[HN Gopher] The MIPS ThinkPad, Kind Of
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The MIPS ThinkPad, Kind Of
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 148 points
Date : 2022-09-25 06:37 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (oldvcr.blogspot.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (oldvcr.blogspot.com)
| wayne wrote:
| I had one of these in college and it's probably still in storage
| somewhere. I couldn't afford a full laptop to put Linux/BSD on,
| and this was an affordable device to try installing NetBSD onto.
| Though I succeeded with NetBSD, memory was at such a premium on
| the CF card that it seemed silly not to just use the OS on the
| ROM that didn't use up any storage.
|
| I mostly used it to run "Pocket Word" to take notes in class and
| ActiveSync to sync it to my PC. Plus it had enough memory to fit
| _one_ MP3 which I could use play over and over. Most people at
| the time thought I had an actual Thinkpad.
| hestefisk wrote:
| This is so cool. Is it at all possible to find some of these
| second hand?
| greggsy wrote:
| Here's one that sold on eBay earlier in the month for $65 USD,
| with seemingly competitive bidding. Not a bad price, but the
| one in the article would fetch a much higher price, considering
| the state and completeness of its packaging.
| iforgotpassword wrote:
| In general, patience and luck can eventually get you one for
| cheap. Unless it's something super rare and sought after, like
| an apple 1 or voodoo 5 6000, every now and then something like
| that might pop up at a Goodwill, local flea market, local
| electronics recycler, maybe even a smaller version of
| craigslist.
|
| But specifically buying these things from collectors or sellers
| specialized on old/vintage systems is usually quite expensive.
| ntw1103 wrote:
| I actually have 2 of these.
|
| - The First had the Rom chip and ram removed from it and has a
| bit of wear.(by a goodwill that likes to strip computers)
|
| - The second is in near mint condition, as if it has never been
| used. It works without issue. I had to find a power supply for
| it, since neither came with one.
|
| I have been contemplating replacing the guts on the one missing
| the rom chip, since I have no idea where to find one of those. It
| should be able to fit a raspberry PI inside, alone with a much
| higher quality screen, but I don't really feel like figuring out
| the keyboard/trackpoint connections/software.
| fit2rule wrote:
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| I wonder how much work it would take to put together a
| replacement ROM card with FreeBSD on it.
| trasz wrote:
| FreeBSD has just dropped MIPS support in 14-CURRENT.
| rjsw wrote:
| A lot of work, FreeBSD doesn't have support for the CPU.
| Running NetBSD on it but not loaded from Windows CE would be
| easier.
|
| It isn't obvious from the article whether the machine uses mask
| ROM or Flash. Some Compaq and HP Windows CE machines used Flash
| ROM that could be overwritten with a Linux bootloader and flash
| filesystem.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Pretty sure it's mask ROM. IBM indicated the only upgrade
| means was to replace the ROM card.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I had mine running NetBSD with X and twm from a CF card. No
| web browser with 16 megs of RAM, but still somewhat usable
| for very simple things.
| anthk wrote:
| Dillo, Links and Lynx would run on that.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| NetBSD was what I was thinking of, I remembered that years
| ago you could sort of kexec into it from many different
| Windows Mobile devices.
| rjsw wrote:
| I have done the equivalent for StrongARM machines, run
| NetBSD directly from the flash chips on the board without
| having Windows CE. This was to help with board bringup of
| Windows CE systems that we were manufacturing.
|
| For the same experience now, just buy a Pinebook Pro.
| happycube wrote:
| Or a used ARM Chromebook. An Asus C100P in good nick is
| still quite nice IMO, aside from the lack of updates.
| Sevan777 wrote:
| the x86 version of this was the ThinkPad 240x
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_240
| mjg59 wrote:
| The 240 series were very externally similar, but a bit thicker
| and weighed more and also had larger TFT screens.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I had one of those, and recently donated it to someone while
| clearing out a bunch of stuff. There was a thing you could get to
| boot it off a CF card, and I ran NetBSD from a 1GB IBM MicroDrive
| on it.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Do you mean running the booter .exe from the card manually, or
| making it autoboot NetBSD from the CF from a cold start? I
| haven't seen anything saying the latter was possible, though a
| lot of people would have liked it. It doesn't seem possible on
| my Jornada 690 either.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| You ran a program that you stored on the card that booted the
| card, from the WinCE desktop. I don't think it was ever
| possible to boot external media directly.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Right, that program is still provided as part of the
| standard distribution. Well, at least that much works,
| anyway!
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Wow they made such a cool laptop.. And then ruined it with
| Windows CE :( Though admittedly CE was way more suited to mini-
| laptops than the touchscreen handhelds it was often used for
| (think Dell Axim)
|
| I wonder if there's any modern OS that would still run on this.
| classichasclass wrote:
| NetBSD will run very well.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Oh yeah of course, I forgot. NetBSD runs on anything! :)
| TapamN wrote:
| I have a small collection of Windows CE devices
| (https://imgur.com/a/Mn15nab) because a few years ago I wanted
| something pocket sized with a physical keyboard to program on (I
| use a Comso Communicator now). All of the ones I have are ones
| with a SuperH CPU.
|
| The Jornada 690 palmtop, with a 133 MHz SuperH-3-DSP and 32 MB of
| RAM, is my favorite and most used, since it has a good Linux
| distribution (although fairly aged now). I've used it to help
| develop code for homebrew 32X and Dreamcast projects (I don't
| have to upload the code to anything when I want to test it, and
| GDB is a lot more reliable when you have memory protection).
|
| The Compaq Aero 8000 is a laptop similar to the WorkPad, but it
| has a 128 MHz SuperH-4. The SH4 gained superscalar execution, 50%
| more cache, and an FPU over the SH3, so the Aero is actually
| significantly faster than the Jornada despite the small clock
| reduction. (IIRC, PDF rendering would take about 50% more time on
| the Jornada) The display is a 800x600 passive matrix LCD, but it
| has static image quality on par with an active matrix LCD, with
| none of the smearing you'd expect... however, the ghosting is
| still pretty bad.
|
| The Aero 8000 has 16 MB of RAM built-in. It has a SO-DIMM slot
| for more RAM and can be upgraded to 64 MB, but when I found RAM
| that worked, I only got half the amount. Apparently, some GPIO
| lines are multiplexed with the memory data lines, so using the
| GPIO limits you to a 32-bit data bus instead of the full 64-bits,
| meaning half the 64-bit PC100 SO-DIMM was unusable. When I got a
| working 128MB PC100 SO-DIMM, I was able to get it to recognize 64
| MB of RAM. (The Dreamcast uses an SH4 variant that multiplexes
| GPIO with address lines instead.)
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| Thanks for the pictures, that was useful. I feel like I might
| be part of a microscopic minority, but I'm always looking for a
| pocket-able Linux box with as good as possible keyboard. My
| current best is a GPD Pocket 2, but it's stretching the
| "pocket" aspect and battery life isn't amazing. I'd love to see
| a modern version of the Jornada 690 (notably better display).
|
| The MNT Pocket Reform is an interesting option, but the current
| design is far too thick for a daily spot in my pocket.
| classichasclass wrote:
| The code you debugged: how did you test against the 32X/DC
| hardware? Or was this just trying out algorithms?
| TapamN wrote:
| I wrote and tested SuperH assembly on the Jornada. The 32X
| and Dreamcast both use a SuperH CPU like the Jornada, so if
| the assembly works on the Jornada (baring some instruction
| set differences), it works on the others.
|
| In particular, one thing I worked on blitting code for the
| Jornada and 32X. It would draw directly from RLE compressed
| graphics which would save RAM and speed up some operations.
| Like if there was several transparent pixels in a row, it
| could skip over the pixels in one go and instead of having to
| read each transparent pixel, compare it to the transparent
| value, then skip over it.
| once_inc wrote:
| I remember the laptop market from 20 years ago; lots of
| variability between laptops in terms of:
|
| - hardware support (drivers),
|
| - hardware quality,
|
| - pricing,
|
| - online knowledge availability
|
| Those days, you had varying quality between laptops of different
| vendors, but also between laptops of the same vendor, and even
| between laptops of the exact same production line.
|
| These days, So much has been improved in terms of smoothing the
| UX, from hardware support to quality assurance. It's a completely
| different experience.
| angrygoat wrote:
| Acer laptops were super common back then at universities, at
| least here in Australia. I think they'd hit a sweet spot - they
| were affordable enough for students, and would probably not
| fall apart over the course of a three or four year degree,
| although the plastic case would be starting to get quite
| precarious by the end.
|
| Hardware seems so much more reliable these days, especially
| accessories like power supply bricks.
| sbdncuvh wrote:
| Every single HP, Acer or Asus laptop from those days I saw in
| the wild had major issues.
|
| I'm not sure what the cause was. Could have just been users.
|
| Too cheap / uneducated to value extra ram or storage, then as
| a result of it being crappy and slow they didn't care about
| it and ended up tossing it around. Them on top of their other
| issues they would have problems like busted screen hinges,
| batteries that don't charge. Mouse pads that don't work etc.
|
| Every ThinkPad I saw tended to be solid without any issues.
| omnibrain wrote:
| As long as you stayed away from the Aspire line and choose
| one from the Travelmate line they were good value for the
| money.
|
| In germany we had the (in)famous brand "Gericom", that build
| thick, hot, loud Pentium 4 laptops, sold mainly by the large
| retailers like Media Markt. They inevitably broke down (often
| literally!) after the warrany expired.
|
| Thinkpads were unreachable for most, though there were good
| discounts to be had for students.
| don-code wrote:
| I figured Gericom was an off-brand until reading it here. A
| friend of mine in high school had a Gericom Hummer -
| desktop P4 chip with some insane heat pipes and a large
| fan, and a single desktop DIMM slot for memory. The bottom
| came off in two pieces: one for the mainboard, one for the
| "other stuff" like the hard drive and battery. I'd never
| seen anything quite like it.
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(page generated 2022-09-25 23:02 UTC)