Most of the Thinkpad retro collectors and diehard fans are at forum.thinkpads.com, including yours truly. 😀

Despite the fact tat there are Thinkpad specific forums there are still some around here.
I have quite some in my collection like
755c, 600x, 600e, X21, T23, T40p, T60,T60p, X61, W510

I've always been a fan of them, along with the Dell Latitudes and HP EliteBooks. My current laptop is an X250 that I got second hand, after the video output on my T60 died. I love the power bridge function on my X250, and I'm very sad to see that they've ditched user replaceable batteries on the X280.

I guess I am fast becoming a lover of these lapops ...the retro ones that is..
I started with a couple of 600X units I recently purchased ...both of which are now refurbished.
One running NT ...and the other Me.
I have since aquired a basic 600 which has so far had replacement RTC battery ...and had nothing on screen ..
I suspected either the CPU or GPU ...
which turned out to be a correct diagnosis ..as I can now access the Bios ..
I'm not sure the cpu pcb I fitted is entirely correct however ..so I now have a PII266 ordered to try..
The original damage I believe was due to overheating ...as the fan did not run ..
This too has been replaced ..
I have No operating system/Hard Drive fitted as yet ...on account I can't find a restore CD for the basic 600.
..and I want to install a perod correct Drive approx 6gb
So ..very much a work in progress ...
I also have a dead 240 ...
such a small screen on these laptops ..and no floppy or cd built in ..
mobile celeron cpu ..
Physically in good condition but for now ..
dead in the water..
rgs
VS

An x60 (with swivel and stylus) was my 'daily driver' (not counting 'work driver' of course) for about 6 years. Youtube and ebay client side requirements killed that dream.... otherwise I would probably still be using it now 😀

eisapc wrote:

Despite the fact tat there are Thinkpad specific forums there are quite some around here.
I have quite some in my collection like
755c, 600x, 600e, X21, T23, T40p, T60,T60p, X61, W510

I bought a use 755c as a collectible but it had a bad display ribbon cable so the display had lines going through it.
I tried to fix it but could not find a ribbon replacement. It is in my garage now.

Still have an original 360Cs from 1994 that I used for university work ... and 15 other Thinkpads 😉 mainly 760s, two 755Cs (one working, one not), three 360s and a couple of 600Xs. Luckily, also have the Dock I, II and III units to go with them. One day soon I'll have to go over the collection properly and build the best example of each, sadly time has not been kind to the finish on these machines, and I wonder how I'm going to restore them nicely.

I used to be into the ThinkPad game, both retro ones and newer but I kinda got bored of it after awhile. in regards to modern ThinkPads, I don't like their post *30 laptops at all. They're not what they used to be and sacrifice a lot of things that made the ThinkPad great for modern design trends.

Of course, started with a 600X in 2004 and have been a loyal Thinkpad user since then. Got a R50e, a T60 with Radeon X1300, a T60 with integrated Intel graphics, an X100e, an X120e and a X220 as my primary mobile device. I was really worried, when Lenovo took over the Thinkpad branch but to my surprise, they didn't mess too much. I'm ok with Lenovo. Their products are for sure not as sturdy as earlier Thinkpads might be but I expected the transition to have much worse effects on the brand.

oeuvre wrote:

in regards to modern ThinkPads, I don't like their post *30 laptops at all. They're not what they used to be and sacrifice a lot of things that made the ThinkPad great for modern design trends.

Yes, some changes from the *30 series and onwards are not really my cup of tea either. I especially dislike the chiclet keyboard and the mousebuttons being integrated in the touchpad but that's personal preference. Actually I'm always looked at like an alien, when I tell people I like old keyboard layouts and mechanics more than these new chiclet thingies. Oh well...

oeuvre wrote:

They're not what they used to be and sacrifice a lot of things that made the ThinkPad great for modern design trends.

They have other good things, though. The modern trends have advantages in them as well. 😀

blurks wrote:

I especially dislike the chiclet keyboard and the mousebuttons being integrated in the touchpad but that's personal preference.

The integrated trackpoint buttons were so terrible that they only lasted one generation. The integrated touchpad buttons are still there, though. The 6-row keyboard is the only serious dealbreaker that is still there.

Yeah I've got a couple, X20 and T41. Used to have three but one of my T41 boxes died because of the way I was picking it up (had no idea at the time you could blow the bga joint on the gpu by picking it up wrong due to slight mobo flexing).

Solid little machines both of which still have a lot of life left in them. Only down side for me is the limited memory on the X20 which maxes out at 320MB which can be painful (but I did manage to get to run Win7 pro once by swapping out the hdd and missing the prompt for pressing F12 to change boot device. Amazed it booted Win7 at all tbh).

I have a 385XD, for which I have plans to upgrade the memory above the default 32 MB, rebuild the battery or get a new one, and repair the CD drive. If I don't do any of that then it's going to the auction block. It's really a nice little machine, but honestly not the greatest for DOS stuff because of the el cheapo graphics.

Not collecting, but I do like them. Still have my old A30 (sig), and my daily driver machine is an X220 w/ i5-2520M. The newer models don't appeal to me at all.

BLockOUT wrote:

... Still it has an S3 video chip, and i have no idea how that chip was able to run games decent at 1400x1050

ThinkPads are business laptops, first and foremost; not necessarily designed for the purposes of games and multimedia (with exceptions, of course, such as in the i series and the Z6x). The high screen resolution would have been meant for productivity/coding/desktop publishing/etc. Acceptable FPS in whatever game of the period was likely irrelevant.

I like Thinkpads, had 3 as my main laptops over the years. Current T450 is my favourite, can’t fault it.

SW-SSG wrote:

ThinkPads are business laptops, first and foremost; not necessarily designed for the purposes of games and multimedia (with exceptions, of course, such as in the i series and the Z6x).

There was nothing really special about the Z6x, besides being the first widescreen Thinkpads. Back then it could have served a distinction between business-oriented and multimedia-oriented, but nowadays everything is widescreen.

I had a hand-me-down T40p during my college years. I loved that thing, and it stayed with me well after graduating.

I only bought another laptop before starting gradschool in 2014, a T440s. I bitched about the trackpad until the T450s came out, then I ordered a replacement trackpad online with extra buttons and have been happy ever since. I wrote my thesis on this machine, so it will stay in my family as an heirloom 🤣

I've only been a thinkpad user for around 5 years now but I am a diehard fan for sure. My thinkpads are the i1400, 600 (sans LCD screen), X40, T42, T60, R60 and an R60e. My daily driver is the Thinkpad T60 but the right hinge has worn out, the screen falls over relatively easily.

to be honest, if it weren't for needing iTunes for my iPhones, I would seriously use my T42 running Windows ME as a daily driver. It covers nearly all of my basic needs. Best part is native support for the best era of Windows games (win9x of course).

My daily drivers have always been old thinkpads. I was still using a 560X running Win98 up until around 2005 - by then I'd upgraded it to 96MB ram, but it was still on its original battery and 4GB hard disk. Next was a 600X that started with Win98, but ended up with Win2000 for better Wi-Fi support - had a car adapter for it used to drive around running netstumbler... Currently running an T60 that will probably need another backlight soon

Has anyone else here built a Frankenpad? Here's one of mine I did awhile ago https://imgur.com/a/6vc7g