Thinkpads Forum

Unit is nearly pristine. 2 hard drives: 2 gig and 540 meg with 2 caddies. The battery is good for a couple minutes: bad memory effect in the Ni-Cad. I got an "as is" Ni-Mh from ebay on the way ($5 so my hopes are not high) and that will be included but it may be dead or it may work fine. It has a 560-type compact 2-prong AC adapter, it has the floppy but no docking station or printer cable. I would like to ship it formatted because I think anybody who buys it from here will want to install his own OS anyway. I do have Windows 95A on the 13 floppies with a COA if anybody is interested in that, and I also have Windows 3.1 on floppies. It would be cool to put 3.1 on the 540 and 95B on the 2 gig. Windows 98 is a stretch for the Butterfly. Right now the 540 has Windows 95B and the 2 gig has Windows 98SE and Office 97. I will also include a 3Com 10-Base-T pc card NIC with cable and a small "Compaq" zippered slipcase, black. I rebuilt this myself motherboard up and the lower pcmcia slot frame was bent and blocks a card from sliding in but the upper slot works fine. If you have worked with these you know it is real hard to free up enough resources to have 2 pc cards, infrared and everything else working at the same time anyway. I never have wanted for 2 pc card slots. I will give a no-DOA warranty. I want this to go to somebody who appreciates these wonderful laptops. I am looking to get about $135 but I will negotiate. I have a nearly 800+ ebay rating but I am not a commercial laptop seller, Bill. My ebay handle is also hwattys. Paypal is the strongly preferred payment method. For full disclosure I had this up on ebay at $99 with only the one battery and only the 540 drive and it did not sell. Item # 6725228787. Thanks.

the 701 was a classic thinkpad..

many are kept and still used for basic jobs..

FWIW, i suggest W95B and a non-cardbuss PCMCIA card for LAN..

I used a 701C for several years as a print server, among other things..

and, believe it or not i have several in excellent operating condition and a dozen or so just sitting in a stack..

further i still have a few new keyboards..!

No takers? How about this...I just found a store selling Belkin 802.11b wi-fi pc cards 16 bit for $12 each...At $145 including lower 48 USA shipping I will include everything mentioned above and the wireless card, which I am using right now to post this. These are still the coolest Starbucks machines ever made.

Man, I am tempted... Can you e-mail me a pic or two, just so I can see its condition?? ... e-mail to:
74124.2506@compuserve.com

Thanks

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... RK:MEUS:IT


Above is a link to the old auction with an actual picture of the Butterfly with the Bliss desktop from Windows XP I converted to .bmp for Windows 95. Also a picture of the carry case and the floppy.

How hard is it to swap out the hard drives? I'm interested as I'm a Thinkpad connoisseur of sorts...had a 380D (memory slot is broken so with 16RAM, so it's pitiful), a 365X (Japanese model with Japanese keyboard, and USB!), a Thinkpad 535 (also Japanese) with forced RAM upgrade to 80MB (ultra small keyboard...fun to travel with...has TFT 8" display!), a 600E (400mhz with combo drive) and now a T30 (2.0ghz & slot load multiburner). Would love to add this butterfly TP to my collection, but would like to be able to swap the hard drives fairly easily. Since loading the OS on these systems would be problematic with no CDrom, if I buy this from you I'd like for you to keep the OS's intact. I have licenses for all the OS/ and Office '97 you mention so that shouldn't be an issue...if you want me to change the key codes to fit my licenses I'll do that.

The hard drives are modular. You flip the battery switch pop out the battery and the hard drive caddy slides out with no tools. Here is a link to a picture I just took. I am more than happy to leave the OSes on the hard drives. If you will give me a Keycode I will even put fresh on for you. I put the .cabs on the hard drives with an external usb adapter so it is no problem although Windows 98 takes forever to load an a 486/75 and as Bill says if we are starting from scratch I advise Windows 95B as your best OS. You might need 98 to use the wi-fi card. I will try installing it on the Windows 95 system and let you know. Would I be shipping to Japan?
ftp://members.aol.com/hwattys/bflyhdds.jpg

Thanks for all of your efforts....Am still trying to justify buying yet another ThinkPad...oh well...however, if I decide to buy this one, you will not be shipping to Japan...I live in east Tennessee (just happen to have grown up there and work at a Japanese high school over here)

In my humble opinion no Thinkpad collection is complete without a Butterfly. I did confirm the wi-fi card is only compatible with Windows 98SE and above. I will let everytbody know how the second battery works when it arrives.

Is 40MB RAM the most this computer can be upgraded? I know it will be like working in slow motion doing anything more than word processing...might be worth putting Word for Windows CE on it rather than Word '97. How does it perform with Wireless internet connection? I assume you are connected to broadband with it?

Yes I am connected to cable modem via wi-fi and it is not too bad. It is pokey but useable. Just for old times sake I took it to work on Friday and typed a document on it using Word 97. It worked well; no keyboard hesitation although 640 x 480 takes some getting reaquainted. Mp3s are not possible but I did copy the Windows 2000 3D Pinball game across my network to it and it plays the game fine. The ball flies around fast and the sounds work without any lag. I was a bit surprised. 40 megs is the official max. A seller called cuiinc had some 64 meg modules for it on ebay. When you put in one of those you lose the 8 megs onboard so you have a total of 64 megs. He also had some motherboards made from a AMD 586 133 mhz cpu which is Pentium class. If this does not sell I am going to get one of those and install it. When I bought this the ide controller on the motherboard was whacked and I got the replacement oem motherboard from the same guy. He said he would be making some more 133s for it in a couple months.

Dang...you're fast at answering your posts...like me, you must hang out at your computer a whole lot.

The AMD motherboard sounds very intersting. Will all the peripherals function after the upgrade, do you think? How much do you think this upgrade will cost? With this in mind, if I end up buying your TP, would you be willing to hook me up with this guy who does this? Does he have a website where he explains what he does to the butterfly? Sorry for so many questions...Just one more question I wanted to ask you....I know that one of the PCMCIA slots is shot because of an obstruction...do you know what is in the way? Any fix for this?

A side note...the TP 535E (Japanese minature TP I mentioned earlier) also plays the pin ball game without a hitch...fun game and a good one to impress people with!

The motherboard is strictly an end user installation item. You would have to install it. I can hook you up no problem with the guy. He is in the Pacific Northwest near the Canadian border. Just go to ebay and search for a seller named cuiinc. He always has stuff posted just post a question to one of his auctions and say I sent you. I think he might know me by name or as hwattys I have bought a fair amount of stuff from him over the years. As for the pcmcia slots there is a bar that is part of the framework of the pcmcia slots. It is ever so slightly bent which I did not notice when I was reassembling the laptop. I could take it apart and fix it but I did not see the point as long as one pc card slot works. I still have the Service Manual I sued to do the motherboard swap here a few weeks ago and I can send that, too. I also have a t1 Torx wrench which is impossible to find but absolutely needed to take apart a 701C, the tiniest wrench I have ever seen.

Having gotten no takers here I put it up on ebay again at $99 to start with a $125 Buy it Now.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6730823972

I will give a 10% discount off the total with shipping to any buyer who emails me after the purchase and says he or she saw this link on thinkpads.com. The battery arrived from Canada or at least the envelope did. The seller sent the battery in a padded manila envelope and somewhare along the way the battery broke out so all I got it is the envelope. The seller is looking for another battery and I will still offer to send it to whoever buys this if I get the battery; seller may be forced to just refund my money; no new battery. I do note Bill has batteries for this.

A $99.00 starting price is an eyesore and a bad staring price. You can't start the auctions out with a high tag, that sends people away. You need to have a low starting bid and a long auction run and let the bid gradually rise. I'd reccomend a buy it now of $100.00 ($20.00 makes a big difference to the seller) and a starting bid of $45.00. Let the auction run for anywhere from a week and a half to two weeks. This method is usually the best method for technology, especially vintage technology, though there are still a few kinks in the system and it can still fail from time to time, but that rule applies to all systems and methods.

Oh, and throw in a picture of the carrying case if it's a nice one, that can usually bring the price up a few dollars.

Thanks for the advice and taking your time to help. You are absolutely correct in your thought process for somebody who wants to move merchandise on ebay consistently. However, it would break my heart to have to send this to somebody for $40. I am indifferent whether it sells or not and if nobody is willing to offer $99 I will keep it. I do have almost 800 positives on ebay (mostly buys but quite a few sells) so I do have some idea what I am doing. I think I will post a few more pics but the carry case is nothing special. It is a simple small cloth black zippered case made originally for the Compaq Contura Aero.

I know what you mean about not wanting to part with the 701 for a smaller price. It's hard selling cool gadgets, especially if you are the original owner, but unfortunatly, thats the way things are. I still want to hurt myself for parting with my 350c, the first laptop I ever owned, a few years back. Well, anyways, I wish you good luck with your selling.

Sorry I haven't responded to this thread in a few days. Personal things have happened in my life that don't allow me to consider buying this ThinkPad right now...I was in a car accident messing my car up badly, mother was diagnosed with cancer 3 days ago, a TV set in my home blew up yesterday....just stuff that takes my attention away from less important things. When I settle down and if your TP is still up on auction, then I will consider it....just too hard to think of making purchases for myself right now, much less for others for christmas.

Hey don't worry about it. I hope you are alright (physically at least).

Dave,

I'm sorry to hear of your trevails. Hope things get better soon.

Regards,

James

Thanks guys...feeling better today...my mother had a full scan of her body and it appears that everything is localized. She starts chemo tomorrow. Our spirits are up now. Also, my ruined alum-alloy wheel on my car was replaced by an identical one that came by UPS this morning and installed this afternoon. The tech found no other problems with my car except for the plastic splash-guards and under-engine plastic pieces needing replacement. Did I mention my son breaking his foot 3 days ago...skateboarding...anyway, that injury is okay too...doesn't require surgery.... Finally getting back to normal...even did some Christmas shopping on the web for my son (skateboard stuff??...what?) and wife tonight.

Hey, did anyone try CUIINC about the 133Mhz motherboard? I sent a message via eBay a while back but never heard anything. I've been restoring a 701C and I wouldn't mind bumping it up while I'm at it. I've been checking the latest upgrades and have the 64MB upgrade chip and lithium ion battery. I even managed to snag a wifi card and the leather portfolio case.

Emanuel

My 701C Sold on ebay. I kind of hate to see it go but I applied the money toward a 240x I just got yesterday. It is about the same size and actually has decent power. Thanks to everybody for his or her interest. On the 133 motherboards I just had a series of emails with the proprietor of cuiinc and he said he did not have any of the 133 motherboards but has had a few requests so he plans to make some in the Spring.

Here is a link to the auction where I bought the OEM 75 Mhz mobo:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 6719157640

Their email is cuiinc@hotmail.com.

He just put up one of the 133s yesterday:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 16185&rd=1

I did the complete strip-down build up on the 701C, and if I can do it anybody can. The HMM makes it a breeze but you have to have the tiniest little wrench I have ever seen-a T1 torx to get the 4 tiny screws holding down the front of the keyboard. Do not try to do the tear-down without this tool or heartbreak is in your future.

Thanks for the pointer and the tips. I've actually disassembled most every Thinkpad subnotebook, and have owned 701s since they were new, so I already have the disassembly video, hardware maintenance manual, and the Torx screwdriver kit. I did a 133Mhz motherboard swap for my brother's 701 a while back, but it was destroyed in a fire a while back (I replaced it with my old 600X).

My current laptop is an X30, but I've been thinking it would be cool to have a tricked out 701 for posterity.

Emanuel

cuiinc says it makes the 701 much faster. The reviews Ihave seen from the people who have done the upgrade say it is about like a Pentium 75. I am not sure if it is a true 32 bit Pentium class processor or just a 486/133. I will probably still wind up doing the upgrade some day myself.

The 133mhz chip was AMD's final 486 priduct, and is essentially a 486-133, but it has a lot of potential. These chips give about the smae performance as a Penium 75 or 90. While you won't have all the features a true Pentium would give you, you will see a substantial performance increase from not only having higher clock speed, but a higher bus speed as well as a couple of other features.

I snagged the 133-board on eBay. Actually, I bought it the second I saw the auction pop up, only to discover the seller had sent me an e-mail in the mean-time. Having done the install before, I can attest to the system being a lot more peppy running Office 95, though I think my 560 was faster overall.

Now that I've gotten so many nice optiions for my 701, I may actually have to search out a nicer model or repaint the case; it looks ratty in the Portfolio case. Has anyone ever repainted a 701-vintage Thinkpad? What creates that texture?

Emanuel

Like painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa. I believe the paint is rubberized like swimming pool paint. There is an idea; paint it robins egg blue like the bottom of a pool.