All my content and ptohos
IBM ThinkPad 560
Designed to be small, light and compact, IBM ThinkPad 560 has Intel Pentium CPU (available 100, 120 or 133MHz, in 1998 it was not the fastest thing), 8MB on-board RAM expandable with one EDO SIMM module and no internal floppy nor optical drives. This model was designed to work on battery as long as possible and to be as portable as possible, and engineers succeeded in these goals. It's lighter than most similar ThinkPads and, what's more important, it works on battery even today, yet in quite limited time (30 minutes). The battery was never replaced and this unit was working in field (geodesic surveys) it was used much and still works!. Originally new battery lasted for 3-4 hours per one charge, but some companies manufactured extended packs allowing to run 560 for 15 hours. These packs were larger and they made 560 look like a typical laptop of late 1990s, not ultra-slim notebook.
| Manufacturer | IBM |
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| Origin | USA | |
| Year of unit | 1998 | |
| Year of introduction | 1997? | |
| Type | Laptop, PC | |
| CPU | Intel Pentium, 100MHz | |
| RAM | 8MB OnBoard One small SIMM socket. |
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| Floppy Disk | Only external 3.5" 1.44MB. | |
| Hard Disk | 800MB | |
| Other media | None | |
| Graphics and display: | Super VGA 800x600 256-Colors Passive LCD | |
| Sound: | PC Speaker, ES1688 sound card | |
| Keyboard and pointing device: | Full-stroke PC keyboard without numeric part, numeric part on letter keys. | |
| OS: |
MS-DOS/Windows 3.x, Windows 95 If >=16MB of RAM I recommend Win95 |
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Power supply: |
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1 - Ground |
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| I/O: | - Serial port - Parallel port - VGA video out - 2x PCMCIA - Audio in/out - IRDA 1.0 |
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| Possible upgrades: | Memory by small EDO SIMMs, | |
| Additional peripherals: | External floppy disk drive I think my charger will charge these cells. |
Well, this thing just boots to its OS. It's a ThinkPad, with
GUI-driven BIOS Setup, this one with duck cursor :). If anything's wrong
it'll display error code and display a big information about it. If you
get it, remember to remove bottom small cover, there's a small BIOS
battery (usually it doesn't leak) and RAM module, this ThinkPad won't
boot with died BIOS battery..
You can see the list of BIOS error codes
here.
If you want to connect CD-ROM, you have only two ways:
- PCMCIA-based CD-ROM drives, I've never tried this solution.
- Parallel port based, I've successfully installed MS Office from CD using
EPAT CD drive. Although original Office
97 CD was in quite bad condition after these years, HP drive read it
well.
If you only want to install Win95, format notebook's HDD from system floppy and use ZIP program to transfer WIn95 directory from another computer by a parallel cable. This program is convenient, small and can be transferred by floppy or serial cable (it can transfer itself - read manual). I'm using it as typical file transfer tool for old computers. If you have WinXP and it hangs while transferring, you need UserPort and it'll work.
WARNING: If you don't want to damage your fresh OS installation, please avoid installing drivers "as they go" from IBM's web site. As today (June 2013) IBM/Lenovo gives ThinkPad 560E/X/Z drivers in ThinkPad 560 page (heresy archived :) ), these are DIFFERENT computers, they have different graphics, audio adapters and CPUs! There are NO drivers for audio for 560, the same thing with video. Installing graphics drivers for NeoMagic card in notebook equipped with Trident Cyber9382 is not a good idea.
Or just use oldies from PCBBS downloaded in early 2000s and mirrored here. Win95 drivers checked in my unit:
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Hardware Compatibility Matrix |
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OS/2 Warp Remote installation |
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Technical reference |
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User's Guide |
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Maintenance Manual |
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Tips and technical information |
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Utility for DOS [README] |
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Personalization disks |
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BIOS update. Please use v. 1.20. WARNING: Improper update may damage your commputer. |
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[NT] IRDA driver [README] |
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[NT3.51] Audio driver [README] |
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[NT4] Audio driver [README] |
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[NT4] PCMCIA driver [README] |
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[WIN3X] Utilities |
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[WIN3x]Audio driver [README] |
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[WIN3x] PCMCIA driver [README] |
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[WIN3X/9x/OS2] IRDa driver [README] |
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[WIN95] IRDa patch |
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[Win95] Transfer program Disk1 Disk2 |
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[WIN95] Utilities: Disk1, Disk2, Disk3, Disk4 |
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[WIN95] PCI Bridge driver [README] |
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[WIN95] VGA driver |
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[WIN95] Audio driver [README] |
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[WIN95] PCMCIA driver and removal software (remove if upgrading to Win98) |
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[NT3.51/NT4/WIN3x/OS2] Graphics drivers package |
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[OS2] Audio driver [README] |
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[OS2] OS/2 configuration tool [README] |
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[OS2] PC Card driver [README] |