[parisc-linux] RDI Tadpole Precisionbook and Linux/PA-RISC

[Stan Sieler]

Re:

(Note: if anyone has a Tadpole/RDI PrecisionBook manual/documentation-set,
I'd be real interested in asking them a couple of questions!)


> I got a hold of them, and they wouldn't stop bothering me. The only
> thing holding me back was the price. It's like $6K US for one of these
> babies... refurbished at that :} That comes out to a few million
> Canadian clams.

They've been popping up regularly on eBay for the last 6 weeks.     
My guess is that some company surplused a *lot* of them.  I picked up
a couple, and have seen a couple more, in the last month.  Every one
has a non-tadpole/RDI asset tag of the form:

   AudFMA-18
   SVID0127xxxxxx   (where the xxxxxx varies from laptop to laptop)

...this includes some from www.surplusvillage.com as well as some
from eBay (via two different sellers).
  

Price paid ranged from $70 to $185.  Of the four seen, one came with a
carrying case.  None had the floppy drive or the docking station / expansion
cable/whatever.  Most had two internal hard drives, but one had the drives
removed and shipped just with the drive "cases" (and the IDE-SCSI converter
card they need).  All have had 256 MB of RAM.

Note: if buying one, try to get the A/C adapter...it's funky.
One or two have had hardware flaws that caused the laptop screen to go
solid white after 5 to 30 minutes of use.

The machines I've seen are PrecisionBook models H16, and have the following
ports/slots:

right side: (from front to back)
   headphones
   mic in
   line in
   speaker out
      (the above are above the battery)
   battery (4500 mAh, Li ion)

   openable compartment with:
      PCMCIA slots (two slots)
      Floppy disk drive connector 

   openable compartment with:
      SCSI connector (50 pin high density; single-ended)

back:  (left to right, viewed from back)
   (power connector, circular 5 pin, screw on)
   docking station (unusual (to me) connector)
   monitor (15-pin standard)
   keyboard (PS-2)
   mouse (PS-2)
   LAN (10 Base T)
   combo parallel/serial/AUI connector (unusual, small connector)
  
left side: 
   two removable disk drives (each in a plastic caddy; the drives
   are IBM 4 GB IDE drives, connected to an IDE -> SCSI converter
   that's also inside the caddy)

underneath:
   (center)
   compartment with access to add-on memory.  (Apparently, up to
   two add-on cards are possible.) 

-- 
Stan Sieler                                           sieler@allegro.com
www.allegro.com/sieler/wanted/index.html                  www.sieler.com