- For more on this, the book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/483933.ThinkPad
is highly recommended.
Also, Jerry Kaplan's wonderful:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1171250.Startup
touches a bit on the early history of it as a pen computer project.
Still have my ThinkPad 755c, and still a bit bummed that I was never able to get OpenSTEP to run on it. (It's worth noting that when David Pogue complained of Steve Jobs using a ThinkPad after the purchase of NeXT by Apple that it was running NeXTstep and not Windows 95 as he claimed.)
Really wish the Lenovo Yogabook 9i was a ThinkPad model (so that it would have a Trackpoint) and that it used Wacom EMR stylus technology --- wouldn't've been able to resist that.
by dundercoder
2 subcomments
- I have a p50 or p51, it’s so heavy, just a tank. I think they called it the portable workstation. I have LOVED this thing. It ran any Linux distribution I needed, was speedy, keyboard never missed, it’s in a closet now in headless mode running proxmox.
- I just had my 25th ThinkPad anniversary, which started with a ThinkPad that was 5(?) years old at the time, and which I carried all around town (parks, cafes, student centers, libraries), every day, wrapped in a towel in my bag: https://www.neilvandyke.org/linux-thinkpad-560e/
ThinkPad was a very expensive taste. The key to being affordable to a poor student or open source developer was to acquire gently-used older models, keep them working, and run Linux. All useful skills, which I still apply.
At MIT, Ted Selker (TrackPoint inventor mentioned in the article) had some retail boxes of the IBM SpaceSaver II TrackPoint keyboard on a shelf in his office, and one time he casually offered to give me one. I had to decline, since I craved that exact keyboard, knew exactly how much they cost, and couldn't accept such an expensive gift. They still fetch a good price used, and their looks aged pretty well (the alternative at the time was almost certainly a beige or light gray 104-key): https://www.ebay.com/itm/227342514769
- I'm a fan of thinkpads but I didn't much like the "AI" branding as of late. I tried to look at what it means exactly and all I could find is that nobody actually knows. I still ended up purchasing one because it was a reasonable price and it could run Linux flawlessly. My experience with their pre-purchase sales team was not good and almost made me go somewhere else.
The build quality has improved over the past 5 generations or so. It was getting too plastic-y and felt brittle. Nothing like the original thinkpads though, those were built like bricks.
by tecoholic
4 subcomments
- I would have bought one if they weren’t so pricey for the spec they ship. Similar specs on a IdeaPad goes I think something like 40% cheaper or more.
I understand people loving heavy duty ones. But the ones I have run into in the past had poorer screens and were just clunky to carry around. What’s the trade off here? Why do people still want a Thinkpad.
Edit: I just thought of one reason, some specs are not available in Ideapads due the power consumption and cooling needs I think. So Thinkpads on the lower end aren’t worth it?
- I've recently purchased my first ThinkPad with intel ultra series 2 chip. Especially the weight is impressive. It weighs less than 1 kg! It's a fabulous machine. I appreciate that it has linux kernel modules dedicated to thinkpad family, which, I believe, is a culmination of decades of users' love described in this article.
- I repaired some of the early 700’s at IBM when they were still mostly in the hands of upper execs and no official repair manuals had been released. I’d get random unit showing up at our Madison Heights, MI repair depot addressed to me from names I only vaguely recognized.
by jasoneckert
0 subcomment
- I lived through this timeline, and with ThinkPads from different eras. Throughout, they were always considered in my science and computer science circles as "premium" laptops with excellent build quality, keyboards, and performance. The performance of my latest one (a P-series) always surprised me given the hardware specs.
- Would have been interesting if not very AI generated :(
by DonHopkins
1 subcomments
- I loved my 760C, with a trackpoint so hot they had to make it red, 90 MhZ, 12" 800x600 16 bit color screen, Mwave DSP (audio, fax modem), tilt up keyboard with lego-like modular bento bays for battery, floppy, hd, cd, magnesium body, soft touch black coating that melted with age.
- I still have my x61s, T460p, and currently running a T14 Gen 3. The x61s is just sitting there awaiting some future project. Hopefully it happens someday. The T460p has become a homelab server. I never should have sold my W500, that thing was awesome. I also have an 11e which is my burner Windows machine for doing sketchy stuff with cars.
by iririririr
0 subcomment
- Can someone explain how he is running inference at decent speeds on a CPU or integrated mobile gpu? This seems to be the most important part that he just fails to mention anything about.
by zetalyrae
1 subcomments
- Do people not realize what they do to their reputation when they publish bottom-of-the-barrel, unedited AI slop under their own name?
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