ThinkPad laptops are 20 years old!

“You will surely notice a little red thing located in the center of the keyboard. This is Trackpoint II, and at the moment it is the most convenient and user-friendly control device in the industry. A small rubber joystick, resembling a pencil eraser, is located between the G and H buttons, and works in tandem with two buttons under the space bar. ”

In December 1992, when describing the latest IBM ThinkPad 700c released two months earlier, the PC Magazine columnist had to pay particular attention to the trackpoint, which is the newest cursor control tool that competed with the trackball and the usual external mouse. Since then, the trackpoint has become one of the most characteristic features of the ThinkPad notebook line, which recently turned exactly 20 years old. In honor of this event, I want to talk about several outstanding models of the series.

ThinkPad 700c
In October 1992, IBM introduced five models of the ThinkPad series and the 700s among them was the most sophisticated, and the only one with a color TFT display! The 10.4-inch matrix was the largest available at the time, and despite the rather mediocre by modern standards contrast of 100 to 1, in the reviews and reviews of the first users, Usenet was called “bright, with large viewing angles, ideal for presentations.


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Speaking of processors. Comparing two processors with a difference of 20 years is quite problematic. Focusing only on the frequency is not very correct, but if so, then my working ThinkPad X220 is “faster” 700s 112 times. This is if you take the nominal frequency of the processor Core i7-2640M at 2800 MHz. And if you consider Turbo Boost (3500 MHz), then altogether - 140 times. Not to mention the fact that the processor is dual-core. Much more interesting results in the test SuperPI, which uses only one core. So, a modern laptop calculates the number of Pi to one million decimal places in 11.7 seconds. A computer with the same processor used in 700s - 2 days 10 hours 47 minutes and 30 seconds! And this already gives a performance increase of 18 thousand times.

The trackpoint was not in ThinkPad laptops at once. "Red thing" was developed since 1984. The creator of the trackpoint, Ted Selker, then still an employee of the famous Xerox PARC laboratory, tried to solve the problem that is still relevant: transferring the hand from the keyboard to the mouse and back takes time, and considerable time. The same can be said about modern touchpads. However, in the early ThinkPad samples, more common trackballs were used. One of the cons of trackpoint was that it integrates into the keyboard. There were concerns that the convenience of typing would decrease, and for IBM typing comfort was one of the important values ​​of the company, which was also the manufacturer of the popular IBM Selectric typewriters. Nevertheless, the trackpoint was adopted as a standard for ThinkPad notebooks, and to this day is the hallmark of the notebook series. What this old advertising page clearly shows here:



By the way, the younger version of the laptop is advertised, which still works for me .

ThinkPad 755C
Model 1994, produced in three different versions. On them it is possible to estimate on what buyers of laptops could save. The cheapest version for $ 2,800 was equipped with a 170-megabyte hard drive and a 486 DX2 50 MHz processor. The most expensive one had a more powerful 486 DX4 75 MHz processor and a 540 MB hard disk.

A separate special version was called a “multimedia station” and was equipped (for the first time in the world!) With a two-speed CD-ROM drive. The kit also included a docking station with a five-inch (!) Expansion slot. Cost - 6400 dollars! But that's not all. For a fee of $ 2,000, the built-in drive could be replaced with a module that allows you to transfer data over the cellular network (analog standard AMPS) at a speed of 14.4 kilobits per second.
And this is the first ThinkPad, which, after tests for radiation exposure and direct exposure to fire, was sent into space.

ThinkPad 701c



Compared with the ThinkPad 700c, released in 1995, the ThinkPad 701c lost 1.4 pounds and ... went up by $ 1,000, and also got a full-fledged sound card. But most of all, he was remembered for his unique keyboard. She stood for the dimensions of the laptop and completely hid inside in the closed position, due to a special mechanism. This is best demonstrated in the commercial of those times:



The model with a fairly decent battery life (on average, 3 hours from the built-in nickel-cadmium battery) received a favorable assessment in the computer press, despite the cost and the fact that by that time new, more powerful Intel Pentium processors were available. However, the Intel 486 DX4 75 MHz processor was very fast for those times. The backlog of modern models has also significantly decreased - a similar computer counts 1 million characters in SuperPI for 1 hour 8 minutes 21 seconds (the difference with Core i7 is 350 times, in frequency - 37.3 or 46.6 times).

ThinkPad 240X



Extraordinary representative of the new century, released in June 2000. It was equipped in the top configuration with a Mobile Pentium III 500 MHz processor, 64 megabytes of RAM and a 10.4-inch screen with a resolution of 800x600. Hard disk - 6 or 12 gigabytes. A distinctive feature of this model was the minimum weight - 1.35 kg. Approximately the same weighs the modern ThinkPad X230, albeit already with a 12.5-inch display. In the same year, the ThinkPad i-series was introduced, for the first time in the world equipped with a WiFi module.

ThinkPad Z61m



This laptop was released in May 2006, after the acquisition of the IBM computer unit by Lenovo. This model is already “AD”, with a dual-core Intel Core Duo processor, a 100-gigabyte hard drive and an optional 3G module. The uniqueness of this model lies in the material of the display lid - it is titanium!

What's next?
In the third quarter of this year, Lenovo for the first time ranked first in the personal computer market in the world. Over the past few years, we have often been the only company that has shown growth in the notebook market. It is no secret that the market for classic computers is no longer growing at such a pace as before, and by the end of 2012 a slight drop in sales is predicted. Someone is talking about the beginning of the Post PC era. We believe that it is more correct to call the new state of things the PC + era. Despite the growing popularity of tablets and smartphones, the main tool for creating content remains a laptop or desktop computer. Lenovo launches all three types of devices, and also offers mobile devices that have common features of laptops and tablets:



On the new models-transformers ThinkPad, we will tell very soon. Stay in touch!