Land of Misfit ThinkPads

Sometimes I feel like the closet in my office is this; where the toys are various old ThinkPads and ThinkPad parts. The other computers...... Dells, HPs, Toshibas.......? Yeah, they get sold off, if they are of the slightest value, given away if anyone at all wants it or thrown out otherwise. In my world, ThinkPads only, are good enough to occupy the precious little crevices under, between and on top of the other stuff!

I also don't mean my small (and I mean that literally, consisting of 3) collection of classic ThinkPads, a 701c, a 765xd, and an X20. No, I mean relatively recent vintage machine.... although, I did dig out a couple of things that will go in the museum; the WorkPad C505/C500 and 1st gen, ThinkPad Android Tablet.

 

I mean more along the lines of these machines.

e.g. at least of the Core/Core 2 Duo generation. These are all usable in some way or have their parts harvested for use. My question becomes: what do I do with these things?

I've so far, been unable to convince the powers-that-be to let me and my machines go up in the International Space Station, although they appear to have enough of them already! 

 Lenovo thinks that something like this would be a good idea. My wife says otherwise.....

I lean towards these sorts of projects, but one can only have so many computer photo-frames and yellow T60s.....

If my imagination/skill-set was better, it might be things like this....

Last year, I did the "turn an A31 system with 2631 Dock in a server" thing using CentOS, but that concept has been proven and I failed to find a practical use for it...... at least in my world. So now what?

I can do that all over again using the now, rather long-in-the-tooth Z61m with the gorgeous titanium lid into a mobile server and since it has a dual core processor, I can even use the languishing MS Windows Home Server 2011 license that I have sitting around. 

I could use either that, or the also sitting under my desk gathering dust cousin, the R500. It's another member of the "Team-Too-Chunky-To-Travel-Well" category! However, the R500 is of the Penyrn generation, and thus newer and more usable for other pursuits.

Then there are the others (no, this isn't my pile.... at least, not yet) that a project isn't so imminent.... 

 

Mid-Winter's Day Off

It's mid-winter and guess who got sick? Yup, those familiar with this blog are probably also familiar with my daughter who occasionally gives me a day off. As she gets older though, it involves less and less intervention from me other than just being there and making lunch. So, pretty awesome, other than the first part of the morning rushing around and making arrangements at work. 

As you could imagine; tied down at home, no responsibilities other than to be at daughter's "beck and call"....... I'm pretty much working on computers all day. Although, much of it was "grunt-work" that I've been putting off; things such as checking through and marking my drawer full of various ThinkPad batteries. I know; mind-numbing, right? I did have two computers that I was finishing for clients, but those were in their Windows Update stage, so not big deal. 

Was there any fun, a "silver lining" in this dreary cloud of computing drudgery? Yup, there sure was! I found a computer that I had forgotten about. I know, I know..... how on earth does someone forget about a laptop!?! OK, here's what happened: a few months ago, my brother was cleaning out and we were in the process of scrounging around to computers for my wife's classroom. A marriage made in heaven! So, he sent us a couple of boxes of his old computers that he wasn't using.. There was variety of them, in varying states of disrepair and missing parts, but for the most part, they worked. They ranged from the relatively antiquated T43, to a Z61t, and some T60s. The vast majority of them were set up quickly and have gone right to work helping 3rd graders get on the Internet.

However, out of the pile, I decided to keep one of them. Yes..... like I need another computer. This one is special though. Of the 3 T60s there was one T60p. That's right, as in professional workstation. In this case, that meant, not only all the normal, top-of-the-line "T" series business-class goodness, but also, the ATI Mobility FireGL V5200 GPU, higher-end duo core processor, but most importantly the 15" IPS high-res screen with a 1600 x 1200 resolution! This is an awesome workstation, even by today's standards. I knew with just a little bit of tweaking, I can make it a pretty nice machine.

A few of you might remember the big to-do about my getting the "Ark", the ThinkPad Z61m with the titanium lid. I love that machine, and yes, your right..... a Z61 is essentially T60 in another form. And yes, there is really little to no difference between the two. The reason(s) for the switch? Two, the Z61 has a BIOS password that I don't want to spend the money to clear. But most importantly..... that 1600 x 1200 IPS screen. If you haven't used a machine with a IPS screen...... it's pretty much computing Nirvana. Oh yeah, the Z61 has it's wireless shut down, and of course the BIOS is locked so I can't get into there to see if the problem is a setting. So, it's a "no-brainer"! At some point, I might end up having that issued cleared, but here's this fully working T60p that has fallen right in my lap, so, what's not to like?

What am I going to do with it? I need one of these in my classroom. What is it? It's a Corsair Voyager Air portable wireless drive. Essentially, it's a portable drive combined with a WiFi access point that allows computers within it's range to access it's files. As connected as my school is, students often are unable to access my classes' file from their various devices. I'd really like to have a device that I can put those files on, so that makes the access easier. Since I don't want to spend the $200 right now to buy this, I can put an extra drive into the modular bay, and just take the T60 to school and set up an Ad Hoc network. It can also do random other tasks, like trans-coding video while I'm working on the main machine. It's become my latest fixation. Ripping and trans-coding my DVDs into MP4s so they can be generically portable. I'd have to say that finding that T60p was a nice little surprise.

 

Propellerhead Gear: Suits Me To A "T"

The IBM (now Lenovo) ThinkPad "T" and I go back a loooong way. Actually, back to the beginning......Y2K. Remember that? Anyway, it was my first real full-time IT job and the responsibility of making sure that my department's technology, at the University of Illinois-Chicago was Y2K compliant. It was a poke in the eye, but hey, I got to make the call on, and order up my very first laptops. I replaced the aging ThinkPad 380ED with brand new T20 for our mobile workers. Let me tell ya; I was the IT guru/hero immediately! I learned to love that machine and almost every "T" thereafter. By that point in my mobile computing life, the ThinkPad roots already ran deep. I had bought a legendary 701c a few years earlier, which was followed by the phenominal 600. When the "T" (for titanium) came out in 2000, I understood that in order to get under the $4000 price-point, IBM had to do away with some of the little refinements that had always been there, like covering the ports, and many of the rubberized surfaces, etc. Remember the old days when every ThinkPad came with a form that the owner filled out and mailed in so they would send you an engraved little plaque with your name on it? Be that as it may, the new "T" was an amazing performer and extremely well put together. And in IBM tradition, it was filled with innovations ranging from the titanium infused casing (hence the T), to the "Thinklight" to give you just a little bit of illumination when typing in the dark. At right around 5 pounds complete with optical drive, this computer defined the "Thin and Light" category of mobile computing. I was able to use the T20 at work for my 2 years at UIC, but later would personally own every model of that series, T21, T22 and finally the excellent T23. The later machines introduced me to the world of "high resolution" at 1400 x 1040 (SXGA+) in a 14.1" screen and I've been addicted every since.

Then came the T30 of 2002. I owned it, I used it, but unlike my other "T" ThinkPads; I did NOT love it. Let's just say that the smoking hot P4 was just not a good fit for the "T" Series philosophy.......as witness by the "big butt" on this machine as compared to the T23 which came before and the T40 that came after! This model is probably responsible for me diverging and getting involved with the "X" machines.... but that's a different post.

I think IBM recognized it's mistake and replaced the T30 the following year with the T40. With it, the design went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Kinda like the supermodel in the little black dress. Don't get me wrong; it looked great, and I loved carrying it, but they made it so thin that the chassis flex, combined with the hotter GPU begat the infamous ATI, BGA failure issue. I never had it happen to me, since I was ultra-careful not to stress the bottom of my T40, T41, T42p, or T43, but it was a common failure and gave IBM a substantial "black-eye", although pretty much every manufacturer in the industry suffered similar failures. At this point, I'll have to admit that I personally jumped ship and went with the X300 for my next personal laptop (which I've already written about).

Although, I had already personally moved on, the T60 and T61 of 2006 and 2007 were important machines in several ways. Sadly, 2005 brought the sale of the ThinkPad brand by IBM to Lenovo. Although, many of us loved our ThinkPads, IBM was basically loosing money on every computer it sold, so the hand-writing had been on the wall for some time.

Business aside; what about the machines? Those of you who are sharp-eyed, might have already noticed that I put the images in reverse order. Why? We bought them that way! Before I had gone over to the X300, my wife had been using ThinkPads out of the lower-end of the corporate line; the "A" Series, the "R" Series and the "Z" Series. So instead of the T60, she was using the Z61m which was essentially a widescreen version of the same machine. So a couple of years ago, I picked up a T61 for her, installed a big (in those days) 240Gb SSD and she was set.

I really like this series of machines (T60/61). While not as thin and light as the T4x, neither did they suffer from the same chassis flex and heat issues of the T4x. Lenovo went to a rigid internal "roll-cage" design which made these some of the most rugged laptops ever designed. The only real "black mark" were the high-end models' use of the nVidia GPU which often failed leaving a completely dead machine. Of course, this was an industry-wide issue and that video chip manufacturer would end up paying settlements in the billions over it! Up until recently, we had 3 (2 with the nVidia GPU), outfitted with SSDs and 4Gb of RAM. They've been excellent machines for us. Last year, we finally got into the T60 game when my brother sent me some of his old machines for use in my wife's classroom. Yup; they are older and somewhat slower, but they are just as rugged and serviceable on a day-to-day basis.

2014 dawned a new age in our house, when the T500 came to replace my wife's T61. If I hadn't told her about the switch, she probably wouldn't have noticed the difference! The machines are almost identical in looks and performance..... at least for what she does with it. The screen resolution is the same, although I think the newer panel is a little bit better than the old one, but the new keyboard isn't quite the equal of the old one, so it's a "wash". I do like that the newer chipset uses the current standard DDR3 RAM which makes upgrades cheaper. So now, both she (T500) and I (X301) both use the same spec of memory, which I prefer. I have a single 4Gb module in her machine which will allow me to easily get to up to 6 or 8Gb in the future.

For the better part of 15 years, between myself and my family, we've used/owned all 12 models of the "T" series from the original T20 to the T500. I'm certain that we'll get around to the newer T510/520/530 as well, when the time comes!

E-Waste and the Frugal Propellerhead

I guess you could call me an E-Waste recycler, and really, I suppose I've been doing this for a long time going back to the mid-90s when I was buying up IBM PS/2 machines to learn server management. Of course, there was no noble intent back in those days (not sure whether there is in these days either), since I was just buying what I thought was interesting AND could afford. I will have to say that I've always been abhorrent of "waste" in general. And that goes for leaving the bottom few ounces of drink in a cup all the way to having to have the newest clothes (or game system) every few months. Not only is it not sustainable resource-wise; it's downright stupid. This is especially true in the technology field where actual performance changes happen so fast, but we humans only ever use a very small percentage of it. So, we buy new and literally throw out old (or 18 months old, according to Gordon Moore).... which leads to this:

....and that's the nice view! What it ends up looking like when it arrives in China, India, other random place is this:

No, this is not my garage, although the bottom picture does bear a bit of a resemblance. The unfortunate thing is that this is the better scenario, as compared to the folks who just throw this stuff out with their garbage and it ends up in a landfill where the chemicals from these devices are able to leach into the water-table. Probably the worse of the products are the old CRTs which have a LOT of dangerous products in them, but actually have the potential to kill you long after they've been unplugged:

 

This is what the problem looks like on a global scale:

So, back to me (because you know it's all about ME). I'm sure most of you are familiar with my rantings regarding the "Walmartization" of society, right? Where, we buy the cheapest possible, then just throw it out when it breaks? This of course, is probably all due to my Mom drilling into me to buy quality products that last. I'm certain the reality has as much to do with the Chinese cultural's need to be competitive show-offs, but that's beside the point. At any rate; the die is cast, so I'm just "hard-wired" this way now. What brings on this little soapbox oration today?

?????! This 11 year old computer came to live with us a few weeks ago. One of my long-time clients, bought a "new" ThinkPad from me, because she's going back to get her Master's degree, and the R52 that I did for her about 4 years ago is getting long in the tooth. So, she got an X300, the R52 was updated and reloaded for her daughter, and she brought me the daughter's T30 for retirement. I didn't remember that the machine was that "new" till it arrived, thinking that it was a PIII-class A2x machine. The T30s were the smaller, light-weight executive laptops of their day and were a match for the A31 workstations (hardware-wise). Actually, I had used one of these many moons ago before the T4x, and X300...... but I digress. Anyway, it ran "dog-slow" on the 512Mb of RAM and needed a reload in the worse way with all kinds of junk-software installed on it. This morning as I'm here babysitting the 109 updates after having gotten the OS up to SP3, AND installed 1.5GB of RAM and a wireless card, I realized that the vast majority of it's brethren have gone to live in the great briefcase in the sky. 

It really doesn't have to be, or should be this way. Right now, my dining room table looks about like this. There are 4 A31s, 1 T42p, 1 T60, 1 Z61m, ThinkPads and 1 HP LaserJet 4000n out there. Oh, there's also a first generation PowerBook G4, 12" as well. What the *#&# am I doing!?! Here's the thing. My wife moved to a new school district last year and although, we aren't talking about starving kids without textbooks, they aren't as well-endowed (technology-wise) as her former district (and 3rd graders are loooow on the techology-totem-pole), so there's one small computer lab in the building and two desktops in each classroom. As you can imagine, this wasn't a very workable solution for my, MBA trained, former Ernst & Young consultant wife, so she kept asking me what I was going to do with this or that "old" laptop. And when the answer would be that I didn't have any plans since it had been replaced by old-so-and-so, she'd get a gleam in her eye. About a year ago, things came together when various relatives whom I had set up with laptops, grew out of their 1st machines and brought them to me when they got replacements. This amounted to 2 T4x, and 3 A3x computers. Around that time, I had upgraded my wife from a Z61m to a T61, so there was a number of computers cluttering up my office. 

One day (I'm sure after, much cogitating), she wanted to know if maybe kids could get onto some learning games with those old laptops. My distracted answer was "of course", and there you have it: BunnyNet. By the last half of the spring semester, we had a little group of 3 A31s, the T42p, and her old Z61m working in her classroom. Over the course of this summer, I received some random donations, ranging from a T60, to the truly random PowerBook G4, and now the T30. They all needed work of one kind or another; some hard drives, others, wireless cards and almost all of them, RAM. This in combination with the prevailing educational trend of B.Y.O.D. (bring your own device), we'll be able to get them all on he school's network. 

Is this going to end E-Waste..... no. What's the point then? If we can prolong the use cycle, we can slow it down. Especially if there's a need out there for it. Why can't we divert some of those containers and retask some of this old technology? Yes, I get that there are practical considerations to make it work, but does anyone think that it's something a good "non-profit" can't tackle? Right now, I'm busy with my one classroom-worth, trying to turn E-Waste into something useful for a little while.



 

.....It Poured ThinkPads.....and It Was Good

Guess who was sick again yesterday? Other than the usual tap-dance of getting everything set up for a substitute teacher, it was great timing for me! The night before, the deluge of ThinkPads came. I've been looking to finish up my wife's little ThinkPad powered classroom network awaiting the arrival of two more of the beloved A31s that my fiend Andy was sending me. It happened that when I was asking about them, I caught him in a "clean out" mood (it sometimes strikes us ThinkPad hoarders at random times). So, he took the opportunity to dump his unloved ThinkPads and unwanted projects into a huge box appropriately marked "Toys" (from a recent move), then ship it to me. Actually I was expecting it today (or yesterday at best), but Tuesay, it came as I was getting a school bus ready to take our cheerleaders to a basketball game. So the big box came along for the ride. 

This is what I felt like when I opened it that night after I got home. There were 3 ThinkPads (2 A31s and 1 T61) and one R60 motherboard, along with 3 A/C adapters all crammed into that one box. So yeah, that picture is what I felt like trying to get everything out of there!

The A31s are of the NASA/International Space Station fame that I've talked about before, but currently, I'm in the process of changing over to the "x6x" line as the basis of my current general use computers around the house. Of this design series, I've already had a number of the "Zs" (Z60t- son, Z61m- wife & myself) as workstations, but lately, we've begun moving over to the T61 line, along with my daughter's X61.

These are "workhouse" computers, that have just come through the corporate 3 year cycle, so are plentiful and cheap to buy. You might remember me describing my wife's T61 with a 15.4" WSXGA screen, 240Gb SSD. Now, out of the magic "toy" box, came a virtually identical one (although w/o battery, and hard drive). In all probability it will become my son's new machine, retiring the last non-"Core" processor'd machine in our fleet. 

Of greater interest to me though, was the last thing out of the box....an R60 motherboard. A few months back, I was down at the monthly computer Flea Market and came across a much abused T60, after much haggling, I paid the guy $25 and went home with 2, 4Gb sticks of ECC spec'd, DDR2 RAM, and a wretched looking T60 that got power, but not much of anything else. It had a severely cracked screen where someone had stepped on it, and of course, a bowed lid, but to add insult to injury, somebody had painted it blue with enamel house paint. I don't mean "in an attempt to mod" spray paint: I mean in a attempt to destroy, slathered on with a brush, canned paint! Of course, me, being me, the fact that just the A/C adapter was probably worth what I paid just wasn't good enough. I decided that I need to revive this thing. So it sat under my desk for several months other than the occasional forays out for attempted cleanings.

The stubborn streak in me decided that I wanted to get it back up and running again despite the fact that it would probably be cheaper to just buy one! Anyway, I guess that's the geek Propellerhead side of my coming out! As luck would have it, my buddy Andy who had the A31s also had a motherboard from an R60, which (under the casing) is virtually identical to the T60. If you haven't seen the never ThinkPads with the "roll-cage" system, above is an image of the T60 version. All the grey stuff is the aforementioned "roll-cage", to which the motherboard (planar in ThinkPad speak) is attached along with the casing. So yesterday, I happily got to play ThinkPad "Lego" while the sick child slept and watched TV! As I make more progress on this thing, I'm sure I'll add more post this project.

ThinkPad Honey-Net

Everybody has “honey-dos”. Mostly we do take care of them as fast as we can and move on to something more interesting. So, why am I writing about it then? It’s a weird topic, I know, but just bear with me on this.

My wife is an elementary school teacher, a very good one who goes above and beyond slaving away at an often thankless, but societally important task. However, unlike the vast majority of these folks toiling away with our young ones, my wife hasn’t always worked in elementary education and is very comfortable with technology. She’s more than willing to try anything that might be effective with her charges. 

For her first eight years of teaching, she (and I) have worked in a school district which is pretty advanced in relation to the availability of technology. Although, we don’t issue notebook computers to students until the 5^th grade, a C.O.W. is often available for teachers to use in grades K-4. That’s “Computer On Wheels”, which is a specially adapted cart that holds a set of notebook computers and their power adapters as well as a printer. However, this last fall, she began working at a neighboring district that not only doesn’t have notebook computers for students , but doesn't have C.O.W.s available either. Each classroom has 2 desktop computers for student use and that’s it. With many resources being electronic and more every day, that’s simply not enough. As a matter of fact, one of my projects over the Christmas break was to take some old cassette tapes of stories and converting them to digital. There'll be more of this type of things to come....trust me.

I had recently upgraded her laptop computer from a ThinkPad Z61m to a T61. So, she asked me what I thought about her taking the old machine up to school I told her that I thought it'd be fine, but that she needed more than one machine; more like 4 or 5 (that's how many groups of desks she has). And furthermore, that the age and speed of the machine really didn't matter as much as long as they could all be made similar (or identical) so that the kids could operate them easily. 

Around that time, I had dealt with a rash of dead, dying, or returned due to replacement computers which ironically were largely the same or similar models. It became fairly obvious that they fell in two groups; T4x P-M computers, and older A3x P4-M computers. Although I would have loved to have done the T40/41/42s, there was only one of the 3 that wasn't dead! The only working one was an older personal T42p that had been passed on to my father-in-law. It's screen was the "last gasp" before dying red, but I had another screen in the garage. However, both of the A31s were running fine! So, I settled on one configuration, and made them identical through cloning the hard drives. Then I began checking with various acquaintances I've made through the ThinkPad Forum and I lucked out! One guy I know out in California had 2 more A31s that he was trying to get rid of and said I could have them for the cost of shipping!

To say that I'm ecstatic would be an understatement! Although, the T4x machines are newer, faster and just generally more advanced, IMHO, there's been no ThinkPad since the A31 went out of production that has replicated it's flexibilty and toughness. It's not an accident that they were chosen for Space Shuttle and International Space Station use. They really are tough: I don't know if they are 3rd-grader tough, but they are pretty robust. Plus they have big easy to see 15" screens and weigh enough so that the kids aren't tempted to try and move them around too much. 

This will give me 4 identical machines that uses the same cloned image and will be easy to support. In fact, although those machines haven't arrived yet, I have 3 drives already cloned ready to go! Two for the machines and one as a spare in case one of them fails at some point. Of course one of the things about the A31 series that I personally love is their modularity. You can pretty much configure the machine any way you like. It's one of the last laptop computers made that, aside from the hard drive, not only had a had two other drives, but they bays are modular. Over it's production run, pretty much anything that any one could conceive of was made for it. These devices ranged from the prosaic floppy disk drive, to a secondary battery or various optical drives, but they didn't stop there: IBM not only created some unusual devices which included hard drive adapters, but to cap it all off, a special adapter-frame that the user could fit either a number keypad or a Palm Pilot! 

What's not to love? It's almost like the James Bond's Little Nellie that arrived in two suitcases and "Q"!