Well, I am happy to report success, then failure and then ultimate success.....
I got frustrated with the 240's inability to boot from CD so I pulled the drive, put it in another machine and installed 5.9 that way. I had to rum VASM when I re-installed the drive in the 240 but everything came up and worked great. UNTIL.........
ANY attempt to set up the firewall caused a repeated 'starting the firewall' message. 'Ctrl c' got me back to run level 2 where I ran VASM to stop the firewall from initializing at boot but then the boot failed at the network step - every time..... Being the stubborn sort, it only took repeating pulling the drive, etc, 5 or 6 times before I figured out that this was probably not the best way to go.
Bottom line: I took the advice provided on this thread and installed 5.8 (pulled the HD, installed in my other machine, etc.....) and am posting this from the TP 240 running 5.8 Standard.
5.8 works just fine and is actually quite snappy on this old - but in perfect condition - laptop. I was able to set up my Netgear WG511T card so this will make a great ultra-portable to take to the neighborhood coffee house and surf the 'Net.
Thank you all for your patience and advice. I really appreciate the Vector Community!