Most expensive THINKPAD mistake....

[edik]

Back in 1998 I was working on a customer site and needed my laptop crticially as it had all my reports on as well as stuff for the client and the company.

I made a mistake that overwrote the MBR somehow so it wouldn't boot. Now the 760XL couldn't boot from CD, so I had to order an external floppy drive from IBM urgently (I think they had a proprietary connector anyway this was before USB I think..).

Cost? £180 next day delivery ($360 at the time). But it did come next day!

And I only ever used it ONCE!

You can be sure I billed the company for it though

That 760XL though was my intro to the ThinkPad line. I loved that machine. It was built like a tank and although I can't recall I suspected it weighed similar. Took me all over the world and never but never failed me.

[Medessec]

That's always been a goof about the 760 that put me off- was that it primarily needed a floppy drive to boot, and this presented a problem if you were using a CD drive in the Ultrabay. I can only imagine how tough things were for people when they were just making these things... when laptops were actually a big deal and getting one serviced was like getting your car serviced.

I absolutely love the 760. They're beastly solid yet puppy-dog small, like a book. Always makes me wonder why laptop makers are so obsessed with making laptops paper thin... and the hard-slider brightness controls (why does no modern laptop do this?) and the teeny little toothed knob you twirl to adjust the volume, instead of a stupid "Fn+F5, Fn+F6" trigger, and I also really liked the modular construction, where you slide the lid latches back instead of towards you, and you can pull up the keyboard for instant access to the UltraBay, Battery, and HDD.

[brchan]

Ah yes, the 7 and 6 series thinkpads. They are mini tanks, back when design and build were put first, and costs came second. I just received a 770 recently, and the build quality and stiffness is superb! The manual brightness and volume sliders are indeed much more convenient than using the keyboard buttons. My guess is that they were removed to make laptops thinner and reduce costs.

[edik]

where you slide the lid latches back instead of towards you, and you can pull up the keyboard for instant access to the UltraBay, Battery, and HDD.

Wasn't that just beautiful?

And they were colour coded as well.

Fantastic engineering.