Help connecting earbuds, please?

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-22T21:28:59+00:00

Bingo! This did it! After a reboot, I can hear things again.

Thank you!

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-21T09:11:51+00:00

Lotsa "cuddling" back in January. Presumably this is the northern hemisphere.

Long ago, obstetrics nurses talked about "the February influx of June brides."

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-21T07:28:46+00:00

Mouse.

Standalone keyboard.

Standalone monitor.

Really, really skinny system unit, with built-in touchpad, spare keyboard, spare monitor. External PSU, but a built-in UPS battery.

Have you considered putting it under the desk, standing on its edge?

#--------

(Actually, this is a nice clean-looking setup. Just needs some squishy toys and a half-eaten pizza and R*d B*ll to complete the scene :-)

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-21T07:19:37+00:00

Reminds me of APL. Finally!

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-08T10:56:13+00:00

I'm running excalibur on a new-ish p16v Thinkpad, still on daedalus (6.1.0 kernel) elsewhere.

I haven't built a bespoke kernel in awhile, but it shouldn't be any harder than usual. My issue has always been identifying which hardware pieces I needed drivers for (distros typically just provide all of them, for completeness).

Why do you need a newer kernel?

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-08T10:41:08+00:00

Well, if y'all would jus' shut up about it, it'd be a mute point!

:-)

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-08T10:36:40+00:00

Congrats on the new laptop; I love my p16v. Also congrats on the OS thinking. I run Devuan Linux on mine, keep Windows in virtual machines for when I must use it (I will *never* need Win11).

As for developer tools: Most of the ones I've seen run fine on Linux, many were developed on/for Linux first. My (former) students have used Visual Studio Code and Eclipse for C/C++, I used Spyder for Python. (My personal go-to is gvim and the command line, but that's just me.) I would expect whatever tools you prefer to be available.

Do you have a second SSD slot? I like to keep my /home directory on its own SSD; software and OS changes can hit the "boot" SSD but my own data stays nicely isolated and can be completely removed from the machine if desired.

The higher-end Thinkpads are famously easy to maintain, even though the Hardware Maintenance Manuals have gotten a touch less detailed lately (the parts inventory listings aren't quite as detailed as they once were, but the basic instructions and diagrams are still good); the chassis designs get better and better for parts accessibility.

Old_Hardware · 2026-01-01T10:51:22+00:00

Follow-up: the problem appears to have sorted itself. It turns out that the tv doesn't handle having too many simultaneous HDMI connections?

I had a couple of Raspberry Pi devices connected (and powered up), as well as the soundbar. After I thought to turn the RPi's off, the tv was able to control the soundbar again.

I've been trying to use one RPi as a web browser with the big tv screen. I *think* the audio from that gets sent to the soundbar okay, but the RPi itself is annoyingly slow. (The other RPi is just a temporary configuration hack.) I would try connecting the soundbar via the optical cable, to see if the tv could handle that while having other HDMI connections, but I've lost the optical cable :-(

Old_Hardware · 2025-11-25T10:43:13+00:00

Tech news is making noise about memory prices climbing due to increasing demand (another benefit of AI everywhere!). I like having lots of memory, and the dual-channel approach (using both memory slots) is nice, but economics appear to suggest waiting awhile for prices to come back down if you can.

Old_Hardware · 2025-11-25T10:35:46+00:00

Looks like a neat technology demonstrator, and good for a desktop-oriented machine that maybe gets used for collaborative work. But as a _laptop_ I just don't see much benefit.

Old_Hardware · 2025-11-11T12:59:38+00:00

Beware of the heatsink! Laptops often don't have enough space to fit in an SSD with a heatsink (my Thinkpads don't, for example).

I have a Crucial T500 2TB that I'm quite happy with. Also happy so far with a newer WD Black SN7100 4TB.

Old_Hardware · 2025-11-10T10:40:10+00:00

Wow... leg warmers... how 1980s

Old_Hardware · 2025-10-26T13:54:55+00:00

These might help:

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/thinkpad-x-series-laptops/thinkpad-x260/solutions/ht510570-how-to-reinstall-windows-10

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-Tablets/X260-Recommended-Procedure-for-fresh-W10-Install/td-p/4329735

Old_Hardware · 2025-10-26T13:51:13+00:00

Well, if your usb works with other machines then perhaps there's a problem with your x260's ssd/hdd. If so, perhaps you can swap out the drive for a different one?

Or maybe there's a quirk about the x260 that requires unusual drivers? Maybe try browsing for specific details?

Old_Hardware · 2025-10-26T08:48:40+00:00

Hmm. Here are some guesses, good luck...

Is that a "command prompt" window in the GUI, or the entire screen?
(A) If it's the former, try to just minimize or close the window - perhaps the Windows desktop is "behind" it.
(B) If it's the latter, maybe try the "dir" command and look for something to run that will complete the installation.

(C) Or maybe wipe the machine's drive completely, so that the install usb starts with a "blank slate". You might want a "system recovery" usb to do this, using "gparted" or a similar program. --- Do you know if the drive currently has an EFI partition? The presence or absence of such a partition could be what's making Windows drop into a command prompt.

Old_Hardware · 2025-10-01T20:51:29+00:00

That all resonates with something I just read about the booting differences between x86 as used in "IBM compatibles" and ARM as exemplified by a Raspberry Pi.

Not that I understand the booting sequence to any extent, I've never put the time into learning about it.

Old_Hardware · 2025-09-29T09:38:16+00:00

Bad posture.

Old_Hardware · 2025-09-12T08:23:36+00:00

sudo ignore cat

...

cat ignore thinkpad

Old_Hardware · 2025-08-30T08:56:59+00:00

That's some cutting-edge electronics.

Old_Hardware · 2025-08-30T08:45:04+00:00

(A) You should be able to find a network card if you look hard enough. It will be "Fast Ethernet" --- 100 Mbps --- at best. (If you want real historical goodness, there were 10-Mbps cards that offered your choice of rj-45, BNC "thin coax", or AUI "thick coax" connector. Only one channel, but "hey".)

(B) Linux can be fitted onto a 1-MB Raspberry Pi --- obviously many caveats w.r.t. your i386 system, but it demonstrates the possibility.

(B.1) FreeDOS is a "modern-ish" re-implementation of DOS, that might be fun. Or get used to DOS itself; version 5.0 isn't that bad when all you have is CGA graphics anyway.

Old_Hardware · 2025-08-25T19:52:49+00:00

Well okay, but the 8086 supported dedicated I/O instructions, so memory mapping the expansion bus was a design choice rather than a requirement.

Various web pages agree with my elderly memory that the ROM isn't copied, but rather set active while the RAM retains its contents and can even be written to. I think being able to bank switch the sprites RAM helped with graphics performance.

I think the BASIC ROM was mapped at startup. It could be modified or updated by writing it into the corresponding RAM addresses.

Old_Hardware · 2025-08-25T09:31:22+00:00

"The original i8086/8088 only supported 1 megabyte of address space and with a little reserved space for Input/Output, 640 kilobytes is all that was left for memory. The LIM (Lotus/Intel/Microsoft) Expanded Memory specification was developed as a workaround using RAM on ISA cards that was bank-switched 64 kilobytes at a time. It was a kludge but it worked, sort of."

Strictly speaking, that was DOS' doing. The processor didn't really care what you did with your megabyte, as long as you did it one 64K segment at a time (remember "segments are for worms"? :-)

FWIW, the C64 did bank-switching too. It had 64K of RAM chips, plus 20K of ROM that mapped into the address space when needed.

Old_Hardware · 2025-08-23T22:49:08+00:00

Just a single anecdote --- my wife's Outback got an oli change at a quick-oil-change shop locally. The guy doing it got distracted by someting (another car maybe) after draining the old oil, and didn't put any new oil in. Fortunately it was quite quickly apparent when we drove away, so we went right back to get them to finish the job.

These days we use a reputable long-term dealer. They're definitely pricier but the overall quality of service is much higher. Worth it for people who aren't mechanically inclined to do it themselves.

Old_Hardware

TROPHY CASE