An ode to the Fujitsu Lifebook 270DX
20 February 2006
I possess an old Pentium 1 laptop. To the causal outsider she pales in comparison to modern computers, being fifteen to twenty times less powerful than the desktop machines that now have pride of place households and workplaces. The battery is long gone, she weighs an absolute ton, and the graphics chip does not properly support a full-screen framebuffer. However she was well made a decade ago and still does everything I need from a computer.
I have maxed out the RAM slots, so she now boasts a whopping 64MB of RAM :). I also replaced the 2 Gb hard-drive with a 40 Gb model, and added a 54Mbps wireless card, which, much to my surprise, works without a hitch. She also has full sized keys, rather than the unresponsive flat keys that come on laptops today. The keyboard of course was converted to dvorak many moons ago.
In the past she ran Windows 95 and 98, then Slackware followed by Redhat. Now she runs Gentoo without X. I use her for typing documents, reading email, news and blogs. One of her best functions is as powerful music player. Having as much storage as an Ipod as well as access to the storage on my home network. She is filled with music, every piece of music is legally downloaded under creative commons or a similar licence.
In honour of my faithful Fujitsu Lifebook 270DX, I will spend the next few posts looking at the kind of audio players that I use on it, as well as sharing some good music files that you can download.
Do you have some old or strange hardware that you regularly use for some computing task, if you do then I would love to hear about it. If you leave a comment below then everyone can listen in.
Being a command line warrior means that the useful life of working hardware lasts a lot longer. Windows XP will barely boot at 64MB of RAM, but a highly optimised command-line system will seem quite responsive. The screen is also not cluttered up with menus or icons so a huge monitor is not necessary. If you have not yet tried a GNU/Linux/BSD system but have an old bit of kit hanging around doing nothing, then why not use that to make your first steps outside the Windows world?
1 elwing says...
I have an old AT Pentium 75 machine (home built) which has a 4GB hard drive, and two NICs in it acting as a firewall. Runs Debian stable, IPTables, Snort and traffic shaping without a problem. The machine has always run linux from slackware to debian, and while I have extra hardware waiting to replace him when he does decide to conk out, it''s been waiting a few years.
Posted at 5:53 p.m. on February 20, 2006
2 Cal Phillips says...
I also have a Fujitsu Lifebook 270DX with 96MB of memory and a 60GB hard drive running Windows ME. The new drive seek time is so fast that it makes the entire computer work much faster. I have developed a PDF file of the steps (with sketch) on how to replace the hard drive if you are interested in posting it.
Posted at 6:39 a.m. on April 8, 2006
3 Zeth says...
Sure I'll be happy to post it.
The first time I took the case apart I did not realise the screws are all different sizes so I just bunged them all back in.
The second time that I needed to open it the screws would not come out at all. In the end I had to drill out the screws, d'oh!
Since then, whenever I open a laptop, I push all the screws through a piece of paper and write on the paper exactly where they have come from.
Posted at 8 a.m. on April 8, 2006
4 Chris says...
I also Have a 270DX. The little ribbon cable that connects the motherboard to the hard drive snapped :( SO, It;s out of commision untill I can find another cable. Anyone have a spare??? :)
Posted at 2:32 p.m. on August 22, 2006
5 Lance Gillette says...
I was recently given a Lifebook 270DX that had windows 98. I loaded Windows NT on it. I haven't been able to get the ethenet card to work with NT yet. It is a CompUSA Dual speed Network PC car, Cardbus 32 bit for Notebooks. It did work with Windows 98. NT doesn't list Compusa in its list.
Posted at 6:22 p.m. on July 26, 2007
6 Chris says...
Hello,
I have a lifebook 270dx, it was given to me a few years ago really never used it much until the other day I decided to boot it up. Strange enough it says it has 47mb of ram under the system window in control panel and amazing enough its running windows 2000. I was thinking of trying to figure out exactly how much ram is in there, and from your posts it seems 64 is the highest I can go. I would like to squeeze xp on there but if that doesn't work out I'am thinking of playing with puppy linux cause I have never used it before. Does anyone know about Win 2000 being able to run on 47 mb ram or is my machine on crack? And its a Pentium MMX. 2gb HD.
Posted at 9:35 p.m. on January 15, 2008
7 guybehindthetree says...
I just got an Lifebook 270Dx from a friend,it has 32 mb ram and a 2gb harddisk,and its running windows 95,but thats the problem has anyone an idea how to install an usable linux system on it something like damnsmall linux or puppy linux? The problem ist that theres only a not bootable usb port which is not really useful bacause win95 has no function for plug n play usb storages,the other problem is that theres no cd drive,does a cd drive for this notebook exist or not? of course i could use the floppy device but i dont really know a store that still sells floppys :( if someonehas an idea mail me: benares86[AT]gmx.de
Posted at 11:33 p.m. on December 15, 2008
8 Mt. Womyn says...
Posted at 7:42 p.m. on July 6, 2009
9 Bill B says...
I have a Fujitsu 270dx that I bought brand new. Everything still works great, except the battery, which gave uo years ago. It has the CD, ZIP and floppy drives, power cables and original carrying case. I have considered giving it to goodwill several times but just never did. If anyone is interested in it I would part with it for $100 plus shipping.
Posted at 2:53 a.m. on August 3, 2009
10 GaryH says...
I just got an old old Fujitsu Lifebook given to me. I have no idea what the speed of it is but I haven't got it working anyway. It just flashes 2 battery symbols in the lcd status screen when I plug it in. Won't start when I push the power button. The numbers on it are: FPC05006A FPC050062 P/N FPC95-0040-01 Just found the model no. Its an old 530T, P133, 16mb ram, I think. Will this one work just plugged into the wall outlet without a battery??? Gary
Posted at 5:33 p.m. on June 13, 2010