Thinkpad 600, 600E and 600X!... Sort of.

[BlastoiseBlue]

So I made a swap today, and got a few as-is 600 series Thinkpads. The 600E is missing pretty much everything but the main chassis and the 600 isn't much better, though it does also have the upper lid. I have a screen for the 600 as well but I'm hesitant to put it in considering the metal rim has been pulled off of the rest of the panel up at the top. The 600X seems to be in the best condition of the three, which is kind of cool since it's the only one with built-in wi-fi, but it's still pretty rough. The inner screen bezel is broken (The one on the 600 isn't, but the screw on the 600X was stripped) the rubberized coating on the upper body of the laptop has become corroded and very easy to scrape, all the rubber connecting the doors to the laptop has become brittle, the CD drive has the incorrect face plate on it and it needs an OS installed. On the upside, the battery ACTUALLY still holds a short charge. I would REALLY love to restore these, or at least keep them around for parts, as I really like the size and shape of the 600 series and need a backup laptop for Skyping in case the T61p's video card bites it.

So can anyone here tell me whether or not I could install Ubuntu through USB? I would just do a CD, but I don't have any blanks. Thanks in advance! Also pics later if anyone requests, but I just don't feel like taking any right now.

 

[Unknown_K]

I don't think any Thinkpad 600 series had built in Wifi.

The fastest 600 (600X) is limited to 288MB RAM, a P3-650 processor, and an old pre 3D Neomagic video chip. Not sure you can Skype with something that old.

https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA10328/what-are-the-system-requirements-for-skype

Windows XP Service Pack 3

Windows Vista

Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit versions supported)

Windows 8*

Processor At least 1 GHz

RAM At least 256 MB

Additional software DirectX v9.0 or above

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Actually I've seen a 600X with some 500MB of RAM upgraded to Windows 7, and I'm about 98% sure it has built in wifi because it has an extra window on the bottom and there's a chip underneath labeled "IBM PCI Modem with Voice".

- Upgraded 600X running Windows 7
EDIT: When I try to turn it on I get errors 161, 163 and sometimes 173. I THINK that means the CMOS is dead.

 

[jruschme]

I've got a 600E here... no HD or battery and, of course, dead NVRAM battery. It needs a new keyboard, but does work (nice screen). Free for shipping, if you want it... I'l also take trades for Dell Latitude D610 parts (don't I recall you having a dead one? I want to find a screen for one.) I also have a couple of power supplies.

PM me, if interested.

 

[gobabushka]

I have a thinkpad 600e with 512mb ram, and it runs...ok

As for the 600x, you MIGHT be able to get it to run with a minipci wifi card, as it does have a slot

 

[Cory5412]

It might run okay, and you might be able to do it, it's technically possible, etc, but these machines would be better with period-appropriate OS/2 Warp or Windows NT 4.0/2000 pro or 98/Me, and unnetworked.

If you want something to run Skype on, Apple has revved its lowest-end iPod Touch SKU to be the new fifth generation, but without a rear camera, and you'll get hours and hours of battery life on it. To be honest, at $230, you'll probably spend less than you will on all of the parts necessary to make a ThinkPad 600-series machine run XP or 7 well enough to even get Skype installed. (Let's pretend you already have an XP or 7 license, because those will cost you.)

Also, modern Ubuntu will almost certainly not run. You might be able to get the current version of debian to install, but good luck with a desktop environment that will run well on something of that age.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Now that you mention it Cory, Warp would actually be way more interesting. I hadn't remembered it even existed until just now when you mentioned it, but it would certainly be fun to mess around in it! : D

And ehh, if I had $230 to blow I'd just buy another smaller Thinkpad, probably an x series and possibly one newer than the T61p even. (It only cost me $150 including the battery) I've considered an iDevice before, but if I get one it'll be used because I still don't have a job.

 

[jruschme]

So can anyone here tell me whether or not I could install Ubuntu through USB? I would just do a CD, but I don't have any blanks. Thanks in advance! Also pics later if anyone requests, but I just don't feel like taking any right now.

I don't think you'll be able to. IIRC, USB booting doesn't come along until the T-22.

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Yeah, I was afraid of that... That's gonna' make it a lot harder to get an OS onto it. :c

 

[BlastoiseBlue]

Alright, so I got Jrus' 600E and I was testing out a Windows 2000 CD on it (Until I find OS2) and I couldn't get anywhere because the enter button doesn't work. I have a spare from one of the parts laptops, but the issue is that one of the screws on the bottom of the laptop you have to unscrew to get the palmrest area to seperate is stripped. Any tips on getting past this?

 

[techknight]

I used to own a ton of 600 models. They were VERY picky about RAM, and windows XP would BSOD with certain combinations. I do remember that, but I digress....

I loved all the 600s I had. they worked well, and back when the internet was more friendly, they worked well for internet machines. Heck I remember streaming news media from local news sites without issue. (back in the day...), and they ran windows XP SP1 fairly well. When SP2 came out, it choked. So i went back to SP1 and that was the latest I ever ran on them.

Vanilla XP with no SP, ran great even down to 266mhz. Whilst SP3 chokes down even an early P4.

The only drawback was the batteries were dead early in thier life. I remember back in 2000, or 2001 nearly all the batts were toast by then.

Speaking of windows 2000, i think you can run even the latest browsers for 2K with some hacks. Oh the 600 never had USB booting, and it was USB 1.1 on top of that. I think there is a floppy diskette though that will actually load a USB bootloader and transfer to the USB for bootup. I forget the name of that program but its handy. if your PC has a floppy drive, or even a CD drive with it burned on CD. it will load it, then swap over to the USB stick to resume booting.