IBM just 1 more choice please...

[66GTO]

In the past I have thought that IBM has offered too many choices, and
thought that the Thinkpad buying process was a bit too complicated. There is one more choice that I would like to see offered on the Thinkpad now.
OK it is the AMD Athlon 64 processor. Or why stop at one, the G5
PowerPC mfrd by IBM for Apple would be interesting as well.






Crazy old man. Take his license away.
He is waaay too old to still be hunting Hemi's in that 66 GTO!

[kjarrett]

Well dunno about the A64 but I wanna see pics of your 66 GTO!!!

-kj-

[lfeagan]

A long time ago IBM did make an POWER Thinkpad. I think seeing another POWER Thinkpad would be rather cool, but I am sure it would be incredibly pricey. The Thinkpad 820 was the model, here are some of the specs:
http://zurich.ai.mit.edu/hypermail/thin ... /0195.html

[BillMorrow]

FWIW, i have a power PC in my collection..
an RS/6000 - 860

i have no idea why IBM sticks to intel/M$..
except to say they DID try the power PC and it was probably not profitable..

i for one would like to see a better cpu and OS/2, Linux and OS X..

now, about that 66 GTO..
i'll take you on..

[lvlolvlo]

yeah let's not spoil this thread with useless jibberish....bring on the 66 GTO!!!!!!!!

[Steve007]

i have no idea why IBM sticks to intel/M$..

It's what our customers want.

Most applications are optimised for Intel CPU's - what good would it do to shove a mobile variation of the G5 in a TP?

The Pentium-M CPU allows us to produce thin & light notebooks. A variation of the G5 will kick out a lot of heat and we'd have to produce a chassis as chunky as the T30's in order to keep the unit cool and to comply with our own standards.

If you want a notebook that doesn't include a Win OS and a Intel chipset buy a PowerBook!

[none]

Honestly, why would IBM invest a whole bundle of money into something that would never sell? It would cost them a LOT more to invest in creating a POWER laptop or a G5 laptop. And like everyone said, it would be very big, very hot, heavy, and wouldn't run your programs well, if at all.

The Athlon 64 would work fine with all your software, however it would still require IBM to re-engineer all their models to get it in there. You can't just take out a Pentium M and plug in an Athlon 64M, lol..

And at this point, I think IBM just sees that there is no point in them doing that. Pentium M is doing extremely well, AMD hasn't proven itself in the mobile market yet, and the way Microsoft is struggling to deliver Windows Longhorn even by 2006, there is really no real need for the 64 bit extentions at this time..

I think somewhere, inside some IBM lab, they are playing with an Athlon ThinkPad... But going "Eh, it's not worth our time to finish engineering this into a production unit yet".

[lfeagan]

Well, I'll open up a bit and share something. I would actually really like to see an IBM POWER laptop that would run OS X and/or AIX. I would have absolutely bought an Apple Powermac if it weren't for a number of issues that really peeved me about the hardware. From a software standpoint I would personally much rather have OS X than Windows. I am a big *nix fan and the chance to have nice hardware support, such as with the Powerbook, along with the *nix command line interfaces and programming utilities I enjoy was something I would love to have.

So, what were the hardware issues that Apple sucked so badly at and IBM seems to do so much better at?
1) Extended battery, dual batteries. I don't like carrying things other than my notebook itself. No extra stuff to mess with is my way to travel.
2) 14.1" SXGA+ display and no wide-screen crap at 1280x854 like Apple has. Apple has no choice about screens, which didn't make me too pleased as I don't like their options much. I know lots of ppl like the wide-screen, but I am not a fan.
3) sub-5 lbs. notebook with a R9600/64M, their 15" is 5.7lbs which is heavier than I would like, esp since I would be lugging an extra battery with it.
4) Great keyboard and I love the Trackpoint and really don't like the touchpad, but at least IBM gives users the choice.
5) This one is subjective, but I really like the look of the Thinkpad.
6) There are a couple of software issues with OS X that peeve me. The X11 support is kinda sketchy and their OpenGL implementation only supports degree 10 bezier curves. In addition, their GLUI is kinda weak in terms of its memory usage and its speed.

Concluding thoughts:
"IBM: Think(pad) Different"

FMI: Check out the original ad from Apple. To be honest, this ad is extremely motivating and I think it is one of, if not the, best ads ever. It certainly appeals to me at least.

[JHEM]

FMI: Check out the original ad from Apple. To be honest, this ad is extremely motivating and I think it is one of, if not the, best ads ever. It certainly appeals to me at least.

It was a great ad, especially as it's narrated by my old Greenwich Village neighbor, Richard Dreyfuss.

Now, name the geniuses!

Regards,

James

[BillMorrow]

why won't this ad play on my T42..?

never mind..

~!@#$%^&& quicktime!!

[Plinkerton]

Ah, I thought that was Richard Dreyfuss. I wasn't sure.

It was being stupid on my computer too. I hate quicktime. It's like an Apple virus on my computer or something.

[lfeagan]

Yeah, I spent a few minutes checking around seeing if I could find a non-Quicktime version and didn't come up with one so just submitted with the Quicktime format link. Sorry about that.

Oh, and yes, I h8 Quicktime too. My stupid digital camera uses that format for recording videos...peeves me quite a bit.

[BillMorrow]

OK..!!
loaded iTUNES, iPOD, iQUIT et al on a new T42 N1U..

then the commercial did its think thing..

an excellent example..

i wonder who apples ad agency is..?
too bad ibm does not spend a few $$ likewise..