I'm not sure if it's similar, but my Satellite Pro 440CDX has a rather weird "feature".
When I first got it, I flipped the power "switch" countless times, and nothing happened.
It wasn't until after I realized I wasn't actually flipping a power switch:
The Power switch was in fact the button to the left, while I was merely pushing the sliding "cover" for the button back and forth, which of course did absolutely nothing. Once I discovered this everything powered up just fine.
Now given you already used this laptop and so would probably know this, but maybe this silly design choice on their part was forgotten, I don't know.
That model is about 15 years old (166MHz Intel Pentium w/MMX). It's dead, send it to the recycler. It has about as much value as a 15 year old cell phone, i.e. $0. Sorry.
It lists, and commonly sells, for ~200 dollars on ebay. Never really understood why threads where people trying to get older computers working would always end up with some person claiming it's not worth anything, as if that is even relevant to begin with. Not to mention it's often wrong.
EDIT:
also, the Motorola Startac, a cellphone released in 1996 (~15 years old) goes for around 50 dollars or so there. If it's still in it's original packaging, there are people who will buy it for nearly 300 dollars, as well.