Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And this delightful thing is the IBM
ThinkPad 701C, released in March of 1995 starting at a price of
$3,700 US dollars. And it has one of the best
mechanical gimmicks of any computer ever made.
*sliding, clicking in place of the mechanism*
Haha, let's look at that again!
*more sounds of mechanical satisfaction*
That is one of the most satisfying combinations of sight, sound, and feeling I've
experienced in a piece of technology. And a big thanks to Sam for letting me
borrow this fantastic machine for this video. Because yeah these are not easy to
come by, especially in his decent shape as this one is. And it really is all
because of that innovative keyboard mechanism. The 701 ThinkPads were the
only ones to have ever come with this keyboard, which by the way was branded as
the TrackWrite by IBM, but it's more widely known as "the Butterfly
Keyboard." Yeah I just can't stop messing with this and looking at it. And even looking
closer here, look at this piece of metal that moves around when you open or
close the computer. The lid moves against this metal piece right here which slides
up against another piece and then the keyboard's two halves either open or
closed in unison. Ah it's wonderful, and so was the person that originally
conceived of the idea: the late inventor and mechanical engineer Dr. John Karidis,
who thought up the idea by playing with building blocks with his daughter. The
story goes there were two triangular pieces that, when moved side to side, gave
him the idea that IBM was looking for for a keyboard that could fold up and
become smaller. He immediately jotted down the idea and
went back to the IBM Research Division in Westchester County, New York. And in
every sense of the phrase it became an instant hit with the design receiving 27
different awards. And there's even one on permanent display at the Manhattan
Museum of Modern Art, one of the very few computers to have that honor.
"It belongs in a museum," indeed! But before we dive into more technical details
let's take a trip back to the first half of the 1990s, where there was a growing
industry trend of releasing ultra portable notebook computers, often
referred to as subnotebooks. Machines like the Compaq Contura Aero, the
Gateway Handbook, the HP OmniBook, and the Toshiba Libretto were notable
examples, all of which attempted to combine the usefulness of MS-DOS and
Windows 3.1 with the smallest footprint and lightest weight possible, combined
with the color LCD screens of the day which ranged anywhere from seven to nine
inches or so. And of course there were several compromises that had to be made
in order to make this happen, such as removing standard sized parallel and
serial ports and all sorts of other ports, forgoing the internal floppy drive,
and relying on docking stations and external add-ons to reintroduce those
features as the user desired. And another obvious way to bring down the size was
to decrease the physical dimensions of the keyboard itself, fitting more in line
with the 4:3 aspect ratio of the displays so as to minimize bezels,
but also making the keys smaller and more cramped. Naturally IBM wanted in on
the action and experimented with the form factor as well with machines like
the IBM ThinkPad 500 in 1993. But as with many subnotebooks the compromised
keyboard and screen meant that it was less comfortable to use for any length
of time for any serious work. And considering this was geared largely
towards business users on the go this was not great. And that's why the
introduction of the TrackWrite keyboard made so much sense for a particular need
at a particular time in the 90s. By packing away the keyboard when the unit
was closed you could have both the small footprint for portability and have a
full-sized keyboard for ease of use. And then combined with a slightly larger VGA
display that was brighter and sharper than previous models, and the 701 was
precisely the right computer for precisely the right moment.
Well, a portion of the right moment at least, because while it earned plenty of praise
and actually became the best-selling notebook of 1995, it only
lasted about a year on the market. IBM announced to the 701 line's
discontinuation in February of 1996, ceasing production in June of the same
year. And there were a couple of reasons for that. For one thing the 701 was
originally meant to come out in 1994 right at the height of the 90s subnotebook
craze. It would have made plenty of sense then but by the time it was on the
market in 1995 customer preferences and available technology were quickly
changing and left it behind. Within a matter of months,
the 701 lost a lot of its appeal with the arrival of well-built 12 inch LCD
panels, which were not only bigger and more desirable, but they also fit in with
a full-size keyboard a little bit more. To quote the board's creator, mister
Karidis: "the butterfly keyboard was no longer necessary because people moved to
larger displays. Where the butterfly approach makes sense is where you want the
largest keyboard possible in combination with an 8 or 10 inch display." And if you
look at reviews from the time period they often mention that the 701 was also
hampered by the 486 CPUs offered with the device. Depending on your benchmark
of choice even the fastest 75 megahertz DX4 CPU benchmarked at
about the same speed as competing systems' 50 megahertz DX2. The 701 also
used nickel-cadmium batteries, which were rather dated by 1995 and only lasted one
hour and 40 minutes or so when two hours was considered by many as the minimum
acceptable runtime. But that sure didn't stop people from buying it for the time
it was on the market and becoming quite the computing collectible in later years.
And not just collectible in a desirable sense, these are not cheap either,
currently running anywhere from $400 to $900 for a nice 701C and a bit less
than half that for a 701CS model. Speaking of which, yeah, there were two
main models. The main differences between the C and the CS is that the C came with
a 10.4 inch TFT active-matrix LCD screen while the CS used a dual scan
LCD screen of the same size. They both have a native resolution of 640x480
but the CS model's dual scan monitor was a
cheaper and lower quality type of passive-matrix panel that isn't suited
for much beyond static imagery. But between the two models there were a
broad range of configurations available, starting with the processor which was an
Intel 486 in either the DX2 or DX4 models running at 50 or 75
megahertz, respectively. The one I have comes with the latter. You also have the
option of four or eight megabytes of RAM installed onboard and it supports up to
32 megs of additional RAM. As for the hard drive you got the option of 360 or
540 megabytes with a 720 meg upgrade option available from IBM. And you had a
choice between a couple operating systems, this one being configured with
PC-DOS 6.3 and Windows 3.11
*startup sounds commence, with hard drive noises and PC speaker beeping*
*Windows 3.11 "tada!" startup sound plays*
Or, OS/2 Warp was available as an option on the
75 megahertz model. You also get a one megabyte CT65545
VESA local bus graphics chipset, a 16-bit ES688 AudioDrive Sound Blaster
Pro compatible audio chipset, a 14.4k data/fax modem, an IRDA 1.0
compatible infrared communications interface, a single Type 3 or two Type 2
PCMCIA slots, as well as a connection for a three and a half inch ThinkPad
external floppy disk drive -- which is a bit annoying since that particular drive
is exclusive to these machines. Something else to keep in mind if you're looking
for a 701 are the battery issues, which of course is common across all sorts of
older computers like this. But in particular the NiCad battery that they
used in these tends to leak pretty badly, sometimes damaging the internals. But
there are some guides online showing you how to rebuild these batteries using
rechargeable AAs. Not something I've done but you know, there it is.
Another battery that is also a pain to deal with is the CMOS battery. The 701
uses a Varta V30H, or sometimes a V40H I gather, which is a 1.2 volt
43 mAh button cell battery. And that is soldered directly to the bottom
of one of the motherboard layers, that's fun. You can also use a more standard
CR2032 or BR1225 battery, but you still need to solder it to the board so
ideally you'll want one with soldering legs already attached. Also it is worth
noting that the case on these is notoriously easy to damage these days.
As with many IBM ThinkPads of the era it uses a soft kind of rubbery finish, but
over the years it started to deteriorate and has gotten a little gummy and weird.
So I kind of feel like I'm walking on eggshells every time I set it up and
start using it, just trying so hard not to scuff it up. Doubly so since I'm only
borrowing this unit. But disregarding that bit of anxiety using the 701C is
quite normal. Once you get past the keyboard mechanism it really is just a
mid-90s ThinkPad with a classic TrackPoint nub and the classic ThinkPad
keys and key mechanisms. And yeah, it's just a pleasure to use. And it has that nice VGA
display here, at least on this TFT version. 256 color graphics on a portable
computer in 1995 yeah, this is a pretty good example all things considered. And
you get a lovely Sound Blaster-compatible sound chip so it's pretty
fantastic for playing mid-90s DOS games!
*music and sound effects from various MS-DOS games play for a while*
Well, it's pretty fantastic if you can actually get the games on there in the
first place, and that can be a bit of an ordeal if you just have the computer
itself. After all, at the end of the day it is a mid-90s subnotebook and all the
missing features means getting data onto or off of the machine is a chore. If you
don't have a ThinkPad disk drive with the proper 701-compatible cable, which I
don't, then that is just unfortunate. And of course, it doesn't have a serial or
parallel port unless you attach a dock or a port replicator, like this IBM
MultiPort II, which adds a very handy pass-through for PS/2 keyboard and mouse
connection, a serial and parallel port, audio in and out ports, VGA out, and a DC
power connector. This thing is a must-have for this system as far as I'm
concerned, especially if you're not a big fan of the built-in TrackPoint mouse nub
and want to use another pointing device. Or dare I say it, another keyboard, hrmm.
And you may also be able to use the PCMCIA slots to hook in other storage
devices and adapters, provided they're compatible with the operating system
that's installed on the computer. And in my case very few things worked. So yeah,
it really does end up being a bit of a commitment to want to use the 701C for
very long. As much of a pleasure as it is in the short term to use, it's also one
of the least enjoyable ThinkPads to use, just due to all the limitations of the
hardware. However, that is just not the point! There are plenty of great IBM
ThinkPads that type well, have tons of built-in slots and ports and features
and whatnot, but none of them except these 701 have the TrackWrite keyboard.
And that counts for an awful lot when so many of the other ThinikPads tend to
blur together a bit. It's just so satisfying to look at and to feel and to
show off and, of course, to put in a YouTube video. So I hope that you enjoyed
checking out this legend of computer!
And if you did enjoy this video then great!
I'm glad to hear it, I love covering old IBM computers and
just computers and hardware and software of all kinds. So if you're into
that kind of thing, stick around, LGR is your channel. And as per usual I thank
you very much for watching!