Lenovo ThinkPad 701

I had one! I bought a used IBM ThinkPad 701 in a Hong Kong computer market in 1996 while backpacking through China and Southeast Asia. I think it was $800 or $900. Although primitive by today's standards, it was a solid little laptop that served me well for the tasks I was engaged in at the time … writing, Web surfing (on a very slow modem), learning HTML, and playing Doom. It had a color screen, a big improvement over the greyscale screen I had on my previous laptop (no name Taiwanese brand that cost $2000 new!) The 701 also easily fit in a book bag, although it was a bit thick and heavy. There are some more photos and historical information about the 701 here: http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/

I did Thinkpad tech support at IBM right around the time these were discontinued. Great machine, rarely had any problems aside from getting drivers and IRQs configured when folks decided to install Win95

Coincidentally, I bought one of these recently and it was delivered this morning. Including the MultiPort II port replicator and floppy drive. Boots and runs fine (sans some unhappy memory locations and dead CMOS). Need to clone the disk so I can poke around on the stuff still on it. It's got NetWare on it, excel, word, powerpoint, netscape navigator, and mosaic. Somewhat spooked about spinning it up too many times. The keyboard mechanism is much more satisfying than I expected. Jealous of anyone who got to use one when they were new.

I had one of these in high school when it was already considered old. I had gotten it from someone who had moved on to a newer laptop. I really regret not keeping this around, I did not realise back then what a special piece of hardware this was!

This was my first laptop. I was a junior tech and all the senior VPs, etc. had them and hated them (they were execu-toys). One of the VPs gave me his in trade for a "normal" laptop plus a desktop in his office. I had that thing for years.

I owned one of these back in the day and loved it. Not long ago I did a total restoration of one: https://blog.jgc.org/2023/12/restoration-of-ibm-thinkpad-701...

I had one just as they were leaving the retail market. I loved that compact little guy. Trackpoint nub and full-size keyboard, very lightweight for the time, and I was mostly programming in EMACS via a terminal emulator when I wasn't MUDding via terminal emulator or writing specs.

On the 10" size, I think few can beat the design of an IBM 701 [1] with its butterfly keyboard. I would be cool if this were to make a comeback: a 10" screen couple with a 12" keyboard. The Sony Vaio P laptops were also cool with their 8" wide screens, but their keyboards were somewhat cramped. [2]. At the 8" size category, a Pixel 9 Pro Fold coupled with a decent foldable keyboard, perhaps something like [3], is a killer combination. My personal favorite keyboard in the foldable category was the TextBlade [4], which, sadly, never materialized. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinkPad_701 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series [3] https://www.amazon.com/ProtoArc-Ergonomic-Foldable-XK03-Blue... [4] https://www.fastcompany.com/91249548/waytools-textblade-pock...

Well, I run a retro-computing web site ( https://twostopbits.com/ ) based on the Hacker News Arc code ( https://github.com/jgrahamc/twostopbits ) and the site makes me neither feel young or old. And not even particularly nostalgic. I mostly remember things I had great fun with a long time ago and it's fun to read about them again. I do like the preservation part of retro computing and helping keep things working, but even that is partly just personal satisfaction of making something work (again). For example: https://blog.jgc.org/2023/12/restoration-of-ibm-thinkpad-701...