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John, I hope you don't mind my using a clip of our private conversation,
but I thought I'd add my comments to the fray.....
****
Don: Apologies - my mailer dumped messages for a few days - what
cable do you mean?
John: The cable that connects the hard drive to the Thinkpad. If
you've opened up the hard drive casing, you'll know what we're
talking about.
Don: Ah. The concept being putting together your own replacement
HD, I presume?
John: Almost. If you buy the TP750 drives from IBM or that other place,
the price is around $1200 for a 540 MB drive. If you buy an 540 MB
IBM OEM notebook drive from a 3rd party vendor, it is around $600.
This is the EXACT SAME drive, it just lacks the plastic housing and
cable used in the Thinkpad. So either we pay IBM $600 for a silly
plastic case and cable, or we do a little work and build our own.
-----
So inspired, I poped open the case on my HD and took a look, and noticed a
few things:
One, the connector we've been talking about is stamped by AMP. If
anyone is really interested in this venture, perhaps one of us should
call them and see if these connectors were manufactured under an
agreement of exclusivity. It is entirely possible IBM did not get such
an agreement with them. However, I didn't spy a SN on the connector,
so knowing which part to ask for could be a challenge.
Two, very strange - the cable on my 170M drive was labeled 340M. _That_
made me think of the fact that the two preconfigured drive options on the
'pad are 170M and 340M, a factor of 2. (Well, those were the options on
the 750 when I bought mine...) Is it possible the 170Ms are crippled
340Ms? Similar approaches have been taken in the history of the computing
businesss.....
Three, are these standard 2.5" IDE drives? Could, for example, any
size Seagate be used here? (I was uncertain from your comment John if you
meant they were generic or particular for the IBM) Or does the TP BIOS only
support certain drive parameters? Or are they totally propriatary? (Unlikely
IMHO, as the hassle of producing a non-standard configuration would seem more
expensive than potential lose revenue)
The other thing that occured to me is that if THUGCO were to go forward,
perhaps there's another option to having cables and connectors made, at least
in the beginning - if the cables are the same regardless of drive size, and I
have no reason to think they're not, why not instead offer a trade-up option,
thereby utilizing the cases and connectors, and reselling the old drives?
Perhaps they could be mounted in a different manufacturer's laptops, one that
does not offer the removable drives. The matter of the bios on those machines
would have to be addressed, but I feel confident it could be reverse
engineered. (I'm unsure of the legality there, as the BIOS is not being
propigated to other machines)
Hope this wasn't too long for you all....
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Donald Alan Whiteside School of Computer Science
Eternal Student Florida International University
GCS d-- -p+(---) l u+(-) e+ m+ s !n h f g+ w+ t+(++) r- y++
I am NSA of Borg: your private key will be assimilated.
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