In reply to a post by gomezz:

Got as far as downloading, verifying and authenticating the Mint distro this evening. Not at work all next week so have several days to have a go at getting it up and running. Thinking of a dual-boot system to begin with.

Wondering how it went. Run mint as VM in my proxmox setup, decent OS and not a steep learning curve from windows.

Never got round to it ... need to first find the USB cable that connects to the portable hard disk I got to to save my data from last time I changed laptops. It has one of the funny USB connectors that was around for a time before USB 3 became the thing.

Edited by gomezz (Sat 14-Dec-24 18:51:32)

In reply to a post by gomezz:

It has one of the funny USB connectors that was around for a time before USB 3 became the thing.

One of those mini-USB with the extension pins for the higher 3.0 speeds perhaps? Were only common on external drives when the computer end was the modified A plug with extra pins (typically coloured blue)

Nice picture of a lot of them here on the right side:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Connectors

The USB-C connector solved a lot of pain. And it easily carries all versions of USB plus DisplayPort, and various Thunderbolt versions as well as power ! Amazing.

Pretty sure had an old Lenovo ThinkPad with very similar on the left side, to the 10-pin versions in your link 🤔 It may have even been something proprietary. They did love doing a bit of that. I never ever bothered with it.

New ones just default to standard USB-C of course. Thankfully.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Pretty sure had an old Lenovo ThinkPad with very similar on the left side, to the 10-pin versions in your link 🤔 It may have even been something proprietary. They did love doing a bit of that. I never ever bothered with it.

Back in the IBM Thinkpad days there were various odd connectors for external CD or Floppy drive attachment. The 600E/600X range had the first working USB that I recall and people called it the "useless bus" as nothing worked with Win95 or NT4. (NT on a laptop was not great).

The T14 I use at work has a double width port with standard USB-C plus extra pins for those models with high power GPU I think. Not really dug into it, as we don't buy the GPU versions. (See the 150page hardware manual!).

New ones just default to standard USB-C of course. Thankfully.

Two USB-C's on the T14 and X1 models we mostly use; both Thunderbolt enabled, makes "docking" monitors really useful.

Ahh yes this was for a custom ethernet dongle methinks. It was couple of extra pins next to the main USB-C connector (a 2019 machine, so hardly ancient)

I do remember fondly the old-style 'proper' docking stations; 2 rows of parallel connectors and a locking pin at either end. This mated to the underside of the laptop chassis. They worked quite well and as I recall some of them you could lock the laptop into the dock with a key. The dock then being secured with a regular Kensington style cord.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Ahh yes this was for a custom ethernet dongle methinks. It was couple of extra pins next to the main USB-C connector (a 2019 machine, so hardly ancient)

My 2016 ThinkPad Yoga X1 had a custom very thin connector for a propriatory dock or Ethernet dongle. The actual Ethernet chip and MAC address were inside the machine but the chassis too thin for a normal RJ45.

There were a few types of this in the years before USB-C was adopted everywhere by Lenovo (late 2016?); searching online found this, perhaps your was this one. My Yoga's adaptor looked similar but the PC end was wider and thinner.

I do remember fondly the old-style 'proper' docking stations; 2 rows of parallel connectors and a locking pin at either end. This mated to the underside of the laptop chassis. They worked quite well and as I recall some of them you could lock the laptop into the dock with a key. The dock then being secured with a regular Kensington style cord.

Last one of those I had paid for was for a T40p which was a Pentium M machine; late Win2000, early XP days. Friends whom have Dell machines from work had them for a lot longer.

I always thought a damp desk (or meal tray on a train, or airline) would short out the connector!

Edited by jchamier (Sun 15-Dec-24 15:27:07)

Yeah that looks eerily familiar. This was on my previous Yoga X390. Its probably at the bottom of a drawer here somewhere 🤦‍♂️🙈

Speaking of the last of the true "IBM" ThinkPads. The last of mine were a T20 that I bought in oz in 2000, then upgraded to a T41p whilst on a trip to the states in 2003. That was a Pentium-M 1.7GHz, 1.5GB RAM, 60 GB hard rive. I sold it on in 2011 to a lady in Marlborough, Wiltshire. Solid little things!!

Edited by Pheasant (Sun 15-Dec-24 15:37:52)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Solid little things!!

The T20/T21/T22 and T23 were amazing. The T30 was the Pentium 4 mobile unit and had an insanely heavy heatsink, we were very pleased to get the T40/T41/T42 range. The p for performance had better graphics.

Completely different when Core/Core2/Core3 appeared in the three digit ones, and then they gave up and went to screen diagonal (e.g. T14,T15).

I've said it before, but for me ThinkPads (whether 'old' IBM or Lenovo) have been my laptop of choice in the Windows world for going on three decades now.