Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today I have a smaller kind of thing,
just a neat little piece of history to share and something a little easier to
edit while I'm working on more involved video projects. And that is the original
IBM ThinkPad, technically speaking! I'm not trying to clickbait you, it really is
just an IBM pad that says "THINK" on it, hence it being colloquially known as the
"think pad." Yeah this is a real thing, long before IBM started selling
ThinkPad computers the company distributed these little note pads to its employees,
salesmen, and various associates. They referred to them as the "Pocket-sized
Think Jotter" and it measures three inches by four and a half inches, or about the
size of a billfold wallet. A nice compact little thing that's just the right size
for fitting into a shirt pocket. And being that this was distributed at IBM
you know there were plenty of dress shirts with pockets to fill! A convenient
spot to keep such a thing, so whenever you were struck with a brilliant idea
for a new kind of cash register mechanism or something, you could whip
out a pen and jot it down because you're someone that THINKS. And whenever you
used up the paper inside IBM would provide refills if you wrote to the
nearest IBM office. Or in the case of my particular pad the eastern regional
headquarters on Madison Avenue in New York City. Yeah I just like the design of
this a whole lot. Earlier ones I believe were actual leather with stitching and
everything, this one's not. But it still has a satisfying leatherette texture with
shiny gilded edges to the paper, each sheet of which is just thick enough not
to let most inks seep through. And then there's the embossed golden lettering on
the front that simultaneously screams "classy" and "serious business" like only an
IBM product could. And I'm not sure how old this particular Think Jotter is but
the place I bought it from said it's from the mid-1950s and yeah, it sure
smells like it. *SNIFF!* Ah, it has that unmistakable aroma of a mid-20th century
book, with the breaking down of various components in the paper and the decades
old mustiness mixing together to provide that oddly intoxicating nose feel.
Sometimes I just like going to antique stores and libraries to smell this and
yeah here we go: you got that aroma in the palm of your
hand and it's awesome. While I don't know how old this one in particular is, what I
know for sure is that IBM distributed these Think jotters throughout most of
the 20th century. And the whole concept was not only to provide somewhere for
their IBMers to jot down any spur-of-the-moment ideas, but also to
encourage them to THINK. Just, THINK for a second before doing anything rash and
non-IBM-like. "Think" was more than just a slogan, it was a corporate culture and a
philosophy for doing business for them. And it was first used by Thomas John
Watson senior in 1911, back before he was at IBM and even before IBM was IBM. They
were still known as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company, or CTR.
Apparently during a particularly lackluster sales meeting with National
Cash Register, Watson spoke up, saying: "The trouble with everyone of us is that we
don't think enough. Knowledge is the result of thought, and thought is the
keynote of success in this business or any business. We don't get paid for working
with our feet -- we get paid for working with our heads. So basically it was a
more businesslike way of saying: *Biff Tannen:* "Hey! Think, McFly, Think!"
Then when Mr. Watson arrived at CTR a few
years later he brought his THINK philosophy with him. And it also made for
quite the striking and iconic trademark and ended up being used on tons of IBM
signs, marketing, exhibits, merchandise and all sorts of stuff throughout the years.
And of course there were the THINK notepads which came in various shades of
orange and brown originally, and then black like the one I have. And featured
slightly different lettering over the decades in terms of size and such.
Sometimes it had an IBM logo on the back, sometimes not, but that overall aesthetic
of "THINK" stayed pretty much the same. And then that brings us to the ThinkPad
computer series, which in particular was quite directly influenced by the THINK
notepad. The story goes that when what would become the ThinkPad was in
development, IBM employee Denny Wainwright had a Think notepad in his
pocket. And inspired by that pad he thought "Think Pad" made sense for a
computer. Especially in this case seeing as the product they were naming was not
a laptop, but a tablet with a stylus pen, what would become known as the ThinkPad 700T.
This is really kind of a digital successor to the original THINK notepad
anyway, so it made sense. However, IBM's corporate naming committee
didn't like it. Initially there was an issue with the computer being known
simply by a name and not a number, how un-IBM was that!
Most every computer was known by a three or four digit number.
They also sold so many products overseas that there was a concern that
"ThinkPad" wouldn't translate super easily into different languages. However, the name
made it into the press while the device was still in development and they
friggin loved it, so it just kind of stuck. They went with
the name and the ThinkPad line became one of the most famous portable computer
series. That's a story for another day but anyway yeah, the THINK notepad, man.
There's just something supremely satisfying about these things while also
being a little bit off-putting if I'm honest. It almost comes across as
speaking down to you, reprimanding you for not doing something so simple as
putting two thoughts together. But being vaguely condescending or not, at the same
time I just like notepads and having one from old-school IBM is kind of neat as
someone who enjoys their retro PCs. And if you want to enjoy one yourself it
turns out finding originals secondhand, even new-old-stock ones, is not too
difficult either, with a nice one ranging anywhere from 10 to 20 bucks online
currently. And they remain popular enough that IBM actually still sells new
versions of them, complete with refill packs, as well as a crapload of other
"Think" merchandise that I had no idea about until I was starting to make this
video. And now I kind of want some of it but then again I don't corporate culture
kind of weirds me out, but anyway yeah. That's about it for this video! It's just
a little piece of tech history that I find fascinating and felt like sharing,
and I hope that you enjoyed taking a look as well!
And if you did enjoy this then cool. It's a little simpler and shorter than I
normally do but hopefully you enjoyed enough to maybe want to see some more.
And there are new videos coming out every Monday and Friday here on LGR.
And as always thank you very much for watching!