Need some help/ideas on this ooolllldddd laptop...

[tak307]

So my boyfriend has been toting this old laptop around because of the history behind it. It's a prolite 286 laptop. It was imported and then held because of possible copyright infringement on IBM. Well, it was ruled as copyright infringement (http://www.faqs.org/rulings/rulings1993HQ0450068.html)
I was just wondering if anyone knows ANYTHING about this. I don't even know if it's legal to sell it or what it's worth. The only info I can find is the ruling on it. Do people even want old computers like this? I'm kind of a noob so any help would be awesome.

[dorkvader]

Interesting piece of history there with the lawsuit and all.

I am not a lawyer, but according to the document, the guy imported a bunch of these (that were presumably sold) and only the one shipment of 100 mentioned was seized. I would bet that none more were imported at that point.

So I think it should be legal to sell. First sale and all that. B'side,s I doubt IBM will complain to you for selling one 25 year old laptop with a bios 46% of which was copied from one IBM made 30 years ago.

If you have a picture of the keyboard, we could probably tell you what sort of keyswitch it uses. No idea what it'd be worth. the guys at vintage-computer forums would likely know more.

[tak307]

It is very interesting history. But kinda silly to keep it around if it's not useful, in my opinion. thanks for the thoughts. I'll go check in the other forum. I do have a pic of the inside, I'll post it here, but I don't know anything about that.

[osi]

 a 286... wow...

Thanks for sharing