[aix thinkpad] IBM Thinkpad PowerSeries 820

[Stefan Tibus]

> On 30 May, Juergen E. Fischer wrote:
> > Perhaps they are using SCAM to assign the ID and perhaps also for the
> > termination - which might be another problem to come.
> I doubt they use SCAM (which was always lame IMHO) -- leaving the ID at
> 0 should cause no problems.  I'd bet the drives auto-terminate because
> 99% of notebooks will just have the 1 drive.
Don't think so, as the "TravelStar DVAS Functional Specification"
(available at www.hitachigst.com) says:
"6.3 Signal Termination
The drive has no termination resister for SCSI interface."
Either the bus is left unterminated or (probably, since it's IBM) the 
internal cabling provides the termination (as found in desktop RS/6000s).



> On 30 May, Stefan Tibus wrote:
> > Well, I connected an external CD-ROM (thanks to SCSI) to do the 
> It will boot from a non-IBM external SCSI CD-ROM drive?  I did not know
> that.  Do you think there are any limitations on what sort of drives you
> can use?  I'll add this info to the site... it would help people without
> CD drives.
Well, I believe the limitations are pretty much the same as with any 
other RS/6000: The CD-ROM drive must support 512B/s in order to allow 
booting. The IBM one's do, as well as Plextor drives (also used by IBM 
in their machines). I've read about some Toshiba drives working as well, 
however not which models...
...and a Plextor 12/20 is pretty fast for our old machines ;)

> > installation etc. For playing around with Linux I used a Fujitsu MO 
> > drive, in HDD mode one may even boot from it (using 512Byte/sector
> media).
> Now that's a neat idea.  I suppose an external SCSI hard disk would also
> work?  Will the system allow you to boot from those?  I had never
> considered the external aspect before -- although that kind of blows the
> portability advantage of having a notebook ;-)
Yes, the external stuff is extra luggage to carry around, but I'm not 
doing so either, since I still lack a battery at all.
To your question: Yes, the ThinkPad will boot from external HDDs as well, 
it doesn't even distinguish that, it's just a disk with some SCSI ID...
For booting all that matters is: It's a HDD or a CD-ROM, it supports 
512B/s (which is true for all PC HDDs).

> > I have some good news regarding this. Inspired by your questions I 
> > opened a hard drive caddy/frame (whatever that plastic boxes are 
> I've added your info to http://www.tecnopolis.ca/aixtp/tphdupg.html .
> Check it out to ensure you are happy with my paraphrasing.  Let me know
> if you do not want your name listed as credit.
...it's fine as it is now.

cu,
Stefan

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