It's good to have a complete selection of ethernet hardware. A 10BASE-T crossover is especially handy for hooking your Butterfly up to another laptop. Sometimes a small 10BASE2 (thinnet) is the way to go.
I like using a security cable to lock my Butterfly to a piece of furniture in the hotel room. Obviously it doesn't make the notebook theft proof but it prevents an opportunist from walking in and walking out with it.
IBM doesn't make a car adapter for the Butterfly. A DVM shows that the
standard AC adapter puts out 16.5 VDC.
Xtend Micro Products makes
a nice one called the
MicroBolt M307.
Note: The MicroBolt M307 is also works with the
ThinkPad 560!
The best toy I've gotten recently is the
DeLorme TripMate. It's a rs232
GPS receiver based on the
Rockwell Zodiac chipset that also comes with the Street Atlas
software that has all streets in the US. You can download sections of
the map onto your internal disk but you need some kind of access to a
CDROM drive.
According to a recent mailing, you can order it directly from DeLorme for $125 (plus $7 shipping) using the priority code BE110. The code also lets you upgrade from Street Atlas USA 4.0 to 5.0 for $25 ((plus $5 shipping). If you buy a TripMate, I recommend also getting the optional external power kit which lets you get power either from the mouse port or a car cigarette lighter socket. It's $39 but comes with the special jumper plug you need to convert your TripMate to accept power from the serial cable.
There's also a neat hack called
tripmate.exe
that lets you see where satellites are positioned in the sky.
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Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2005
Craig Leres