ANSWER now seeking Problem, wanted to share.

I had boot problem, at turn on 385ED system checked my 48 mByte memory ok then reported error 00161 followed by 00163. I had no clue... Only option was to visit timedate set routine. Today 25-Sep-07, it said 15-Sep-07. Clock was settable, but reboot still reported errors 00161 & 00163.

Googled ERROR 00161, came HERE. Found out 161/163 error meaning. Looked for BIOS battery compartment on 1998 vintage 385ED, one screw removal on bottom. Sony lithium 3 volt button battery CR1220 in a holder, no battery leads or soldering reqd. Slide batt to pop it out. Fluke-23 said 1.11 volts. Removed it 8:20 pm, back from Radio Shack with 23-188 3.3v, installed, error 161 gone, only 00163, clock needs setting, set it, re-booted, Windows 95 came up, had to re-boot once, don't know why but ThinkPad works again. THANKS TO SMART PEOPLE here; thanks again. HD ok, only problem I have now is an old BASIC operating system I also use won't talk to serial port, should be able to fix that, may be a lost address in BIOS.

BTW, 1.11 volt battery was out of unit for about 35 minutes, on the road it occurred to me I should have left it in laptop, may have been holding settings, they do put super caps in to hold data during batt change, 35 minutes is a long time. Next time I leave almost dead batt in the unit til replacement is in hand. physicsstuff