This is, technically, off-topic, but I'm sure that if any group of people
can help me with this subject, it's you guys. :)
My aging ThinkPad R31 has been behaving increasingly erratically over the
past few months. It started with the display colours going all messed up
periodically (by now it's more often than not), and has progressed to odd
freezes and crashes under both OS/2 and Win2K. Given that it's over four
years old now, I figure it's time to start shopping.
I already know what I want to replace it: a T43 model with the 15-inch
1400x1050 display. Damn, but these are hard to find. You can only get a
T60 or T61 new nowadays, and while off-lease T43s are not terribly uncommon,
almost all the ones I can find are 1024x768 models. The fact that I'm
living in Japan makes things extra difficult.
However, I did see a model that looks almost exactly right in Akihabara
(Tokyo electronics district) last week. It has that silly fingerprint
reader which I don't want, but I can ignore it if I have to. Otherwise,
it's just about perfect...
...except, of course, that it's a Japanese model. At a minimum, that means
it has the (annoying) Japanese keyboard. For all I know there may be a
different BIOS and maybe even other things, too.
My questions, therefore, are:
1) Can anyone tell me if I can basically convert a Japanese-model T43 into
the equivalent of a U.S. model simply by replacing the keyboard (and
maybe reflashing the BIOS)?
2) On that note, does anyone have experience replacing a ThinkPad keyboard
with a different language version?
3) Alternatively, can anyone suggest somewhere else I can look to find a
US model SXGA+ 15" T43 ThinkPad, either in Japan or from somewhere
that
will ship to Japan? (And with a warranty.)
--
Alex Taylor
Fukushima, Japan
http://www.cs-club.org/~alex
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