geek stuff: very old laptop, once worth two grand, now worth meh

[pseydtonne]

I've been looking for a used laptop. I got one for free yesterday, but it may never become the beast I'd hoped I'd have and my search for a laptop will continue. Why? Because I found as many of the specs as I could find.

This is a Compaq Armada 1125. Ever heard of it? Right. It has a Pentium 100 MHz CPU, 8 MB RAM built in and the ability to accept another 16 MB. It has a hard drive that cannot spin up and is thus garbage. The floppy drive works, so I was able to update the BIOS and get it to boot DOS and Linux from floppies. Since the rechargeable battery is missing and the CMOS battery is mostly dead, I can only use this thing when it's plugged in and I don't care about the date.

I so wanted this to be the conclusion of a search, but what should I expect for nothing? It's funny how big a difference that line of laptops (from late 1996 into 1997) is from a modern machine: the parts are almost standardized, but there is still something missing.

I'll still scrounge up parts at the Easter MIT Flea. However, I'll be more keen to find a P2 350 MHz laptop versus hunting for an FPM SODIMM ram slab or a tiny hard drive with odd mounting points.

More sci-fi next time! Maggie and I are off to Queens tomorrow and Pittsburgh Friday. Drivin'...

-insert a system disk and press any key, Dante

Comments

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

what type of laptop are you looking for? I might be looking to sell my old iBook to fund a new computer purchase...

TMH

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to buy your iBook, I bet. If you're bringing it with you to Pittsburgh, may I check it out there? If not, I'm sure I could check it out when we're back home. Lemme know some of its specs (eg. hard drive size, RAM, speed) and how well its battery retains. It's more than likely you have a buyer.