Re: Why no third party solutions?

[ychou (Sean Chou)]

>Funny, it was the one big minus for me getting the Thinkpad.  And 
>I know of at least two other people who are currently balking at the TP 
>because of just that.  I happen to love Microsoft's little trackball.

Well, they are definitely in the minority considering how popular the
trackpoint II is getting (Toshiba, NEC, and nearly all minor vendors
have adopted them).  I suspect that they didn't like the initial
feel and never gave it much of a chance.  Once you use it for a while,
you'll never be able to type without reaching for the TPII even if
it doesn't exist.

>I know this isn't the best forum to ask, but I'm looking for external 
>backup (pref HD, but if anyone has good tape experiences do let me know) 

There are a number of parallel port hard drives for a reasonable
price.  You could always get a SCSI PCMCIA card and then any SCSI
drive could be your bud.  And of course, there is the Colorado
Trakker and some other parallel port tape drives.  You should have
any problems as long as you're sticking with DOS/Win...

>Anyone have any good experiences with external serial/parallel backup? 

I know that a number of TP users have used the Colorado Trakker.
---
Sean Chou / schou@uiuc.edu / CompuServe 73672,2111