, no CD ROM, no
builtin ethernet, so I cannot get any data on or off that device or install a
different operating system. Hence, I am stuck with Windows 95 and Office 95. I
am keeping it because I kind of like having a 20 year old laptop, but it is
not actually useful.

But the keyboard is awesome. And it had 24 MB of RAM, while my first PC in
1996 came with 8. Must have been pretty expensive back in the day.

~~~
keenerd
> On the other hand, the battery is long gone

There are businesses who will take your old battery, crack it open and put in
fresh cells. Or you can do it yourself.

> there is no floppy, no CD ROM, no builtin ethernet, so I cannot get any data
> on or off that device or install a different operating system.

You have a 16 bit PCMCIA slot, and you can still find cards for that if you
look hard enough. (I picked up an original Orinoco wifi card for under $10.)
Remember, the gold stripe on the card means 32 bit. Avoid those.

And the standard way for working with these old computers is to get an
external HDD case and swap out the drive. Or anything that you can use as a
USB-IDE adapter. Then you can install whatever you want. Though you really
shouldn't use spinning rust that old. I typically use a 16GB CF card in a CF-
IDE adapter. (I do this in my 600E, for example.) It works very well since the
protocols are the same.

Edit: So maybe CF cards don't work in the 701, see
[http://www.os2museum.com/wp/butterfly-
conservation/](http://www.os2museum.com/wp/butterfly-conservation/)

~~~
saganus
> Or you can do it yourself.

Isn't this dangerous?

I am genuinely curious since I've always considered batteries to be something
to be handled with care. I mean, it's not like you are carrying around a pack
of TNT, but I would've never thought of opening it to replace the cells.

For example, do the batteries have internal circuitry that could cause
problems if you put in the wrong kind of cell?

~~~
keenerd
The 701 uses NiMH cells so it is very easy to work with compared to a li-ion
pack. Here's an example:

[http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/701/battery/](http://www.conradshome.com/thinkpad/701/battery/)

~~~
saganus
Aha! very interesting.

I had seen pictures of opened battery packs before, and I definitely thought
they looked like regular AA batteries.

But I also never thought that it wasn't only the looks.

It would be nice to have this same analysis done for different models. Like
having a database for battery pack models where you could find the ordering of
the batts, the chips that they have etc.

Also, what would've happened if the corrosion actually had killed the chip?
then what? can you find parts to replace those?

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tclmeelmo
Why have we not seen the butterfly keyboard used since that Thinkpad, or have
I not been looking carefully enough? The design seems to have been positively
received and fondly remembered. Have the problems it solved been solved in
other ways (like proliferation of widescreens)?

~~~
atemerev
Another example is "Big Berta" (IBM T220/T221), a 21" screen with full 4K
resolution available back in 2001! It offered PPI resolution better than
modern Retina displays.

It was insanely expensive, though.

~~~
agumonkey
Pics just in case
[http://sishardware.com/unt/4293-ibm_t220t221_22___2__display...](http://sishardware.com/unt/4293-ibm_t220t221_22___2__display_monitor_4k_3__840_x_2__400.html)

~~~
mrbill
More info:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221_LCD_monitors)

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Joeri
I'm wondering what the best software for this would be given a 133 mhz cpu and
72 mb of RAM. Do you try to trim down a modern linux distro, or do you use an
OS of a similar vintage? No possibility of getting a modern browsing
experience on those specs, so probably the vintage OS offers the best
experience.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
There's no way youre using a modern linux distro here. Even something like
puppylinux which is designed for "old" computers expects around 256mb of ram.

72mb of ram doesn't get you much nowadays. Maybe you can install Damn Small
Linux and get some basic functionality. Someone on /r/sysadmin tried reviving
an old 486 laptop recently and I believe he could only get DSL to work, but
had significant driver problems. I think he had much less ram, like 16mb or
so.

72mb of ram probably get away with NT 4.0 easily and maybe even Windows 2000
or even XP, though I'm not sure how usable XP would be even if it did boot.

edit: I found someone running puppy on 64meg of ram.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RmiXoSZaI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6RmiXoSZaI)

~~~
antod
_> 72mb of ram probably get away with NT 4.0 easily_

Very easily - we used to have lots of 32MB NT4 machines. I think the system
requirements were only 12 or 16MB (as usual wishful thinking really). Although
I think the eventual resource usage of SP6 was a lot higher than the RTM
version.

 _> and maybe even Windows 2000_

I tried Win2K Pro on a 486DX2 66 with 64MB once - it worked but was very very
slow. I suspect the cpu and disk were a bigger factor than the amount of ram.

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yuhong
This is an old mod. I think there was several companies doing this mod back in
the late 1990s.

