A link to pictures of IBM's original (first?) ThinkPad

[Carbonfish]

Hi everybody,

When I was a kid (a long, long time ago), my great uncle was a retired bookkeeper for a wire rope manufacturer here in the pacific northwest. He always had lots of office supplies that he had accumulated over the years that he would let my brother and I have to play with, draw in, etc.

Well, when I was about 10, or 11 years old, he gave me a ThinkPad to take home with me. I still have it and the pictures are right here:

http://carbonfish.blogspot.com/2007/07/ ... anual.html

These are not retouched in any way.

When people tell me my T23 is an old workhorse, I show them the "original" ThinkPad.

KC

[Harryc]

Brings back memories. My father worked for IBM back in the 50's and 60's. He had a collection of those same Thinkpads . I remember the cover being brown though ...

[Purcy]

That is very cool, I really never knew that is where the original name came from. A very interesting piece of history!

[Carbonfish]

Purcy said..." A very interesting piece of history!"

I agree. I think that whoever it was at IBM that decided to name the laptops after the little notebook was something of a visionary.

KC

[BigWarpGuy]

Did it come with an analog word processor; aka, a pencil? The lead end being the 'printer' and the eraser being the 'delete' function or 'edit' function. The holder of the pencil being the 'processor'.

[Carbonfish]

Did it come with an analog word processor; aka, a pencil? The lead end being the 'printer' and the eraser being the 'delete' function or 'edit' function. The holder of the pencil being the 'processor'.

You've got it. I/O errors were rare and there was never a display failure in the entire history of those first ThinkPads.

[rleo25]

Well those extraordinary pieces of hardware were very sensitive to water and fire... as a matter of fact the failures reported are classified under such chapters...

[losmeme]

My Dad worked for IBM as well. The pic looks like a really old Thinkpad. Like HarryC, I remember them being made of brown English pigskin. Both Thinkpads and flow charting templates were pervasive items in my childhood.

I still have fond memories of being at my Dad's office in Charlotte on Morehead Road in the late 60's. These office visits were, of course, fascinating to me, all the punch card machines, tape drives, the massive 360 along with all the white shirted SEs huddled over their punch boards.

What a company. Who knew what it would all become!

[Carbonfish]

I'm glad that this post is bringing back fond memories for a few of you. Here is another IBM related bit of history, though it doesn't have to do with ThinkPads.

Since the link is the "permalink" there will not be a fold in the page, so the second photo is the high-res one.

This one goes back to 1935. Link to follow:

http://carbonfish.blogspot.com/2007/09/ ... ature.html

[NimnuL]

Nice one! Good part of the history!

[Harryc]

More little known history. The same company that brought you the Thinkpad also manufactured the Browning Automatic Rifle and the M1 Carbine as well as truck and tank parts during WWII.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... rly_growth