From: Bill Morrow (penzance_at_gate.net)
Date: Tue May 23 2000 - 13:07:01 EDT
IMO you're pushing the hardware trying to load more than what you now have..
i do know that some have successfully loaded win95 on a 700/720 series
thinkpad, but i don't have one here to experiment with, sooooo.... :-)
and I have W2k running on a 701C with 40megs and the 486/75 cpu..
its slooow, but it runs quite well, considering.. and, amazingly, it loaded
(though very slowly - took all night!) without complaining, at all, about the
cpu speed or minimal memory space..
for what you want to do, i suggest a 755CE or CD as the minimal machine..
or a 701C 486/75..
the 700 series uses an older ESDI tyope HDD and these are tough to find now..
also, i don't believe that you can easily interface one with an IDE based
computer, so as to copy load files to the HDD, and i wonder if it would be
possible to do that with a 120meg drive anyway, and still have space for the
OS..
what i suggest that you consider is using DOS and all the nice little apps that
run under DOM..
you should be able to write some decent control apps that will talk to the
parallel port, line by line, and thus actively control what it is you want to
control..
as far as the internet is concerned, i wonder if it would not be easier to
either use the old DOS based "browser" apps or just not use the machine for
internet..
i really have not thought that aspect thorugh, so i might be off base here..
the 700 series will only take up to two 8meg memory cards, which will yeild a
max or 20megs..
the 386/25 or 386/50 cpu is going to be really slow, IMO..
WFWG 3.11 sounds like the best i would hope for ob that machine..
i hope this helps..
BTW: i still have many nice Win3.1 apps here, on old floppy disc's.. :-)
that 700 series thinkpad was a big advance at the time..
good luck...
Frank Conforti wrote:
> I have a couple of 700c thinkpads I'd like to use as home automation
> terminals. Currently, they have only WFW 3.11 installed on them. I would
> like to upgrade to a more current OS like W95/W98 or Linux. The problem is
> I have not found any video drivers that provide more than 16 colors for
> these units. If anyone's tackled this particular type of installation or
> know of more current drivers I would appreciate any feedback.
>
> Because I plan to use them for only terminal type of environment with,
> maybe, some web surfing thrown in for good measure (connected via ethernet
> 10bT to server services) the 128MB drive should be plenty, right?
>
> TIA
>
> Frank Conforti ( frank.conforti_at_bentley.com )
-- Happy trails...** Bill Morrow ** :-) WEB page http://thinkpads.com e-mail: bill_at_thinkpads.com, penzance_at_gate.net
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