In case you are fortunate sufficient to personal an IBM ThinkPad 701C, with its well-known “butterfly” keyboard, choices are showing that will help you deliver it again to life – and a few are fairly dramatic.
IBM’s Thinkpad 701C is likely one of the most storied fashions of laptop computer ever made. Nicknamed the “Butterfly” for its ingenious folding keyboard, it is one of many machines highlighted in The Reg‘s 25th anniversary retrospective of the vary. This early subnotebook wasn’t blazingly high-spec, even when it was new: this Vulture’s personal one is the marginally quicker mannequin, with a 75MHz Intel 80486 DX4 (there was additionally a model with a 486 DX/2 50).
701C
Most of us want a bit extra compute energy than that at the moment, which is why {hardware} hacker Karl Buchka is working on placing the motherboard of an outdated Framework laptop computer into his.
We have coated the Framework modular laptops earlier than. These are designed with the purpose of encouraging house owners to take them aside to restore or improve them. Which means there’s a prepared supply of outdated motherboards from Framework laptops which have been upgraded – corresponding to with the Intel 12th generation processor mainboards we mentioned last May.
Buchka’s plan is to switch the center of his lifeless IBM Butterfly with a Framework motherboard and battery pack, plus a ten.2″ 2160 x 1620 LCD taken from a 2019 iPad 7. A Teensy 3.6 board interfaces with the keyboard, due to the prevailing QMK firmware.
It is a daring plan, and can contain 3D printing a complete new decrease chassis for the ThinkPad. In case you are both not fairly so intrepid as that, or wish to protect a classic machine in its authentic situation, assistance is at hand for that too.
Matt Hrushka has arrange Venture Butterfly on 701c.org, which has guides, elements lists, alternative elements, and extra. He is additionally revealed a whole step-by-step guide on iFixit, detailing the right way to utterly disassemble – and reassemble – the machine. And he has a listing of essential fixes that will help you troubleshoot what might need gone fallacious with a virtually three-decade-old laptop computer.
As Framework’s inventory pic reveals, the motherboard is pretty small, which is the way it will match inside a ten” laptop computer
In case you’re not fortunate sufficient to have a 701C mendacity round, or simply want a extra fashionable, skinny and light-weight laptop computer, Framework additionally sells refurbished models. It has not too long ago expanded its refurb program, which now covers France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and Eire within the EU, in addition to its present on-line retailer for the USA and Canada.
The ThinkPad “Butterfly” was well-known for its kind issue. It squeezed a full-width, full-travel keyboard right into a iPad-sized chassis (or, to be honest, right into a chassis the scale of a stack of 4 authentic iPads). The keyboard break up in half through a zigzag line down the center. When the proprietor closed the lid, a cam on the left display hinge slid the halves of the keyboard aside and round, rearranging them to suit neatly inside. Whenever you opened it, the cam did the reverse: the keyboard slid out and rearranged itself to full dimension, overhanging to the left and proper. It was a mechanical marvel that sparked pleasure within the beholder, and whereas the survivors’ 38-year-old batteries could have failed, the keyboard nonetheless works superb. ®
Source link
