• IBM Thinkpad Power Series 800

    From RickE@21:1/5 to All on Thu Oct 28 10:40:34 2021
    I'm currently working on a 6020-060 (Woodfield) that I was planning to sell on eBay. For those that might not be aware, the machine type 6020 was only used internally at IBM for development, the models that were eventually released were the Power Series
    820 and 850. All of these are relatively rare, and almost completely useless today except to "fill out a collection". I suspect that a collector of "rare and unusual" IBM equipment will be willing to pay "crazy money" for this machine.

    The 810MB SCSI hard drive seems to be working fine, and the SCSI CD-ROM drive is working well, too. I've got the proper external floppy drive for it, and so far I've tested installing Windows NT Workstation 3.51 and 4.0 on it. Even the NiMH battery
    appears to still hold a charge (though not for long). I plan to verify installing Debian 8.11.0 and AIX 4.2.1. No, I don't have a copy of the near-mythical OS/2 for PowerPC software.

    So why am I mentioning this project here? Well, rather than just selling the machine to the "highest bidder" on eBay, where it will probably just wind up in a collection of oddities, I'd prefer to sell it to someone who really appreciates the history of
    the PowerPC Thinkpads and might use it for something interesting. So if you're interested, here's the rules:

    1) You have to pay at least $300 for the hardware (I suspect that it will go for much more on eBay). You get the Thinkpad, the external floppy drive, and the power adapter. I may also throw in a PCMCIA Ethernet adapter. I'll pre-load your choice of
    operating system (NT 3.51, NT 4.0, AIX 4.2.1 or Debian 8.11.0).

    2) You also have to pay for the shipping (it's heavy, I'll use a sturdy box and plenty of packing, so figure a shipping weight around 15 pounds coming from Binghamton, NY USA).

    3) You have to send an email to <lastname> at juno dot com indicating your interest by November 10, 2021 and let me know what you plan to do with the machine. The best story wins. If you're "close to me" and would like to do a local pickup to avoid
    shipping costs (and the fear of shipping damage), I'm fine with that.

    Rick Ekblaw

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  • From Kevin Bowling@21:1/5 to RickE on Thu Oct 28 11:49:39 2021
    On 10/28/21 10:40, RickE wrote:
    I'm currently working on a 6020-060 (Woodfield) that I was planning to sell on eBay. For those that might not be aware, the machine type 6020 was only used internally at IBM for development, the models that were eventually released were the Power
    Series 820 and 850. All of these are relatively rare, and almost completely useless today except to "fill out a collection". I suspect that a collector of "rare and unusual" IBM equipment will be willing to pay "crazy money" for this machine.

    The 810MB SCSI hard drive seems to be working fine, and the SCSI CD-ROM drive is working well, too. I've got the proper external floppy drive for it, and so far I've tested installing Windows NT Workstation 3.51 and 4.0 on it. Even the NiMH battery
    appears to still hold a charge (though not for long). I plan to verify installing Debian 8.11.0 and AIX 4.2.1. No, I don't have a copy of the near-mythical OS/2 for PowerPC software.

    http://tenox.pdp-11.ru/os/os2/PowerPC/ if you want to take OS/2 on it
    for a spin but would make it even more odd and difficult to use :)

    So why am I mentioning this project here? Well, rather than just selling the machine to the "highest bidder" on eBay, where it will probably just wind up in a collection of oddities, I'd prefer to sell it to someone who really appreciates the history
    of the PowerPC Thinkpads and might use it for something interesting. So if you're interested, here's the rules:

    1) You have to pay at least $300 for the hardware (I suspect that it will go for much more on eBay). You get the Thinkpad, the external floppy drive, and the power adapter. I may also throw in a PCMCIA Ethernet adapter. I'll pre-load your choice of
    operating system (NT 3.51, NT 4.0, AIX 4.2.1 or Debian 8.11.0).

    2) You also have to pay for the shipping (it's heavy, I'll use a sturdy box and plenty of packing, so figure a shipping weight around 15 pounds coming from Binghamton, NY USA).

    3) You have to send an email to <lastname> at juno dot com indicating your interest by November 10, 2021 and let me know what you plan to do with the machine. The best story wins. If you're "close to me" and would like to do a local pickup to avoid
    shipping costs (and the fear of shipping damage), I'm fine with that.

    Rick Ekblaw


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  • From RickE@21:1/5 to All on Sat Oct 30 09:38:59 2021
    On Thursday, October 28, 2021 at 2:49:40 PM UTC-4, Kevin Bowling wrote: http://tenox.pdp-11.ru/os/os2/PowerPC/ if you want to take OS/2 on it
    for a spin but would make it even more odd and difficult to use :)

    Thanks for the link. I've downloaded the OS/2 for PowerPC files for possible future tinkering, but the 6020-060 machine I'm currently working on only has 16MB of RAM, so I'd need one of those oddball memory expansion cards. I also know from past
    experience (I actually had a 6020 at work about 25 years ago) that the 6020 is very fussy about the memory expansion cards, the Thinkpad series that used them (I forget if that was the 750s or the 760s) was not as particular.

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