Author Topic: Thinkpad 701 (Read 13030 times)

EverythingIBM · « **on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 00:57:28 »

Does anyone have or know where to get a thinkpad 701?
That has to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my entire life!

I think I would be as crazy enough to trade my T60p for such a thing. Probably wouldn't come close in terms of value though.

I hate how all of this great IBM stuff was created before my generation: and now I can't buy any of it! Even worse, IBM stopped making all of its treasures. Oh well.

iMav · « **Reply #1 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 01:29:21 »

You lovin that butterfly keyboard, eh?

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #2 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 06:10:53 »

Quote from: iMav;175712

You lovin that butterfly keyboard, eh?

Indeed sir, it's a mechanical genius. Time for operation thinkpad 701 huntdown.

There has to be a few in Canada. I don't want to sound greedy, but, I really really really do want one. How could have I missed such an amazing thing?

salcan · « **Reply #3 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 09:48:50 »

I have one. They are pretty easy to find on ebay. If you need one that works you'll have to pay more, but they are out there.

Search for 701c, that's what people normally call it.

ch_123 · « **Reply #4 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 09:50:43 »

Saw one on German ebay once. Was thinking about it, but didn't bother because it couldn't run Linux comfortably.

I want to get a Thinkpad 240X though...

Specter_57 · « **Reply #5 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 10:05:55 »

.

ThinkPad 701C:

Interesting links here:

http://bharucha.com/tp701/
.
and
.
http://www2.gol.com/users/hticn/thinkpad701c.html
.
.
These two pages should get your mouth watering, so to speak...
.
.
...............
Spec_57
.
.

Oqsy · « **Reply #6 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 10:19:03 »

Hmm... 14 years old but still looks contemporary as laptops are concerned. I'd love to gut the motherboard/processor/hd and rebuild it using the case, kb, monitor and all new innards that are competitive with today's laptops. I bet upgrading one to netbook-spec mobo/proc would be a very usable and practical upgrade.

Ok, now I have the bug. Clue me in if you find some of these.

Nonmouse · « **Reply #7 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 11:53:38 »

Well, there's at least one on fleaBay right now, as well as just the keyboards...

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #8 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 15:35:50 »

Quote from: Nonmouse;175850

Well, there's at least one on fleaBay right now, as well as just the keyboards...

Except I think that one only shipped to USA (11 dollars, nice).
Didn't know they were easier to get than I originally thought.

quadibloc · « **Reply #9 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 16:52:57 »

I have to admit that while I saw advertisements for the unit when it originally came out, I was not impressed, feeling that such a keyboard would be unnecessarily fragile.

But I like the number, so rich in historical meaning. There was also a ThinkPad 704, and Lenovo continued with a ThinkPad 709.

http://www.computer-history.info/Page4.dir/pages/IBM.704.dir/index.html

Nonmouse · « **Reply #10 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 17:49:59 »

There are also a couple listed on various Craigslist pages across the country (US, that is), here and here. Dunno if you could convince 'em to ship or not...

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #11 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 17:59:23 »

Quote from: Nonmouse;175940

There are also a couple listed on various Craigslist pages across the country (US, that is), here and here. Dunno if you could convince 'em to ship or not...

Drat... it would be easier to ask them to put it on ebay or something, but I doubt that is to any avail.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #12 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 18:17:54 »

Quote from: ripster;175950

oops. No spring.

Just doublechecked.

Thinkpads have very good switch keyboards. I like them anyways.

Erm, you also posted that message here.

I thought you were asking about the thinkpad keyboard.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #13 on:** Sun, 25 April 2010, 18:28:40 »

Quote from: ripster;175958

Sorry, deleted it. Put it in the wrong thread. I don't even have a clue what a Thinkpad 701 is.

That's good; because then you would be craving to get one.

quadibloc · « **Reply #14 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 12:21:56 »

Quote from: ripster;175958

I don't even have a clue what a Thinkpad 701 is.

Well, it's a black IBM laptop.

The thing about it is that it was an especially compact laptop, but the keyboard was still full sized. This was achieved by splitting the keyboard into two pieces, and, when you opened the laptop, the two pieces spread apart to fit together as a normal keyboard.

This was called the "butterfly" keyboard.

This is a laptop with a 486 in it, however, so it's strictly a collectors' item, not a practical laptop for current use with contemporary software and operating systems.

Wikipedia has a nice page about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard

itlnstln · « **Reply #15 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 12:26:39 »

No, go ahead. It needs to be said.

itlnstln · « **Reply #16 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 12:48:24 »

OK, now I have seen everything. Lego strippers. I don't know if this is epic or incredibly troubling. At least the Lego guy that looks like me is watching. I would be disappointed if he weren't.

kishy · « **Reply #17 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 12:49:21 »

Epicly troubling.

...or troublingly epic?!?!

itlnstln · « **Reply #18 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 12:50:07 »

Quote from: kishy;176145

Epicly troubling.

...or troublingly epic?!?!

Well done.

Nonmouse · « **Reply #19 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 13:06:59 »

Quote from: itlnstln;176144

At least the Lego guy that looks like me is watching. I would be disappointed if he weren't.

The one in the middle, right?

itlnstln · « **Reply #20 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 13:12:27 »

Yeah, that's him.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #21 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 17:49:09 »

Quote from: quadibloc;176133

Well, it's a black IBM laptop.

The thing about it is that it was an especially compact laptop, but the keyboard was still full sized. This was achieved by splitting the keyboard into two pieces, and, when you opened the laptop, the two pieces spread apart to fit together as a normal keyboard.

This was called the "butterfly" keyboard.

This is a laptop with a 486 in it, however, so it's strictly a collectors' item, not a practical laptop for current use with contemporary software and operating systems.

Wikipedia has a nice page about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_Butterfly_keyboard

Actually, I AM going to use it; it would make a mean portable legacy computer: I could play DOS games anywhere! I could sneak in a few games of stonekeep in math class

InSanCen · « **Reply #22 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 18:10:34 »

A month and you will be bored of it.

I feel old, I remember being in awe when these were announced. *sigh*

ricercar · « **Reply #23 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 18:33:01 »

Or ELITE or Wizardry.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #24 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 18:45:51 »

Quote from: InSanCen;176282

A month and you will be bored of it.

I feel old, I remember being in awe when these were announced. *sigh*

Bored of IBM equipment? Never! I find it's all exciting. I found some weird latches at the top of my intellistation today, with some more weird lavender handles; I'm going to see what they do.

hyperlinked · « **Reply #25 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 19:41:14 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;176299

Bored of IBM equipment? Never! I find it's all exciting.

Someday I see you going too far and I see you trying to smoke an IBM in a bong.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #26 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 20:01:15 »

Quote from: hyperlinked;176321

Someday I see you going too far and I see you trying to smoke an IBM in a bong.

And I see you eating from a steve jobs cheese plate:

Some iCheese, some iGrapes, and iStrawberries.

Ohhhh.... wait...

EDIT: I think Jobs has his middle finger up at the IBM logo; heh, well, we can't all make thinkpads and intellistations.

quadibloc · « **Reply #27 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 20:14:26 »

Quote from: ripster;176135

I'd say something but must resist.

If you're not editing video, yes, it's the shocking truth. A 386 running Windows 3.1 could do word processing and spreadsheets as well as anyone might want... with a lot less waste.

I am aware of the bloatware problem.

But even versions of Linux able to run software you might want to use require "contemporary hardware" these days. And for general purpose use, as one's only computer, one wants to be able to run any available application rather than being caught short.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #28 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 22:14:48 »

Quote from: ripster;176377

My Quad Q6700 OC'd to 3.6 is having a tough time with AVCHD video. It's great seeing all 4 cores running full bore - each pegged to the red on my system monitor.

Lego Porn. Somebody has to do it.

You should get this quad core IBM:
http://cgi.ebay.ca/IBM-SYSTEM-X3200-M2-SERVER-XEON-QUAD-CORE-2-66GHZ-X3350_W0QQitemZ270568998703QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_EN_Servers?hash=item3eff2b472f
It'll beat your current system

hyperlinked · « **Reply #29 on:** Mon, 26 April 2010, 23:29:04 »

Quote from: ripster;176377

My Quad Q6700 OC'd to 3.6 is having a tough time with AVCHD video. It's great seeing all 4 cores running full bore - each pegged to the red on my system monitor.

Lego Porn. Somebody has to do it.

I get to wait a bit on an 8-Core Harpertown Mac Pro too, but the thing that's really killed me with video is the storage size. WTF! 500 Gigs just vanish in no time though once I realized it doesn't really look all that different when "shrunken" down to 1080p and it consumes a fraction of the storage space of a converted AVCHD file.

InSanCen · « **Reply #30 on:** Tue, 27 April 2010, 01:26:38 »

Treat your Lego porn to some nice Video Processing goodness...

4P 12 core Magny Cours... 48 cores of goodness to soak up those steamy brick fantasies.

I got to play with one a little bit, and chucked some of my 1080P camcorder footage on it, (Ya know, "stress testing")... it's very very fast, but the price tag, while very cheap compared to what I am used to in serverland, is high compared to consumer territory.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #31 on:** Tue, 27 April 2010, 14:02:00 »

I would enjoy getting one of those butterfly laptops, loading on Windows 98, and hooking it up to wireless. If you chuck 128mb of RAM, or even 64, it'll work fine with the internet.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #32 on:** Tue, 27 April 2010, 18:46:22 »

Quote from: microsoft windows;176642

I would enjoy getting one of those butterfly laptops, loading on Windows 98, and hooking it up to wireless. If you chuck 128mb of RAM, or even 64, it'll work fine with the internet.

They only supported 32MB if I'm not mistaken. Two 16MB sticks.

No windows 98 for you! Although I love windows 98SE; I beefed up my 300GL, so it accepts all USB in 98, and you can even play warcraft 3 on it really fast.

ch_123 · « **Reply #33 on:** Wed, 28 April 2010, 13:17:22 »

40MB - 8MB was soldered in.

microsoft windows · « **Reply #34 on:** Wed, 28 April 2010, 16:28:32 »

They'd still run 98 ok. The internet will be a little slow, but it would still work.

kishy · « **Reply #35 on:** Wed, 28 April 2010, 16:53:45 »

I've got 98 on my Toughbook (PMMX 166, 32MB soldered in, 1GB HDD). Works pretty well, actually. I was surprised.

For full-on regular use I'd say go for 128 (and if the machine won't do it, class it as obsolete and only useful for hobby purposes).

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #36 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:34:39 »

Gueeessss what? I found someone locally who DOES indeed have a 701c and is willing to fork it over for $50. Yahoooo. Cheaper than my RAM which only wants to use 3070 instead of 4096 -_-

kishy · « **Reply #37 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:37:55 »

$50 for marginally useful laptop? Bad deal IMO, collectable or otherwise, since you can (if you apply yourself) potentially find one for less.

There's always someone who just wants to throw it out and would be happy to get $5 plus shipping instead.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #38 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:39:47 »

Quote from: kishy;177461

$50 for marginally useful laptop? Bad deal IMO, collectable or otherwise, since you can (if you apply yourself) potentially find one for less.

There's always someone who just wants to throw it out and would be happy to get $5 plus shipping instead.

I'm sick of things that are shipped, and there are ZERO on ebay for that matter. Maybe I'll try to bargain, but I really want that laptop baaaaad. He said he won't be including the power adapter, blah.

kishy · « **Reply #39 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:42:47 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;177462

I'm sick of things that are shipped, and there are ZERO on ebay for that matter. Maybe I'll try to bargain, but I really want that laptop baaaaad. He said he won't be including the power adapter, blah.

No power adapter and he wants $50? Nonsense.

$50 with everything is acceptable, at least. $50 and incomplete is ridiculous.

Nonmouse · « **Reply #40 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:45:11 »

Quote from: kishy;177464

No power adapter and he wants $50? Nonsense.

$50 with everything is acceptable, at least. $50 and incomplete is ridiculous.

"The value of a thing is the price it will bring."

kishy · « **Reply #41 on:** Thu, 29 April 2010, 23:46:58 »

Quote from: Nonmouse;177466

"The value of a thing is the price it will bring."

True as this can be, I like to ignore these things.

The fact of the matter is that with an item like this, there are people who assign no value to it, and will let it go for that price ($nil). With people like that existing, there is no sense paying $50...

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #42 on:** Fri, 30 April 2010, 15:41:31 »

Quote from: kishy;177467

True as this can be, I like to ignore these things.

The fact of the matter is that with an item like this, there are people who assign no value to it, and will let it go for that price ($nil). With people like that existing, there is no sense paying $50...

Yeah... I've been thinking that $50 is too much as well; especially with the whole power adapter issue. Maybe $25 or $30 at the most.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #43 on:** Mon, 03 May 2010, 02:19:08 »

I CAN'T RESIST! I think I may get it for $50.

ALTHOUGH, I'll need to get a decent external CD ROM drive for it; I read at bill morrow's thinkpad forums that you can get an 24 speeder for it... that's a bit fast, I like 10 speed the best.

So, let me recap, these things have 70Mhz, around 40MB max (or 65MB if you're really clever), 640x480 screen, which should be 320x240 compliant, and the super-awesome really cool keyboard.

Great! That's good enough to play DOOM, stonekeep, rayman 1, lands of lore, the old D&D games, moonstone a hard days knight, and other various classics which I enjoy.

I like 10x CD drives because they go nice and slow, I have like a 52x which sounds like a helicopter and actually blows air out of my 300GL (kishy would like that since he's so against the PC 300 case designs).

ricercar · « **Reply #44 on:** Mon, 03 May 2010, 19:13:27 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;178370

I have like a 52x which sounds like a helicopter and actually blows air out of my 300GL (kishy would like that since he's so against the PC 300 case designs).

Manufacturers had to reinforce the door/drawers of 52× optical drives because they spin so fast the shrapnel from a shattered disk would punch out the older door designs.

I had the CD soundtrack of Run Lola Run explode at 52×. The bang was amazing; scared the crap out of me. My kid was there, wouldn't put a DVD in the (replacement) drive for months. Yet a year later, when I actually took the drive apart to remove the CD slivers, it operated and is still in service.

EverythingIBM · « **Reply #45 on:** Mon, 03 May 2010, 21:38:09 »

Quote from: ricercar;178650

Manufacturers had to reinforce the door/drawers of 52× optical drives because they spin so fast the shrapnel from a shattered disk would punch out the older door designs.

I had the CD soundtrack of Run Lola Run explode at 52×. The bang was amazing; scared the crap out of me. My kid was there, wouldn't put a DVD in the (replacement) drive for months. Yet a year later, when I actually took the drive apart to remove the CD slivers, it operated and is still in service.

Interesting; I won't be putting my rare DOS games in there any time soon. It's too loud anyhow for real use. Unless I want to install age of empires 2 in a few minutes.

ricercar · « **Reply #46 on:** Wed, 05 May 2010, 18:04:35 »

Quote from: EverythingIBM;178681

Unless I want to install age of empires 2 in a few minutes.

Never forget the first time I installed XP on a 52× drive. I turned around and it's done in fewer than 12 minutes.

kishy · « **Reply #47 on:** Wed, 05 May 2010, 18:25:30 »

I LOVE the LG 52x (and even 40x) drives...fast and reliable. The LG examples are also the common disk-exploders, though.

ch_123 · « **Reply #48 on:** Thu, 06 May 2010, 03:14:32 »

Am I actually seeing someone make a case for using slow optical drives?

InSanCen · « **Reply #49 on:** Thu, 06 May 2010, 04:09:43 »

I had a 72x drive for some time (Kenwood IIRC, but it was a while ago). Strange thing was, it was very very quiet but incredibly (for a CD-ROM) fast.

I know that they don't actually spin at 52x, 72x etc, ad that's just numbers marketing, but I didn't expect it to be that quiet. It never exploded a disc.

I have had cheap 52x drives explode cheap blanks though. I suspect that they are not as well balanced compared to more expensive media.

News:

Author Topic: Thinkpad 701 (Read 13030 times)