That boot image 😭 🥴 But still, love the freedom of flashing a custom boot image, I flashed my father's ThinkPad T440p BIOS with his signature/loga as the boot image. I'm also planning to flash my E495 with a custom boot image.
I love my T60 - with dual core update it's a perfect playaround machine for testing different distros and the like. Alas, not happy with how ridiculously expensive these old machines are getting. It borders on fraudulent, IMHO.
Nice dude, I got an x220 for the exact same reason. Anime retro machine, and something comfortable to type on with my anime-esque garbage creative writings. As soon as I saw your boot up I was like "yes, this man's fucking cool." You're a king, haha.
@@kidrorororo was a toss up between this and one of those Sony Vaio 505 sub notebooks. What swung it was the ease of upgradablity. It's a bit newer so can put in a modern SSD and has USB boot but still old enough to have a 4:3 screen for old games.
I got myself a thinkpad t400. I was hoping to get a t60 like that, but the t400 was a better deal, since the seller had upgraded it significantly. Old thinkpads are just comfy
I should dust off my X61T. I installed Manjaro and used it a bunch for college but shelved it once I stopped going and subsequently forgot what I set as my password, somehow, locking myself out of it. I'll do the Middleton BIOS upgrade, install 8GB of RAM, throw in an SSD, and get an OEM battery
I am really thinking about modding one of my X61 laptop with an XGA IPS screen, problem is the ones I could find are insanely expensive. Also I know you can get LED backlight kits for these screens, but not sure how good and easy to install those are.
Yeah, the SXGA+ one I got from Kevin Trade Shop on AliExpress was $100 with the converter cable... But my original screen was in such bad shape I thought it was worth, it was basically like buying a new X61 in my eyes. As for the LED mod, you might have heard of kits that a person named Xiphmont sells, and there are also detailed instructions on how to do it on their site. It looks doable, but just a lot of steps...! Also, it looks like a recent video on UA-cam by a Wenting Zhang shows off the LED mod as well. It is a money sink all together, but if you're after the toppest-tier X61 it might be fun.
@@Arcrinato Was the SXGA screen that you bought is good condition? That's the other thing that makes me hesitant, I have read some horror stories about these IPS screens, that are advertised as refurbished or even new, then they turn up in heavily used condition. If I knew that the screens that are advertised as new, are indeed new, I would probably bite the bullet and get one. I just don't have faith in these sellers that they are telling the truth. Yeah I know about that Xiphomont person, in fact I even have a couple of LED kits from him for my T60. They are amazing, unfortunately he stopped making those kits, and apparently has disappeared from the face of the earth. Also his site is down now, a few pages are still available in google time machine though. I wonder how good the more generic and widely available chinese LED kits are. I will look up that video from that person you mentioned.
@@kosztaz87 Yeah I know the hesitation, I've tried to get normal un-fancy screens elsewhere for various other ThinkPads and it's always been hit-or-miss... From that AliExpress store, though, the two I bought (one SXGA+ for X61 and a UXGA for a T60) seemed to be either new-old-stock or just carefully selected, in terms of physical condition they were perfect. In terms of the pixels, the two I bought had no dead pixels or bright spots or anything. But the CCFL is clearly degraded, so the brightness even indoors if it's daytime is pretty lackluster, and colors are definitely not amazing and a bit yellow. In the end, though, don't want to overly shill for any one specific seller but yeah that Kevin Trade Shop has been alright for the few things I've bought. As for LED stuff I don't know much more beyond that it's a thing you can do, so you definitely know more if you've got it done on your T60!
Here is the original - i.imgur.com/wQ9EBGn.jpeg Here is my attempt to make it small enough - i.imgur.com/KCdim8V.png (will have to be converted to a monochrome BMP) It's pretty hard to get even a really simple image into a BMP under 10KB :(
Unfortunately it seems that batteries since at least the T40/X40 series have some sort of circuitry that will lock the battery if voltage is lost (which will of course happen when swapping the cells) but it may be possible to "jump start" it. Someone tried with a T40 - jaforeck.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/t40-recelling/ Can't find any info on the X61, and there might be more protections on more recent models.
With the BIOS flash utility provided with Middleton's BIOS (www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton%27s_BIOS) there's a utility + instructions for preparing the splash screen, it has to be a .bmp that's less than 10KB so it's very difficult to actually get it down to size, I just kept tweaking a monochrome picture in GIMP until I could get one that would work. I also make it 320x240 (it gets stretched when applied, no matter what size anyway) so whatever you make will be extra crusty but that's all you can do really. Also you need to use 32-bit Windows with that BIOS flash utility, I used that before installing my main OS.
With the BIOS updater there are instructions to put a custom flash screen. Here is Middleton's BIOS: www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton%27s_BIOS It's a little hard to get right because you need to make a bitmap that is less than 10KB, so you're basically just limited to a really small monochrome picture. Also you need to be on 32-bit Windows to run the BIOS updater... so I just used that for a few minutes before installing the OS I wanted, goofy but yeah! Whatever you do, there is no downside to Middleton's BIOS at all!
That boot image 😭 🥴 But still, love the freedom of flashing a custom boot image, I flashed my father's ThinkPad T440p BIOS with his signature/loga as the boot image. I'm also planning to flash my E495 with a custom boot image.
I love my T60 - with dual core update it's a perfect playaround machine for testing different distros and the like. Alas, not happy with how ridiculously expensive these old machines are getting. It borders on fraudulent, IMHO.
Nice dude, I got an x220 for the exact same reason. Anime retro machine, and something comfortable to type on with my anime-esque garbage creative writings. As soon as I saw your boot up I was like "yes, this man's fucking cool." You're a king, haha.
just bought x61, love the matte 4:3 display. cant wait to mod it
Ditto. Bought mine last night!!! Excited to play around with this.
@@rhysholdaway Great to hear mate! Ive had mine for a month now. and its probably one of my favorite purchases in a long while.
@@kidrorororo was a toss up between this and one of those Sony Vaio 505 sub notebooks. What swung it was the ease of upgradablity. It's a bit newer so can put in a modern SSD and has USB boot but still old enough to have a 4:3 screen for old games.
Love it man what can you upgrade and customize in it ?
I got myself a thinkpad t400. I was hoping to get a t60 like that, but the t400 was a better deal, since the seller had upgraded it significantly.
Old thinkpads are just comfy
This were pretty solid machines back then. Built like tanks. I had an X61 and an older T42, one of the last ones built by IBM.
Tomoko is love, Tomoko is live.
I should dust off my X61T. I installed Manjaro and used it a bunch for college but shelved it once I stopped going and subsequently forgot what I set as my password, somehow, locking myself out of it. I'll do the Middleton BIOS upgrade, install 8GB of RAM, throw in an SSD, and get an OEM battery
I am really thinking about modding one of my X61 laptop with an XGA IPS screen, problem is the ones I could find are insanely expensive. Also I know you can get LED backlight kits for these screens, but not sure how good and easy to install those are.
Yeah, the SXGA+ one I got from Kevin Trade Shop on AliExpress was $100 with the converter cable... But my original screen was in such bad shape I thought it was worth, it was basically like buying a new X61 in my eyes. As for the LED mod, you might have heard of kits that a person named Xiphmont sells, and there are also detailed instructions on how to do it on their site. It looks doable, but just a lot of steps...! Also, it looks like a recent video on UA-cam by a Wenting Zhang shows off the LED mod as well. It is a money sink all together, but if you're after the toppest-tier X61 it might be fun.
@@Arcrinato Was the SXGA screen that you bought is good condition? That's the other thing that makes me hesitant, I have read some horror stories about these IPS screens, that are advertised as refurbished or even new, then they turn up in heavily used condition. If I knew that the screens that are advertised as new, are indeed new, I would probably bite the bullet and get one. I just don't have faith in these sellers that they are telling the truth.
Yeah I know about that Xiphomont person, in fact I even have a couple of LED kits from him for my T60. They are amazing, unfortunately he stopped making those kits, and apparently has disappeared from the face of the earth. Also his site is down now, a few pages are still available in google time machine though. I wonder how good the more generic and widely available chinese LED kits are.
I will look up that video from that person you mentioned.
@@kosztaz87 Yeah I know the hesitation, I've tried to get normal un-fancy screens elsewhere for various other ThinkPads and it's always been hit-or-miss... From that AliExpress store, though, the two I bought (one SXGA+ for X61 and a UXGA for a T60) seemed to be either new-old-stock or just carefully selected, in terms of physical condition they were perfect. In terms of the pixels, the two I bought had no dead pixels or bright spots or anything. But the CCFL is clearly degraded, so the brightness even indoors if it's daytime is pretty lackluster, and colors are definitely not amazing and a bit yellow. In the end, though, don't want to overly shill for any one specific seller but yeah that Kevin Trade Shop has been alright for the few things I've bought.
As for LED stuff I don't know much more beyond that it's a thing you can do, so you definitely know more if you've got it done on your T60!
wow it's getting really turned on.
Very nice, I have a Lenovo T430 running Window 10 on the main drive and Linux on the second drive and love it
Can i get a link to the "I'm getting really turned on" picture ?
Here is the original - i.imgur.com/wQ9EBGn.jpeg
Here is my attempt to make it small enough - i.imgur.com/KCdim8V.png (will have to be converted to a monochrome BMP)
It's pretty hard to get even a really simple image into a BMP under 10KB :(
Thanky you very much, i'll also make it my boot screen
Hi. You can resolder the batteries?
Unfortunately it seems that batteries since at least the T40/X40 series have some sort of circuitry that will lock the battery if voltage is lost (which will of course happen when swapping the cells) but it may be possible to "jump start" it. Someone tried with a T40 - jaforeck.wordpress.com/2012/07/24/t40-recelling/
Can't find any info on the X61, and there might be more protections on more recent models.
I have this X61 ,mint condition ,bios passworld lock !
dang, I have 20 dollars for you
Have a few thinkpads, my favorite two are my T42 that I have Win98 on and my T60 that has XP on it.
howd you get the custom bootspash screen? ive been trying but failed
With the BIOS flash utility provided with Middleton's BIOS (www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton%27s_BIOS) there's a utility + instructions for preparing the splash screen, it has to be a .bmp that's less than 10KB so it's very difficult to actually get it down to size, I just kept tweaking a monochrome picture in GIMP until I could get one that would work. I also make it 320x240 (it gets stretched when applied, no matter what size anyway) so whatever you make will be extra crusty but that's all you can do really. Also you need to use 32-bit Windows with that BIOS flash utility, I used that before installing my main OS.
How did you get the boot up window to have the screen that it has? (Was just handed down a x61 and learning about computers… curious) 🙇🏻♀️
With the BIOS updater there are instructions to put a custom flash screen. Here is Middleton's BIOS: www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Middleton%27s_BIOS
It's a little hard to get right because you need to make a bitmap that is less than 10KB, so you're basically just limited to a really small monochrome picture. Also you need to be on 32-bit Windows to run the BIOS updater... so I just used that for a few minutes before installing the OS I wanted, goofy but yeah!
Whatever you do, there is no downside to Middleton's BIOS at all!
What exactly operating system with that ThinkPad X61?
Xubuntu 22.04!
And the anime wallpaper?
he is clearly a man of high culture, one such that puts others who resemble ourselves to shame. the big shame.
@@escapetherace1943 Touching but I'm still wondering when is the anime image going to come out XDDDDDDD?
@@_LeMKo every time he reboots, until the end of time..... unless you're asking WHO the character was, it's Tomoko Kuroki
@@escapetherace1943 I ask in which part of the video does Tomoko's image appear?
I only entered this video because I saw Tomoko in the thumbnail
@@_LeMKo 1:38 ish
You convinced me to buy one haha
instala loc os con lxde ,WattOS, o Porteus ;)
i saw tomoko....
i clicccccccccc