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Rare IBM Portables

The IBM 5499 On Line Note was a notebook form-factor, cream-coloured IBM portable, which was intended to access mainframes via serial, infra-red or dialup.

The IBM PCradio was an odd, ruggedised early attempt at remote working, using an early form of wireless radio communication or fixed phone line to log in remotely, do some work and check your mail!

The IBM Convertible was a Desktop-cum-Portable concept with a flat-panel LCD and CRT output, with modular peripheral add-ons, sharing much of it's connectivity with the IBM PC Jnr.

The IBM Thinkpad 130 was a short-lived rebranding of the Acer iSeries Thinkpads. It's certainly rare, but not very desirable! My one is branded on the bottom as Type 1171 -7GJ, which would otherwise be called iSeries. It has the non-IBM BIOS utility with a Celeron 700Mhz CPU, 10Gb HDD, CD-ROM and 192Mb RAM (likely upgraded). My one also appears to be relatively unused and came with a variety of original documents and sealed media.

The IBM Thinkpad 220 was a japanese-only machine, never yet seen in the wild, somewhat like a PS/Note machine.

The IBM Thinkpad 500 was an ultraportable Thinkpad made by Lexmark/Ricoh copying lots of Thinkpad design cues, but often feeling slightly 'off'.

The IBM Thinkpad 550BJ and 555BJ were early collaborations between Canon and IBM, which incorporated both a laptop computer and bubblejet thinkpad into a single unit.

The IBM Thinkpad 700T, 710T, 730T & 730TE were early greyscale tablet & stylus machines based on the notebook Thinkpad hardware, but smaller and held as a slate. There is a great comparison on all these early IBM tablets here.

The IBM Thinkpad 701c was an early ultraportable with small DSTN or TFT screen and a folding-out keyboard.

The IBM Thinkpad 360P and 750P were convertible Thinkpads which could be both a Notebook computer and a Tablet, with Stylus.

The IBM Thinkpad 755CV and CDV were convertible Thinkpads which could be used as a Notebook computer and a presentation-device by decoupling the rear of the lid and laying the machine flat on an Overhead Projector (OHP)

Here is the 755C(D)V in action:

The IBM Thinkpad G50 is an evolution of the G40 and G41 series which is intended as a large, desktop-replacement with Desktop Pentium CPUs and a large screen.

The earlier G41 on the left and the later, and less common G50 on the right:

The IBM Thinkpad S30 and S31 are Asia-only ultraportable machines, smaller than the X20, similar in size, but higher specification than the 240 and taking design cues with the larger-than-screen keyboard from the 701c.

The IBM P20 and Transnote computers were a combination of the 240's hardware and the Cross Crosspad to invent a new style of digitising hand-written notes on your portable computer.

 

4851 Point Of Sale Terminal

I decided to see what this weird machine is all about. The HDD had failed so I switched it out to a 2.5" SATA drive and reinstalled Windows XP.

I also installed the video and touchscreen drivers.

I tried to recap the PSU but it was a bit of a mess and decided to leave it alone.

Read more: 4851 Point Of Sale Terminal

Comparing the G41 and G50

I've managed to get a G41 and G50 side-by side. The two main external differences is simply that the G50 has a 'regular' Thinkpad power connector (the larger one) and the LCD is much brighter. The G41 is entirely IBM-branded, whereas the G50 is lid-branded IBM Thinkpad whilst the LCD bezel and base is branded Lenovo. The G50 BIOS has also list the 'IBM' name as well as a few less options...

The biggest difference is that the G41 has a Pentium 4 CPU rated at 3.06Ghz, whilst the G50 has a Celeron M running at 1.6Ghz. Is this the performance hit that it seems like on the surface? I mean maybe a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Mhz, with the right OS might somehow compare to a P4, but a Celeron!? Seems like a massive downgrade. But I don't really know much about comparing the two.. Any comments? I do wonder if I could upgrade the CPU to a Core 2....

I think perhaps both of these machines were actually manufactured by Acer or something like that? Funny how that worked with the transition of IBM IP to Lenovo.



Ideally, I'd like to replace both keyboards with less -shiny ones but they're not exactly common now. The keyboards are the same on the G40, 41 and 50 so you can easily do so.

IBM Workpad Transnote

Spotted this and I thought I would share some early pics of this weird thing I picked up.

It's in mock IBM packaging - so much so, I thought it was IBM for a while. Supposedly you slot in your little Workpad and it will transcribe written text into notes on the wordpad.

Read more: IBM Workpad Transnote

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IBM External Floppy Disk Drives

Due to the different IBM labs and companies developing IBM portables and the time period over which they existed before USB, there are a lot of different types of IBM floppy drive.

Whilst we're only covering external here, there are at least 3 types of connector:

26mm / fattest: Found on the 701c

21mm: Found on the PS/notes, 850, 7xx tablets. 360, 365

17mm / Thinnest: Found on the later models which favoured optical drives built-in such as the 755CD, 760, 600 and various 3xx series. Ultraslim floppy drive.

21mm

This early floppy drive 66G5069, also known as "UltraBay Diskette Drive enclosure" actually contains the original multibay floppy within it's large outer shell. There are also fixed standard external 21mm drives.

These ultrabay floppy drives came in various models from various manufacturers, so externally each 66G5069 drive may look the same, but internally it could be totally different.

TEAC FD-05HG

Here we have a TEAC FD-05HG drive, which has one eletrolytic cap, which as far as I know should only be replaced with an electrolytic. I have had drive read issues by replacing these with a solid capactor. It's a 100u / 10v capacitor seen below:

You can get away, like I did with a 7.7m through-hole capacitor with the legs splayed outwards:

Whilst it's open you may (or may not) want to clean the magnetic heads with a little IPA and check the corkscrew spindle which moves the heads forward and back across the diskette is moving smoothly.

 

Even though this 7.7mm tall capacitor is longer than the original surface mounted cap, it still just fits under the floppy drive chassis - although you cannot go any more than this.

Sony MPF720-2

And here is another 1.44Mb ultrabay floppy drive - the Sony MPF720-2 (weirdly suggesting it's a 720Kb drive, but it's a 1.44Mb drive):

This Sony drive is similar, but you do not need to remove the little PCB in order to replace the 47uf capacitor:

In this case, small 6mm through hole capacitors with the legs splade are a good replacement:

 

 

 

 

750 Series

I've managed to restore an almost complete set of the 750 series machines. Here are some of the collection:

Read more: 750 Series

Translating PS/55 note Japanese keyboard to English keyboard mapping

If you connect a western keyboard to the earliest PS/55 and PS/55 N23 SX notes, the keyboard mappings are all messed up. Here is a rough map of what key is mapped to what real keypress:

Read more: Translating PS/55 note Japanese keyboard to English keyboard mapping

IBM 5535 Multistation

IBM Japan had a range of Kanji-character-enabled desktop computers, called the Multistations. This was part of that family with the addition of a greyscale LCD display. Although 5535 is the 'laptop' range of machines, With the sheer size and weight (7kg), I think you would consider it more like a 'space saving desktop', much like the IBM Convertible. It has a sibling called the 5535-S which has a slightly different design and is 'less boxy'.

Read more: IBM 5535 Multistation

IBM PS/Note N45 SL (Zenith)

This is one of three N45 SL machines I have in a box. I previously gave up a day and ended up with one complete boxed one, a second unboxed one as a nice working companion and a third 'parts' machine. The N45 came in two models sporting different CPUs - the SL and SX.

You'll notice the case badge has similarities to both the 2141 (a PS/1 type) PS/note 182 and the PS/1 case badge - unlike the other PS/note and IBM Thinkpad oval badges, you'd think it is architecturally closely related to the (same year) PS/Note 182. However this machine feels Zenith-made through and through - much like the Thinkpad 300 which usurped it as the 2615. It shares a similar case plastic, power brick, display, keyboard and battery. Perhaps IBM were briefly marketing the N45 as the low-end (outsourced) notebook and the N51 as the high end (IBM-built) notebook, which eventually became the Thinkpad 300 as low-end and 700 as high.

Putting it another way, IBM were obviously toying with what to do about the cost-reduced 'low end' and had the 2141 "Lexmark Lexbook AR-10" PS/note and the Zenith-made N45 SL then "Zenith Z-Note 433Lnc+" 300 all coming out at once. You'll find some very reputable sites not even acknowledging the 2141 or 261x machines because they do not follow the 'true bloodline' of the IBM notebooks. The N45 SL may well have a Zenith step brother, but I haven't found a reference to it.

My first machine amazingly has a i387 upgrade chip (a maths coprocessor for the 386) fitted.

Read more: IBM PS/Note N45 SL (Zenith)