sleeper laptop IBM 385XD Sleeper

Celestial Jade · August 20, 2017

I have decided to burn some time and resurrect a laptop from a family friend. It is an IBM 385XD, a thinkpad from 1998. The point of this project is twofold. The first is I kind of like the blocky aesthetic of the old IBM computers. I used them in school years ago, occasionally in college/university, and now I have a chance to bring one back into the modern world. The second is that I want something that people scuff at when they first see it. But then go “umm… Windows 10?” when it turns on. This will not be a gaming rig, but a basic work computer. Word processing, internet, death by PowerPoint, the normal stuff needed when doing graduate classes.

I want this computer to work as closely to the original system as possible. IE working VGA port, parallel, serial ports. The laptop also came with a CD and floppy drive. There are also two PC card slots on the left side. There is also a panel on the bottom left side that looks like I can stick some wifi antennas out of with minor fabrication. I will be using the serial port in school.

I purchased an ASUS Q87T/CSM motherboard. I chose this specifically for the 2 mini PCIe ports on it, as well as the PCIe 3.0 slot which will have a video card and ribbon riser. The video card is a GT 1030 I keep around for troubleshooting. A Wifi/bluetooth card will supply the connectivity, and a small patch cable and port will handle the wired part. I purchased a pair of Crucial DDR2 So-Dimms. The processor is a Pentium G3220T (to be replaced at a later point). The last component is a PCIe expansion card that has a parallel and serial connector on it.

I have two major questions however, and would appreciate anyone who could give advice on this. A sleeper PC is simple to make, but a laptop had its unique difficulties:

The first thing is the monitor. The 385XD came with a 12.1 LCD. The resolution on it is 800x600. I want to keep the 12.1 if at all possible, but I definitely want a higher resolution. I want a 1600x1200, but am not having any luck with the 12.1 inch limitation. I would drop to the plethora of 1024x768 monitors if there is no other option.

The second thing I am stuck on right now is the keyboard. It uses a ribbon cable to connect the keyboard and mouse to the motherboard directly. I want to reuse it to keep the sleeper aesthetic. Does anyone know who to connect the keyboard to a desktop type motherboard? Did these laptops use a PS/2 complaint interface? If so it only requires a small amount of fabrication. Needing to do something crazy like an Arduino intermediary is well above my knowledge right now.

Again, any advise to getting this up and running is welcome and wanted.

ShadySocks · August 20, 2017

Make sure to remember the DC to DC power supply and battery. I don't think you will find much help with the keyboard because there is not really any demand for a ribbon to USB cable. For the screen, maybe you could use a 16:9 screen for an 11 inch laptop and just place it in the center of where the original screen was, maybe possibly stack them for beautiful 2160*1920...

Bananasplit_00 · August 20, 2017

This is a really awesome project, as for the keyboard I'm not sure but if it is some standard I would say you could probably just wire it up/find an adapter on ebay. Who knows, maybe you aren't the only one that wants to do this

Celestial Jade · August 29, 2017

So I just ran a burn in test on the hardware that has arrived. Motherboard, COU, RAM, video card all work. The power is running from a brick that came with my dell Inspiron one 2320. I am rather surprised by the amperage requirement by this motherboard. It seems to suck over nine amps and 19.5 volts in order to turn on. I tried several other bricks I have around the house, and I was about to RMA the motherboard thinking it was DOA. Hungry little prick isn’t it?

Everything worked out of the box that I have. I am still waiting for the parallel/serial port card, and Wi-Fi antennas (I have the card). One shocker however is that i scavenged an SSD, and it was a Samsung 850 that everyone forgot about. So with windows installed, it boots in around 15 seconds. Quite fast considering the CU is dual core with no hyper threading. I’ll be calling it for the night. Tomorrow will be the laptop tear down, which will be the moment of truth for the keyboard/mouse.

In the meantime, time for a glass of wine.

Edit: Added pictures, still learning how the forums work.