- still plenty of Z50s around, and the 16-hour extended battery and AA
adapter package (new in box) is now going for around $25... the AA battery
holder is about the size of the double-capacity LiIon battery and lasts
about five hours... a memory module to bump up the internal RAM is about
$20... a 340MB microdrive (enough to support native X and small client
development, or kernel development w/o X) runs about $150 or less now...

- you can still buy a new one in the box from
http://www.infinity-micro.com, albeit for $435... you may be able to latch
onto a used Z50 w/accessories (and most likely, the 32MB RAM upgrade) for
$200 or less on ebay... i snarfed an extra one that way, and at the same
time, got a simply beautiful IBM 240/Z50 leather case w/slipcase for the
Z50 for less than $30 (the original IBM case)...

i *love* the Z50! not having sound (while using NetBSD) is not an issue,
and i have not found any debilitating idiosyncracies about using NetBSD on
the unit (a credit to its engineers/designers and the NetBSD developers!)

i wish you good luck on your quest! i could not do without NetBSD on the
Z50!

regards,

billy ball
http://www.tux.org/~bball/z50

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, Warner Losh wrote:

> 
> I'm wondering what the best hpcmips machine to get.  As you may know,
> I recently trashed my MC/R430 (aka NEC Mobile Pro 780) and efforts to
> get parts have proven futile so far.  I'm thinking that maybe I'll
> find parts, and maybe I won't.  Sadly, I can't even come close to
> booting w/o a screen :-(.
> 
> I'm thinking of the 790, but since I'm going to buy a "new" unit
> anyway, I'm wondering if there might be a better one available.  I
> really like the size of the 780/790 and its speed.  However, I only
> have 32MB of RAM and maybe a "faster" machine will be one with more
> RAM.
> 
> I'm also thinking it might not be bad to have a builder box and a
> mobile box, so maybe a z50 might not be a bad builder box.  Or maybe a
> MobilePro 880.
> 
> Other ideas?
> 
> Warner
>