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One of the questions I have been asked quite often is "what laptops work with Rhapsody?" And actually, it was my first question when I started wanting to run Rhapsody too. At the time I had NEXTSTEP and was planning on getting OPENSTEP and Rhapsody 5.1, and there were display drivers that specifically named the IBM ThinkPad 760ED... so I got a ThinkPad 760ED.
This worked great with NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP, but I ran into an issue with Rhapsody. Apple had changed the installation enough that you couldn't swap the internal floppy drive with the internal CD-ROM drive during the install. This was why I ran OPENSTEP on my ThinkPad until 2000, that was when I got an external floppy drive.
For the most part, my needs had been satisfied so I didn't think much about it after that... but I was still getting asked from time to time.
Matching drivers and hardware
Part of the problem is that it is hard to find good references for the actual hardware used in the laptops of PC makers. There are so many makers of PC laptops and their documentation is on the whole quite lacking. Add to that the fact that some of the drivers listed by Apple for Rhapsody don't get very specific either, and the matching up what hardware works with Rhapsody becomes quite a daunting task.
Starting points
As I said, I have a working system on an IBM ThinkPad, so that seemed like a good place to expand first. I assumed that the chip set used in the 760ED wasn't unique to that ThinkPad, so that driver should work with other models that used the same chips.
I found a neat site (here) which broke down the hardware of just about every ThinkPad you could think of. This turned out to be a great resource for matching drivers to chips.
Another place I looked to was the Omni Groups mailing list (MacOSX-admin and MacOSX-talk) from around the time that Rhapsody 5.1 was released (May 1998 to July 1999). I looked for any references to running Rhapsody on laptops to help get an idea of what people had tried and (more importantly) what they had been successful with.
IBM ThinkPads
With a nice list of hardware to work from I was able to not only find out what systems I had display drivers for, but also what systems I had sound drivers for too.
The two driver bundles that come into play with the ThinkPads are "IBMThinkPad760EDDisplayDriver.config" and "ES1x88AudioDriver.config".
The "IBMThinkPad760EDDisplayDriver.config" contains the following drivers:
IBM ThinkPad 560 Display Adapter
IBM ThinkPad 760E/760ED Display Adapter
What I found was that the 560 uses the Trident Cyber9382 chip set, the 760E uses either the Trident Cyber9320 or Trident Cyber9385, and the 760ED uses the Trident Cyber9385.
So the "IBMThinkPad760EDDisplayDriver.config" driver bundle should work with any of the ThinkPads that came with the Trident Cyber9320, Cyber9382 or Cyber9385.
On the audio side... well, I've never had audio from my ThinkPad. The audio hardware in the 760ED (IBM Mwave Audio) wasn't supported by any of the drivers for Rhapsody (or NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP for that matter).
But I did notice that the ThinkPad 560 used ESS1688 Audio, which is covered in the "ES1x88AudioDriver.config" (which includes "ESS PnP Audio" and "ESS 1x88 Audio").
Based on these two driver bundles I have compiled the following list: |
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| Model | Specs | Video | Audio |
| ThinkPad 365X | 10.4" or 11.3" at 800x600, Pentium 100, 120 or 133 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 365XD | 10.4" or 11.3" at 800x600, Pentium 120 or 133 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 535 | 10.4" at 800x600, Pentium 120 or 133 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 535E | 10.4" at 800x600, Pentium 133 or MMX 150 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760C | 10.4" or 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium 90 or 120 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760CD | 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium 90 or 120 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760L | 10.4" at 640x480, Pentium 90 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 760LD | 10.4" at 640x480, Pentium 90 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 760E | 12.1" at 1024x768 or 800x600, Pentium 120, 133 or 150 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760EL | 11.3" or 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium 100, 120 or 133 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 760ED | 12.1" at 1024x768 or 800x600, Pentium 133 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760ELD | 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium 100 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 760XD | 12.1" at 1024x768, Pentium MMX 166 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 760XL | 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium MMX 166 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 765D | 13.3" at 1024x768, Pentium MMX 166 | -yes- | -no- |
| ThinkPad 765L | 13.3" at 1024x768, Pentium MMX 166 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 560 | 11.3" or 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium 100, 120 or 133 | -yes- | -yes- |
| ThinkPad 560E | 11.3" or 12.1" at 800x600, Pentium MMX 150 or 166 | -yes- | -yes- |
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Experience of others
Between the reports that I've read on mailing lists and a recent post by "evolver56k" on the NeXT Information Archive forum, I've these additional systems: |
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| Model | Specs | Video Driver | Audio Driver |
| Toshiba Tecra 550CDT | 12.1" at 1024x768, Pentium II 266 | Diamond Stealth 3D Virge | -no- |
| Toshiba Satellite Pro 490XCDT | 13.3" at 1024x768, Pentium II 266 | Diamond Stealth 3D Virge** | -no- |
| Toshiba Satellite 2140XCDS | 13" at 1024x768, AMD K6-2 450 MHz | Diamond Stealth S3 Virge | -unknown- |
| Dell Latitude CPx J650 *** | 14.1" at 1024x768, Pentium III 650 | ATI Rage Display Driver** | -no- | |
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* set the AutoDetect ID to 0x8c015333
** ATI Rage M1, using Rage Driver with M1's Device ID
*** PCMCIA is questionable
Theorized
Based on the drivers available and what reports of success I've seen, there is the possibility that the following systems may be usable (that is, they may work with the video drivers). Most of these system use the ATI Rage Mobility M or M1, which seems to be able to be made to work with Rhapsody's ATI Rage Display Driver.
Note: none of these systems has been tested with Rhapsody nor are there any reports that they work. |
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IBM: |
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ThinkPad A20m
ThinkPad A21e
ThinkPad A21m
ThinkPad A22e
ThinkPad A22m
ThinkPad i Series 1420
ThinkPad i Series 1421
ThinkPad i Series 1422
ThinkPad i Series 1441
ThinkPad i Series 1442
ThinkPad i Series 1460
ThinkPad i Series 1480
ThinkPad i Series 1482 | |
ThinkPad i Series 1483
ThinkPad i Series 1492
ThinkPad i Series 1540
ThinkPad i Series 1541
ThinkPad i Series 1542
ThinkPad i Series 1560
ThinkPad i Series 1562
ThinkPad i Series 1592
ThinkPad i Series 1620
ThinkPad i Series 1800
ThinkPad X20
ThinkPad X21 |
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Dell:
Latitude CPt 600GT
Inspiron 7000
Inspiron 7500
Compaq:
Armada E500
Armada M700
Presario 2100us
Presario 1800T ****
**** ATI Mach64 Display Driver | |
Gateway:
9300XL
HP:
Omnibook 4100
Omnibook 4150
Omnibook 6000
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Apple Laptops
Though I've covered these in other parts of this site, I'll list the known working Apple system here (just to make the page complete): |
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PowerBook 2400c 800x600, Rhapsody 5.1, 5.3 - 5.6
PowerBook 3400c 800x600, Rhapsody 5.1, 5.3 - 5.6
PowerBook G3 Kanga 800x600, Rhapsody 5.1, 5.3 - 5.6
PowerBook G3 Wallstreet 1024x768, Rhapsody 5.3 - 5.6
PowerBook G3 Lombard 1024x768 (at 256 colors), Rhapsody 5.6
Claimshell iBooks 800x600, Rhapsody 5.6 |
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