[aix thinkpad] IBM Thinkpad PowerSeries 820

[Trevor Cordes]

On 30 May, Juergen E. Fischer wrote:
> 
> thanks, found a HTML version it.  But it's not too helpful.  Anyone ever
> seen a service guide for that box?

I do have in my personal archives a series of jpgs showing a doc
labelled "IBM ThinkPad Power Series 850 Hardware Maintenance Service and
Reference Oct 1994(?)".  It appears to be from a FAX I received from
another friendly list member a while back.

I'm really not sure on the legality of putting such things on my web
site, but I'm sure I could make off-list arrangements if someone asked.
Or, convince me I won't go to IBM jail for putting it up on the site ;-)

> Oh, without a CD-ROM drive I would have been lost anyway.  Now, I just
> ran out of CD-Rs as it refuses to read CD-RWs.

We're lucky the drive even reads CD-R's!  Many old drives don't.

>> > 2. I'll get a ide-to-scsi-adapter rsn, so I'd like to know the pin
>> >    assignment of the disk socket.  Or does the caddy contain more than
>> >    just a mounting frame, wiring and the plug?

I agree with Stefan... it's probably a fairly straight-through caddy. As
long as you don't mix signal and power (which should all be at one end),
you should be ok to experiment with wiring without blowing anything up.

You could try watching ebay for dead or as-is 820/850's that you could
buy just for the parts.

> I bought it on ebay and it's still on it way...  The picture looks like
> one from ADTX (http://www.adtx.com/us/conv-SCSI-IDE.html).

Be sure to let me/us know how this goes as I still don't have any
definitive reports of success/failure using these things.  I'm also
curious to see how big a drive the TP will let you use.

>> > 3. The website just mentions 10base PCMCIA adapters.  I just found a
>> >    supplier for a 100baseT adapter, who claims that it works with the
> 
> Yes.  http://www.3klix.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?id=1148&cid=1798&ct=2 As

He does sound pretty specific and certain!  My guess is maybe he's right
about it working with the 820, but wrong about it being 10/100 (it could
be just 10).  If you have success, please let me know for the web site.

> But as I'm probably going for Linux eventually and there's no firmware
> support anyway...

What do you mean by this?

> I just get the frontpage of the HTML version, but thanks for the link
> to the PDF.

Me too... I've removed the stale links and updated the redbook page.