20 Mar
2006
20 Mar
'06
2:33 p.m.
For me, a portable machine means I don't have to
port around diskettes
with me, so the hardcard pretty much seals the deal. The only way I
Isn't there a little slot to store a few disks in?
The think that I object to having to carry around separately is the mains
cable. Of course the UK plug is a lot larger than the US one, so even on
machines where there is a place to stick the cable, often the UK one
doesn't fit, but IBM didn't make any provision for it at all.
The HP Integral (another portable I like rather a lot) has a space
alongside the printer on top to store the mains cable and a few disks.
But the UK cable doesn't easily fit, and I don't like keeping disks that
close to a stepper motor (the carriage feed motor of the printer). I just
keep the optional mouse up there, fits almost perfectly.
What I forgot
to mention last night tis that while the modification is
easy, geting the motherboard out is not. Obviously you have to remvoe all
the expansion cards, unplug the power cables and the keyboard DIN plug at
the back. And then you have to remove the floppy drives (they come out
backwards IIRC). since you get to one of the fixing screws _though_ the
floppy drive aperture. The board then slides out towards the right hand
side of the machine.
I can look up the exact procedure if you have problems.
I'll keep that in mind, thanks. This particular model, even without
opening it up, counts to 640 on power-up so I'll have a surprise when I
open it up.