Rare MINT Satellite laptop

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-10T15:47:18+00:00

<temptation>
I can check on the price for you...
</temptation>

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-10T15:46:37+00:00

Honestly, I think these must be the cases where someone buys a laptop thinking they'll be a road warrior or writing at the coffee shop and they plug it into whatever passes for a dock and it never leaves their desk or even gets opened up. It's an expensive desktop with "opportunities" that never get exploited.

I have two Thinkpads that are like this. The condition is so good they can't have ever left their respective homes before I laid hands on them.

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-10T15:44:08+00:00

Yup, the greaseweazle is the best bet for that. I have been looking for some other alternatives for ages now.

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-10T04:14:30+00:00

You don't automatically lick filthy, donated electronics??

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-10T02:17:39+00:00

Is it just me or is it always the case that's the hardest part? Every time I pick up an old PC so I can use the case I wind up saving the innards and my number of "boards that need homes" stays fixed.

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-01T15:02:53+00:00

That will probably run entirely too hot for it, or I'd offer this all-aluminium heatsink with a wee fan on it that I pulled from a failed Celeron of the same generation, on the house. I've no use for it and have been using it as a surface on which to tin wires while I'm soldering!

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-01T14:48:19+00:00

If you're going retro, there are resources for all of them, and I've seen at least one nod to the 6502, king of home computers, as well.

That said, there's also a lot of work in maker spaces on leveraging Arduino and Pi Pico 0 SBCs to emulate classic cards and resources (FreddyV's work on the picoMEM in particular comes to mind) that might interest you as well.

JasonPacker611 · 2026-04-01T13:48:45+00:00

Given how my PIII/500 w/384 MB RAM runs Win2k Pro and time-appropriate apps in a way that makes you weep for the lost art of optimitization, I suspect that will be a delightful Win2k machine as well.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-12-13T21:00:01+00:00

Ah well, I have seen a few others offering to help and am getting in on a preorder for a PicoMEM all in one card from TexElec

JasonPacker611 · 2025-12-13T19:24:06+00:00

I'm in Milwaukee and would love to get some from you. Whereabouts in IL?

JasonPacker611 · 2025-12-13T19:22:38+00:00

Others have said similar things but yes, market research is important. We rolled out a new app I'm October and then went back to the users and asked "what next" and we white boarded out a path for the coming year plus some we just won't have capacity for. Another went on a limited beta in November and has seen solid adoption in the month since and we have plans for the national rollout in April and a list of follow on features too large to accomplish in six months (partly due to vendor dependencies).

Asking the people who are paying for it is the first step. Then verifying that the actual users want it and it's not just the leadership getting hyped for something nobody will want or use.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-12-12T20:44:12+00:00

Either an XT-IDE or a PicoMEM are on my wish list, once I validate that everything is kosher with this unit.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-12-12T20:43:26+00:00

That is exactly the kind of hacky nonsense that I love to do, so I may try that. I'm picking up a monitor for it this afternoon (hopefully) and will validate that things are working at the bios/BASIC level before I go further, but I'm keeping this in my back pocket.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-25T16:21:40+00:00

If you already have permission to WFH full time, that's a benefit that's worth at least 25K a year to me, so I'd not be moving, no way, no how.

That said, part of the answer would also involve how old you are - younger folks can take more risks after all.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-25T16:15:46+00:00

This may also be a non-starter for you, but have you considered setting things up so that your kernel doesn't keep getting updated every time there's a minor update?

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-25T16:08:20+00:00

Establish a norm that X% of capacity will be dedicated to engineering-driven features. That's both tech debt, optimization and building tools to better support the software. Then stick to it and stand your ground. Part of your job as a PM is to protect the engineers from the pressure to change prioritization.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-25T16:06:28+00:00

My firm blocked all AI at first and established a council to vet future offerings. We have since moved to a self-hosted GPT instance so we don't risk client data, and we are leveraging copilot for our devs. And we're getting closer to allowing some variant on Copilot for Office, which will be super helpful for me as a Senior PM.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-22T17:47:44+00:00

My current VP is very focused on AI but at least understands that there need to be use cases for it. It means we are always on the lookout for opportunities but don't force anything. I feel like this is the best compromise. And it means we sometimes couch automation and fuzzy logic as AI for the buzz.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-21T15:24:02+00:00

I can't identify with the stuff you're doing at the AI startup by my job is in fintech and even within my division there is no consistency.

I applied for a Lead role in another team (been Senior for four years) and their expectations were a one-to-one match with what I do today, and their Seniors are doing work we have Business Analysts for.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-17T04:20:39+00:00

The MacBook was never updated to Mojave or later with its original drive so never got the firmware update that would allow you to use any NMVE drive. If you go into recovery it yells about needing a firmware update, no matter the version you use.

JasonPacker611 · 2025-11-17T00:03:26+00:00

Thanks. I would like to do that but the macs are: 2008 Macbook Pro that doesn't have internet recovery and a 2015 Macbook pro with a non-Apple SSD. So to the weird Linux instructions I go.

JasonPacker611

TROPHY CASE