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A Week with a Thinkpad

Thursday June 29th, 2023

For the past week or so now, I've been messing around with an old IBM Thinkpad. It's nothing special these days. When I started playing with it, it only had 128mb of ram. That was plenty if I wanted to stay in the world of Windows 98SE, but I decided I wanted to do a little bit more with it. I ordered a 256mb X2 kit off ebay for around $30, along with a NOS Wireless G PCMCIA card. I then went to work finding a distro of linux that complimented the hardware. I still haven't found one that I'm happy with, but I can report that Q4OS (debian 11 based) did run.

After a while of listening to the fans just sit on 100%, I decided that maybe something so modern just wasn't in this machine's capabilities anymore. So I decided to load up Windows 2000 SP4. And let me tell you, it runs like a scalded ape. Fast as hell to boot (off the original 12gb HDD mind), loaded programs quickly and was generally just a pleasure to use.

Now, it's running Windows XP Pro SP3. While it is a little slower, I find the compatability trade off to be worth it. A lot of software that *should* just work in Win2K refuses to, even with KernelEX installed. Hunting down software that would run and do what I want quickly became a chore. Not only do I have to find software that supported Win2k, but also software that doesn't require SSEL2 as the Pentium 3 lacks it.

on Windows XP, I was able to find the most recent release of Firefox that doesn't require SSEL2 (45.9.0 ESR in case you were wondering). From there, I've been able to browse more basic websites. One thing I cannot do though, is browse Geminispace. There appears to be no browsers that will fucntion in the enviorment I'm in. Geminaut's installer fails to do anything, and it seems that all other browsers are built for 64bit systems only. You'd think that for something like Gemini, support for low end and old hardware would be there. But alas, I have to SSH into a remote server to even use something as simple as amfora.

It's been a fun time exploring what this old hardware can do. And it can still do a surprising amount if you temper your expectations. While it won't become my Daily Driver any time soon. It'll definitely have a spot in my space for when I want to decompress and just do things that take a while. For when I want to be bored, and make every bit of computing actually count. Pushing against the limitations of this machine is also great from a creative standpoint. The limited ram and CPU really make me thing differently when using programs like FL Studio 4.5, or image manipulation (old paint.net install). There's something strangely magical about telling a computer to do something that we deem basic today, and having to wait for it to complete.

I'm gonna finish this off with a list of things I love and hate about this laptop:

+ The keyboard is fantastic
+ The screen is shockingly good for a 14.1" TFT panel @ 1024x768
+ for older hardware, it's still surprisingly fast at some tasks
+ not the laptop itself, but the Wirless PCMCIA card I ordered is actually quite good. I've been able to reach speeds of 16mbps down and 3.5mbps up!

- It's a heavy beast. I sometimes like to bring little project laptops to work with me to mess with during my free time, but the Thinkpad is a chonker.
- The nearly 24 year old battery is as dead as can be. I would love to find an affordable replacement for it.
- While the keyboard is nice, the laptop is thick. Which can make the typing experience uncomfortable after some time
- When the fans kick on, it's loud. But they rarely do, so I'll give it a pass.
- Some of the plastics are starting to fall apart. I've lost the fascia around the CD-ROM/Floppy combo, and one of the PCMCIA dust flaps broke off.
- USB 1.1. 'nuff said

Overall, I love this (not so) little laptop. It's been a great way to just get away and decompress from the world. Kudos to IBM for building such a nice laptop that's honestly stood the test of time for so long.

~Ehrin