Feeler: 701c to a good home

[qviri]

I have a 701c in full working condition as far as electronics are concerned. Aesthetically it needs a bit of tender loving care. I am not using it, and I'm wondering if someone here is interested in restoring it to a better condition than it's in now.

The slide-out keyboard works perfectly; the keys themselves are a little hard to press compared to my X-series Thinkpads, but they do register fine. The screen looks good, it may have a dead pixel or two - I don't remember right now - but inverting the colours works fine. The PCMCIA slot covers are missing, as is a floppy connector cover and the battery (works fine on a AC adapter). One of the screen latches is broken off, but the screen stays in place fine with the other one. Hinges are tight. I have the port replicator and the cover for its connector is still in place, although one of the tabs holding the replicator in place has broken off. It still stays in its place, just needs a little care to not knock it out. The top lid has a large red "flammable" sticker that looks like it won't come off easily, and some scratches along the edges. IBM designed the laptop with Torx screws, and while trying to undo them with a Philips I may have stripped one or two - or they may still work fine with a properly-sized Torx, I do not know. I don't own a good camera, but pictures can probably be arranged for someone interested.

Specs wise: 486DX4 75 MHz, 16 MB of RAM, 720 MB HDD, and the rest as stated on thinkwiki. It has a version of Red Hat Linux installed; command-line is fine, but KDE is slow and not too well-suited to the 640*480 screen. It should run Windows 9x acceptably, but drivers are anyone's guess.

I bought it last February (I think) and I meant to use it for something productive, but it's not happening so far. I want to send it off to someone who will actually use it for something or fix it up aesthetically; I'd hate to see a working laptop that's survived 12 years go for parts. I will basically be looking for enough to cover shipping, as this is what I myself have paid. I'm open to shipping anywhere, but people in North America may have an easier time finding parts to fix it up.

Owning a MoMA-featured laptop is great, but I'm not making much use and I've been trying to slim down on possessions. If someone would like to give this machine a home it deserves, please let me know.


edit: I forgot that I also have a floppy drive for this machine. I have not tested it, but I have no reason to believe it doesn't work.

I have also uploaded some really bad pictures to http://qviri.net/misc/flap/. Please excuse the quality as these are taken with a low quality webcam. The idea is to show what's broken and missing. The laptop is standard IBM black and all.

[Thomcat]

Bump for a great project! This still can serve a useful purpose (word processing, email even!).

If no one else wants it, drop me a line and I'll see if I have time to revive this classic.

[ThinkPad]

hey im interested in this. I have a 701c which is also semi working, I think putting the two together should create a perfectly working 701c!

[carbon_unit]

I'll give it a shot if it is still available.

[Jathm]

I would love to have this great piece of Thinkpad history. I know i could give it a good home and i would definitely work on restoring it to its former glory.

drop me a pm if you haven't already parted with it.

-James

[qviri]

Thanks for the messages, everyone. I wasn't expecting more than one person to be interested, so this is a tiny bit overwhelming. I'll get back to you over the weekend.