Thinkpads Forum

It's always very sad to junk an old stuff especially old electronics , my boss paid about $2,500 at that time for this IBM Aptiva, now it's in junk waiting for recycle guys to come and pick it up. It was still working good. The only thing we do before recycling the PC's we take the HDD's away.

Judging by the dust on the leyboard it has not been used in ages.

The only IBM stuff I collect besides Thinkpads are PS/2 systems with their proprietary MCA bus.

Unknown_K wrote:Judging by the dust on the leyboard it has not been used in ages.

Yeah, almost 2 years.

Surely you could salvage some of the stuff?? The keyboard, maybe? Give it a good clean and that should work fine if the PS/2 pins are not bent. If they are, just get a screwdriver and carefully put it back in place.

A31 wrote:Surely you could salvage some of the stuff?? The keyboard, maybe? Give it a good clean and that should work fine if one of the PS2 pins are bent!

There are no PS2 inputs in new Dell Vostro Desktops, I think this is the way it should be , plus I've got used to DELL keyboard with multimedia buttons.

I used a Northgate Omnikey keyboard since about 1991. Back in 2001 or so I decided to try a Gateway USB keyboard with the multimedia buttons, that last a few months and since then I used either the Northgate and my current model M keyboards (5 or so).

While new computer systems are nice and fast, I find that few companies make solid cases or good keyboards anymore.

Sindbad wrote:There are no PS2 inputs in new Dell Vostro Desktops, I think this is the way it should be

You could always use one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-A-Male-to ... 3a544f6406

Unknown_K wrote:I find that few companies make solid cases or good keyboards anymore.

HP make good solid PCs and keyboards. I have a USB HP keyboard and I love it!! I have to use a HP PS/2 keyboard at the minute though becuase my KVM switch only supports PS/2, so I have to have a PS/2 keyboard and mouse. My main desktop PC is a HP DX2200 with the optional 6-in-1 card reader and that feels really solid and I love that, too. The DX2200 is the second HP I have owned, I had one a long time ago, before I got the ThinkCentre A50 (which was in Feb 2008), that was also fairly solid.

Unknown_K wrote:I used a Northgate Omnikey keyboard since about 1991. Back in 2001 or so I decided to try a Gateway USB keyboard with the multimedia buttons, that last a few months and since then I used either the Northgate and my current model M keyboards (5 or so).

While new computer systems are nice and fast, I find that few companies make solid cases or good keyboards anymore.

I like the Model M keyboards as well. I have several of the M-13 models with trackpoint... hate to admit it, but matching (black) accessories are a must on my desk.

Unfortunately, older machines get to the point where they can only be used for word processing (and old games), becasue everything else is too intensive, even web browsing with most of the newer browsers and systems. I hate throwing out technology, becasue 1) I know that I will probably need it in a while for something, anything (hence the reason I have a 1gb hard drive in my basement - you can't even install windows on that anymore) and 2) someone else could probably still use it. I upgraded our old computer with bits and pieces that I found in the dump near our cottage, bringing it up from 32 to 96mb of ram, but I never looked for a processor upgrade (it was a p200 w/mmx)

craigmontHunter wrote:everything else is too intensive

you also forgot to mention that they are not ergonomic AT ALL the screen is so huge with build in speakers and solid iron legs in the bottom....

craigmontHunter wrote:Unfortunately, older machines get to the point where they can only be used for word processing (and old games), becasue everything else is too intensive, even web browsing with most of the newer browsers and systems. I hate throwing out technology, becasue 1) I know that I will probably need it in a while for something, anything (hence the reason I have a 1gb hard drive in my basement - you can't even install windows on that anymore) and 2) someone else could probably still use it. I upgraded our old computer with bits and pieces that I found in the dump near our cottage, bringing it up from 32 to 96mb of ram, but I never looked for a processor upgrade (it was a p200 w/mmx)

Yeah, I know how that is. I have my old 486 desktop still in the garage. I always thought that someday I'd need it. I was wrong.

The good thing about keyboards is that they're almost timeless. All you need is a PS2, AT, or USB adapter and you're back in business. I'm using my M13 keyboard hooked up to the dock on a T60. FYI, the dock has a combined PS2 port for a mouse and keyboard. I bought a splitter (IBM specific) and it works great. Amazing how you can plug in a 15 or so year old piece of equipment into a modern machine and have it work.

virge wrote: Yeah, I know how that is. I have my old 486 desktop still in the garage. I always thought that someday I'd need it. I was wrong.

Same story was with my father he saved his first laptop for someone who will need it someday (386 Toshiba satellite black\white screen) no one even wanted it

Somewhat related: several weeks ago our head janitor brought me several bushels of 5.25" floppy disks that had floor wax data from the '70s, '80s and '90s that he deemed worthwhile.

I've had several 5.25" TEAC drives squirreled away for just such a moment... ASSUMING that all I'd have to do was plug one of these into a modern machine and boot up.

WRONG.

I tried this w/my desktop workhorse, a A8N-SLI mobo running a moderately fast AMD processor. I was unable to boot into Linux with 5.25"/1.2mb selected in BIOS, but was able to in WinXP. WinXP appeared to have only limited functionality w/these discs, reading very few of them and refusing to format any.

I then dragged a Dell Pentium 2 out of our computer midden, dropped in the 5.25" drive, rest the BIOS accordingly, installed a fresh version of Win2K and now can read and write 90% of the old discs w/no problem.

It appears to me that the BIOS in the AMD motherboard has problems when using 5.25" drives, I checked in several forums and found similar stories pertaining to these drives on Intel based boards as well.

Pardon my digression.

Portsample - I was in a simmilar situation a couple of weeks ago, trying to make a diagnostic diskette for the 390e I am trying to fix (This post - any help appreaciated), and I went through 12 or 15 floppies untill I found one that worked. You keep the old technology, and when you need it, you are thankfull for all the extra pieces you have accumulated.

If I'd stopped with the XP machine and not have dug out the P2, I'd have assumed that most of the floppies were shot and any problems were the result of corrupted media. The P2 w/Win2K seems to be reading 90% of the disks just fine.

The problem now is figuring out how to bulk convert several thousand Lotus123 files into csv or any other "modern" format...

..ask the 'Research Biologist' to figure it out. Isn't that why he/she gets the big bucks ?

What year vintage is this baby? Can't really tell. I had one of the first series of 'Aptiva' boat anchor
pcs from 1994 or 1995. That phased out and a few years later, lo and behold, another 'Aptiva' model popped
up on the scene.

As I recall, I paid ~1600 or so for a 486 chip(maybe 386?) and a whopping 20MEG(16+4) of memory.
The 16M chip alone cost me about $300 or so...