Who owns the oldest ThinkPad on here that's actually working

[A31]

Who on here owns the oldest ThinkPad that is actually working? I have seen some quite old TP's under the "pictures of your ThinkPad and desk set up" (some from '95/'96)
Just interested to know....

[Neil]

Dunno. But, I'm sure it's not me. The oldest I own is the 770. It still works fine, for what it is. As far as I can remember, everything works about it (well, the original hard drive doesn't work anymore). Manufacture date on it is 3/98.

[emeraldgirl08]

I'm new to the Thinkpad world so I'll enjoy reading these posts

[qviri]

I've a 701C in storage which booted into an ancient version of Red Hat last I tried. Unfortunately its physical condition is far from mint. I'm sure there are older ones out here, 360 or 755, anyone?

As an aside, the timestamp on the OP is 13:37 for those of us in EST.

[Unknown_K]

I have a 360c that I know runs, also a 350c I am sure runs but I don't have the correct power brick for it to try.

I asume a 340 is one of the oldest?

[rkawakami]

According to this: http://www.pc.ibm.com/ca/thinkpad/anniv ... story.html

the 700C series was the first to be offered by IBM (Oct. 1992). The 300 was released around the same time but it was sourced by Zenith for IBM.

[ThinkRob]

I just got my hands on a working* 750C. It's in stellar condition too -- case plastics are all solid (one or two minor blemishes on the lid, palmrest/inner plastics are all excellent), no visible keyboard wear, and flawless screen.



* Unfortunately, my family has misplaced the drive, battery, and power cable, so it's not currently working as such. That said, I know for a fact that all the internal components are sound, and given a hard drive, battery, and/or power adapter it will boot and run just fine.

[dsvochak]

There are surely a lot of older machines still working (I’ve got a perfect condition 701CS).

I’d like to know who has the oldest machine they’re still using on a regular basis. For example, I recall Mrs. leoblob was using an ancient machine to run a dos program as a court reporter.

[Unknown_K]

I would like to know who has the oldest working Thinkpad with a good working battery. Most of the time the old batteries are worth more then the system they go in for vintage models. My oldest working batteries are for the 755/760 series.

[pianowizard]

Id like to know who has the oldest machine theyre still using on a regular basis.

I am curious about this too. Let's define the word "regularly" as "at least once a week". For the 8 computers that I currently have, the oldest one that I use at least once a week is my Thinkpad 240Z made in April 2001, with 500MHz PIII, 256MB PC100 RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HDD, and WinXP SP3 with all Microsoft updates. The 6-cell battery still lasts up to 2 hours or so, though the 3-cell one lasts for only several minutes.

The oldest Thinkpad I've ever owned was a 365X (2625-7E7) from 1996. When I gave it away last month, its internal LCD had died but I could still use it through an external monitor.

the 700C series was the first to be offered by IBM (Oct. 1992).

Some specs of the 700C from the twbook:

25MHz 80486 SLC

120MB HDD

Max RAM of 16MB

10.4" 640x480 256-color monitor with a 100:1 contrast ratio

7.6 pounds (with battery)

Battery life 2 - 4 hours

Retail price $4,350

These specs are quite similar to the oldest laptop I've owned, an Ambra NC425SL from 1993 which included an internal 2400bps modem! That laptop died long ago.

[A31]

the battery in your 2001 240Z lasts longer than the battery in my 2002 A31!! (best I have ever got yet out of my battery since I got given it on the 17th November is 46 minutes, and that was yesterday!)

Also looking at the some of the specs of your 700C, you can tell it's getting old (120MB HDD, max 16MB RAM!!) What OS does it have??

[charles.atcher]

Well... I have two 700's sitting in storage. They worked when I packed them away. But they were in no way in stellar shape!

[Norway Pad]

I have a 360Cs that's still working. Both batteries, both the main one and the BIOS battery, have been dead ever since I started using it in my previous job around 1999. So clock adjustment is required at every bootup. It retired from work use in 2004, so I brought it back home then and have kept it ever since.

I start it up from time to time, and I even type documents on it. I have to save them on floppy discs to be able to transfer them anywhere, but that's charming. It had a Token Ring PCMCIA card when I got it, but I have no way of getting it online anymore. And it wouldn't serve any purpose to do so either. It runs Win95.

The 360 was my first meeting with ThinkPad as a tool I could trust and rely on to work all the time.

[LegendaryKA8]

A little late, but considering what I have I should chime in. I'm not sure if you could call this a ThinkPad, but I do have an IBM PS/Note that last time I checked(a few months ago) boots right up into MS-DOS 6.22. It also has Win 3.1 on it as well. The batteries are completely dead, but worked when I received the laptop back in 2004. It was made sometime in 1992(making it one of the last pre-TP IBM notebooks), has a 25Mhz 386 processor, (I think) 8MB of RAM, and an 80MB HDD.

My uncle gave me this machine when he moved here and was my first real notebook. I managed to get a 770 a couple of months later, then progressed to a T21 a few months after that.

Unfortunately it isn't anywhere near mint. The hinges are screwed up and the keyboard no longer works, although I can hook up an external keyboard with no issues. It's interesting to poke around with a little bit, but it's going to be relegated to the ol' storage bin.

[paul*robertson]

Id like to know who has the oldest machine theyre still using on a regular basis
I am curious about this too. Let's define the word "regularly" as "at least once a week". For the 8 computers that I currently have, the oldest one that I use at least once a week is my Thinkpad 240Z made in April 2001, with 500MHz PIII, 256MB PC100 RAM, 100GB 7200rpm HDD, and WinXP SP3 with all Microsoft updates. The 6-cell battery still lasts up to 2 hours or so, though the 3-cell one lasts for only several minutes.

Not that old really, but my 600x i use regularly for.

1. Programming my tv remote control. (Serial port.)
2. Backing up my mobile (its the only pc i have with infra-red)

Probably twice a month.

[pianowizard]

2. Backing up my mobile (its the only pc i have with infra-red)

You know, the infrared port is one of the many reasons I am stubbornly holding onto my 240Z. It's so convenient to use it to transfer files to and from my smartphone. My plan is to keep this 240Z until I see a Sony Vaio P-series laptop for under $300 on eBay, and I will then buy that Sony and sell the 240Z. This won't happen for at least another year, considering how expensive the P-series Sonys are.

[j-dawg]

I regularly use my X24, built August 2002. It gets about 2hrs battery life.

[A31]

I regularly use my X24, built August 2002. It gets about 2hrs battery life.

My 2002 A31 gets booted up everyday!! However the battery is nearly dead and I do not use it becuase when the laptop is turned off (with the battery in), it discharges and then *tries* to turn on again, it was turning on the middle of the night etc and was really annoying me. Only lasted 35 mins at best anyway! I am still specticle as to buy a new one... they are quite expensive and I always use the A31 at home with the AC adapter plugged in. The only downside about this though is that my processor is a 1.8GHz Pentium 4 Mobile (4M), but I read on here that if you do not have the battery plugged in, the processor is only running at 1.2GHz... it would be quicker if I had the battery plugged in, however it is already fast without the processor going at full speed as it has 1.5GB RAM (1x 1GB chip + 1x 512MB chip) and because I have lots of programs on there, I went into the MS Config and disabled programs like Live Messenger, System Update etc running at startup so that I only had important things like AVG Anti-Virus running at startup.