Your first thinkpad?

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#1 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 7:44 pm

Just got bored, so I decided to start a thread where you post what was your first ThinkPad and maybe any details you'd like to share.

My first ThinkPad, I acquired it a while back when at my father's place of work, his boss gave the companies leftover laptops to various employees. My dad got one of the computers and he gave it to me. It was a ThinkPad 350c. The computer had 4 megs of RAM initially, I maxed it out at 20 megs. The hard drive was 120mb and the OS on it was Windows 95. The NiMH battery never did hold a charge, which was a shame because with that exception, this machine was still somewhat respectable at the time. I still wish I had never gotten rid of it.

slagmi · #2 Post by **slagmi** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 8:46 pm

Hmm....1994. A 486, 300MB or so hard drive I think. Not really sure anymore what the model # was.

Ran every software I ever tried to load on it flawlessly. The trackpoint cap was smooth and I got like 4 extra ones in the box. I still have a couple of them, one black and one red. When the rough caps came out a couple of them showed up in the mail unasked for.

Called support one time 'cause it wouldn't turn on, they fixed me in one minute. Had me remove the battery and hold the sort of hidden reset switch in awhile with an inkpen point. They could have put that fix in the manual! Bought a 365(not really 100% sure about that model #) for my wife a few months later, and then I never really had another one for about 10 years.

#3 Post by **jdhurst** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:35 pm

My first laptop was a Toshiba with DOS. My first ThinkPad was a Windows 3.1 machine - I forget the model. It would have been 1994 or prior. ... JD Hurst

#4 Post by **daeojkim** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 4:35 pm

This is my first Thinkpad... I am wondering why I did not by them before.

BILLCROCKER · #5 Post by **BILLCROCKER** » Fri Dec 17, 2004 5:24 pm

First laptop I ever used: My mom's Tandy she bought at Radioshack in 1992....that same radioshack now sells compaqs.

Actually, now that I can remember, I do recall holding my dad's work computer (back then they were called "portable computers") in 1989--it was about the size of a telephone book.

First Thinkpad: A31 purchased in 2002...and I'm still using it...along with my T41p.

benplaut · #6 Post by **benplaut** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:27 am

hmmm, mine was/is a 701C butterfly, 540mb HD, 8mb RAM, 50MHz

gengar · #7 Post by **gengar** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:26 pm

My first notebook was a HiNote 486 running DOS. First TP was a 770Z 9549-81U, although I got a 570 from work shortly thereafter.

Bob Collins · #8 Post by **Bob Collins** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 1:33 pm

701C, 540MB hd, 8MB ram, 75Mhz, external floppy, 2 port replicators, 2 power supplies, on-board modem, Windows 3.1 and OS/2 dual boot!

Still have it.
Like your first BMW, you always want your first Thinkpad back after you sell it, so I am never getting rid of the 701C or the Bimmer!

k3vb0t · #9 Post by **k3vb0t** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:17 pm

Bob Collins wrote:Still have it.
Like your first BMW, you always want your first Thinkpad back after you sell it, so I am never getting rid of the 701C or the Bimmer!

Ah, a fellow BMW fan who understands the difference between Bimmer and Beamer! Incredible!

First is my current, just got it for school/employment future.

November 2004, T42 (2378-FVU), 1.7Ghz (735), 768mb RAM (256 standard + 512 Crucial), 40GB HD, DVD/CD-RW, Wireless G

First and current Bimmer: 1995 Boston Green 318is (auto

), purchased with 127,800 miles, currently running 166,000+ miles. Want an E21 320 or E28 5er!

Bob Collins · #10 Post by **Bob Collins** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 2:33 pm

k3vb0t wrote: Ah, a fellow BMW fan who understands the difference between Bimmer and Beamer! Incredible!

First and current Bimmer: 1995 Boston Green 318is (auto ), purchased with 127,800 miles, currently running 166,000+ miles. Want an E21 320 or E28 5er!

Yes, I love reminding people of the proper use of the two terms.

My Bimmer is a 'Baby-Bimmer', 1995 318ti Cosmos Schwarz, 5 speed. Incredibly fun car with all my tuning I have done with 100% BMW ///M parts, x-brace, sport suspension, etc. Currently 138,500 and going strong. I too would like an E30, especially the E30 M3 lightweight!!!

BTW, very nice Thinkpad!!!

AtmosMan · #11 Post by **AtmosMan** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 7:23 pm

A T40 2373-19U is my first Thinkpad: Pentium M 1.3GHz 256MB RAM 30GB HDD ATI Mobility 7500. I bought it for college and it has served me well.

#12 Post by **K. Eng** » Tue Jan 04, 2005 9:22 pm

The ThinkPad in my signature is the first one I ever bought. It hasn't been very reliable (broke twice since I purchased it in April 2003

) but IBM service & support has been helpful.

#13 Post by **thePCxp** » Wed Jan 05, 2005 12:17 am

My first ThinkPad is an R51. This is my first ThinkPad and laptop and I am never going to give it away.

ThinkPad R51:
1836-HAU
Bought: 11-2-04
Arrived:11-9-04
1.6GHz (725)
80GB HD
Memory upgraded from 256MB to 768MB
802.11a/b/g
Bluetooth
DVD Recordable

Torque · #14 Post by **Torque** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 5:06 am

My current T41p 2374-GGG is my first Thinkpad. Bought it through the company. It has totally replaced my workstation back at home, since it nearly performs just as good. Upgraded it with another 512MB of RAM, else than that, its stock GGG.

leoblob · #15 Post by **leoblob** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 2:05 pm

First Thinkpad was the 360 that's in my sig, still in use. Came with 4megs on the system board... the one thing that sticks out in my mind is that the 8meg memory card cost $500!!... a lot of money by today's standards, but even more so in 1994 when I bought it.

#16 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 2:17 pm

$500.00, that's how much my old 4mb Matrox Millenium video card that now sits in my closet cost back in 1996.

egibbs · #17 Post by **egibbs** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:37 pm

First TP - T20
First Laptop - NEC Multispeed (4.77 MHz/8 MHz), no HDD but dual 720k Floppies.

Ed Gibbs

leoblob · #18 Post by **leoblob** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 4:23 pm

AlphaKilo470 wrote:$500.00, that's how much my old 4mb Matrox Millenium video card that now sits in my closet cost back in 1996.

Wow, that's a lot of $$$!!

But funny that you should mention that specific video card, since I have one, and I'm still using it in a Dell GX1 PIII700 (it's my 2nd backup computer)... it does a GREAT job with text (super-sharp) and is 40% faster (by the 2D benchmark software I have), than the ATI Rage Pro video system (AGP) that's built into the Dell's motherboard

#19 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 5:16 pm

The card was expensive, but it paid for itself. I thought I'd never see the day that it didn't get used. Everything the card lacked in 3D it made up for in 2D.

Deb Suran · #20 Post by **Deb Suran** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:26 am

This discussion needs more input from us old-timers! My first ThinkPad was a 500 I bought in '95, one of those "sub-compact" models. I couldn't get used to the undersized keyboard, but the quality of that little laptop was so high I never bought any other brand. I sold the 500 for what I'd bought it for after a month and got a PS/Note - the same as a ThinkPad 350. I had a number of 350s and 350cs, and I loved them all. A bunch of us on the old CompuServe forum used to swap around parts for those all the time because so many of us had them, and they were so easy to work on.
*is nostolgic*

#21 Post by **AlphaKilo470** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 10:49 am

Glad you mentioned the 350c, that was my first ThinkPad. Those things were easy to work on, easy to work with, and built like a friggin' tank. And surprisingly enough, they were fast, I had the RAM at 20mb and Windows 95 FLEW on that thing. The only problem I ever had with it was that the hard drive was too small to do anything with.

whizkid · #22 Post by **whizkid** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 2:32 pm

My first laptop... first PC as a matter of fact (before that, I used an Apple //c) was this 750P sitting right next to me. It was one of the first laptops with sound, was (surprisingly) competitively priced and was available. The 750C had a spiffy new-fangled TFT display, but they just couldn't be had when I bought mine. I really liked the pen too, although it wasn't really very useful. I think the keyboard is even better than my 600X.

It came with 4MB RAM and a 170MB drive. I upgraded the memory to 20MB, and put a 2GB drive in it. A couple years back, I sold it to a friend who was working on a PenDOS or PenWin issue for $100. A couple weeks ago, he gave it back to me for free.

The CMOS battery is toast, and I fear the BIOS is scrambled too, but I just ordered a 750C parts machine off eBay, and I am planning on fixing up the machine for FreeDOS or a small Linux machine.

MadeInJapan · #23 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 2:39 pm

Well, my first "laptop," if you could call it that (it had a handle...LOL) was an Apple 2e. No HDD to speak of...all was done with big floppies you take in and out. Used it when I became an educator in the early to mid 80's. Then I acquired my first PC-DOS machine...a Zenith Data System portable. It was like a huge brief case, but twice as heavy and had a mono-chrome monitor that folded out and up. It did have a huge (and heavy) battery that allowed me to do work on the computer for about 45 minutes or so when the machine was running optimally. I recall that I could use the smaller (hard-shelled) floppies with this computer that held 720kbytes. Then I got my first Windows machine which was a Compaq LTE 1500. this computer was issued by the school district for me to write my psychological reports on. It ran Win95 well, had a color monitor, and ran Office (word and access was what I mostly used) well, and I could get on the internet at 28.8! The internet was still pretty new (at least web browsing was). I remember using Pine Mail to get email that came to me at that time. After this, I bought my own ThinkPad 380CD (Don't know why there was a "C" in the name....). My brother worked for IBM and so I got a discount. Still, I recall paying over $3000 for it. I haven't looked back since. I've collected a few rare ThinkPads, but have personally used a 600E and now the T30 I'm typing on. ThinkPads are the best laptops, without a doubt!

warmstrong · #24 Post by **warmstrong** » Sat Jan 15, 2005 10:09 am

Just found this thread. Unlike year's past, my time here infrequent. I still have working my first laptop and first ThinkPad: a 700C. This was the first ThinkPad. It has a color screen and a 120mb HDD. I don't remember the speed of the processor (pre-Pentium, that's for sure) or the amount of RAM (not much!). I used it for several years during which I traveled extensively all over the world. It has a slot in it for a modem that I used with WinFax. There are stories I could tell about repairs, etc, but I don't want to bore everyone. Needless to say, EZServe or anything like it, did not exist in those days!

#25 Post by **BillMorrow** » Sun Jan 16, 2005 1:54 am

My first thinkpad was a 700C..
it was about 6 months old when i got it..

CoolRunnings · #26 Post by **CoolRunnings** » Fri Jan 21, 2005 10:57 pm

First laptop: Tandy Model 100 (1981).
First Thinkpad: T42 2373-M3U (should be here Wednesday!

)

Carpe Diem · #27 Post by **Carpe Diem** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 4:18 am

Just bought my first ThinkPad...a T42p from Bill. Looking forward to getting it and using it.

MadeInJapan · #28 Post by **MadeInJapan** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 12:14 pm

Carpe...welcome to the world of IBM ThinkPads! You've come to the right board as an owner!

Carpe Diem · #29 Post by **Carpe Diem** » Sun Jan 23, 2005 5:55 pm

Thank you for the welcome, MadeInJapan!

This forum looks like a very friendly community, and a great place to get some good information.

I`m pleased to be aboard.

Carpe Diem · #30 Post by **Carpe Diem** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:27 pm

The "green feather" package has arrived.

Thank you, Bill!

Your first thinkpad?

First ThinkPad

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