This was written on Independant Craft Beer & Coffee, apologies on the errors. Laptop models are in BOLD because I can’t keep my brain straignt.
IBM’s 2521 Pen Computer
April 1992 IBM had showcased the 2521 tablet to the world at Comdex (or CES?) as an early release for those who wanted to buy the development project. Kathy Veith called the tablet computer “ThinkPad”, as if it was the official product name. IBM sent off a few 2521’s to research teams, developers and businesses for evaluation. The most notable review was from crew entering the depths of Egypt’s tombs, who said the tablet was rugged enough for the desert environment and was easy to use.
It had a 10″ monochrome STN display, and worked with an electromagnetic pen, powered by special batteries. It had a few ports; keyboard, serial, parallel & floppy disk. IBM originally wanted people to easily swap the Flash Cards, so the drive cover slid open easily and the CF cards had plastic tabs like the HDD caddies. Strangely you had a built-in modem for faxing and early internet connectivity, it came standard when this was an option for many laptops of the time. The machine was powered by a 20MHz Intel 386SX processor, rather than the powerful DX or the energy-efficient SL CPUs.
The 2521 used Go Corp’s PenPointOS, which worked much better than Microsoft’s cumbersome PenDOS offering. The 2521 ThinkPad had rave reviews from developers and beta testers, it’s pen capabilities were well received. The unit is a pretty heavy slate, but compared to other competitors at the time, it was a very nimble machine. The road of success was looking well for GO CORP. The rugged design survived many environments, it feels as if IBM built the tablet as one of their mainframes, tough as a train.
- 700T Brochure
PS/2 Note Laptops
These are ThinkPads before they got name recognition, four laptops were released before the official October ThinkPad launch. They were made by Yamato Labs & they were sold as PS/55 machines in JP/EA markets. In March 1992 IBM released the N51 SX as an entry-level laptop with a 16MHz Intel 386 SX CPU, starting at $2,250 officially, but presumed to be priced at $1,799 at stores. The N51 SLC was an upgrade to the N51 SX, by using IBM’s new & hot 386SLC processor running at 16MHz. This processor was IBM’s answer to Intel’s 386SX processor shortcomings, & was cheaper for IBM to make, because they did the fab in house. This laptop competed against Compaq’s Lite 25 & Toshiba’s T3300SL. The laptop cost $3,295 USD, it was a thousand dollars more than the SX variant but was available in May.
In April 1992, IBM would release the PS/2 Note CL57 SX, IBM’s first color laptop! The machine was massive, laptop weighing in at 11 lbs and came at a high price, $5,995 USD. It competed against Compaq, Sharp, NEC, & Toshiba; and it sourced the LCD from Toshiba! IBM parted with Toshiba to create a color LCD to be used for a laptop. Toshiba previously made the first LCD color laptop with the T5200C, but that had used a ‘primitive’ CSTN (Color Super-Twisted Nematic) LCD. By this time Toshiba engineered the TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD that had a much faster response time and looked magnificent at the time. In Japan, I believe the CL57 SX laptop was released as the PS/55 Note N27 SX, as it looks extremely similar and came out around the same time. Sharp & NEC soon produced laptops that had color LCDs, and Compaq would be the next American company to do so.
IBM made sure to release a cheaper economy model, announced in March 1992, but possibly released around June 1992, was the IBM PS/2 Note N45 SL, there is also a PS/55 version of it with the same name. This machine looks totally different than the other machines made by Yamato Labs. It’s brightness & contrast controls are on the left side, & it comes with an off grey color, the laptop was the first join project with Zenith (ZDS) computer systems. This machine cost $2,045 USD when new, but it’s 9.5″ STN display was disliked due to poor brightness/contrast levels on this LCD type at the time. I believe this machine was a rebrand of a Zenith system, it had the AT Bus standard and not MCA or a variant of the PS/55. Unlike the other SX systems, ZDS went with a 25MHz Intel 386 SL processor, and it was able to get 3 hours of battery life.
SanDisk’s SSD
The 2521 is an innovative piece of technology, but it came with a high price, and a quarter of it attributed to groundbreaking solid-state technology. IBM chose to use a new Solid State Disk format made by SunDisk (SanDisk). The company started up in 1988 and this was their first product produced in 1991, the Flash Card was designed to fit PCMCIA 1.0 standards implemented in 1990. It cost $1,000 for a 20MB Drive, SunDisk had some success, but it faced fierce competition with Intel & Psion’s DRAM solid-state drives. IBM was SunDisk’s first big customer, on the 2521 tablet it used two drives in tandem for a total of 40MB,
Almost all solid-state drives at this time were of the DRAM type, which was more expensive but technically faster than NAND. The biggest drawback of DRAM cards or “static disks”, was that they needed a constant draw of power to work. These cards had a small coin cell battery built inside them, and once the power ran out, all the memory inside of it would be lost. Additionally, if there was a severe fault like instantaneous loss of power, or if the drive lost connection, the data would be corrupted. SunDisk’s NAND card would not have any of these issues. SanDisk built its NAND flash card to fit the newly implemented PCMCIA standards, which was slowly being utilized by laptop manufacturers. IBM worked with Western Digital so that the NAND Card can be recognized by the hardware & operating systems as if it was an ATA drive. To be honest I’m not sure if the two cards act as a RAID 0 disk or if one card was just used for the operating system. For SanDisk, the NAND format would win the battle against static disks, reliability & price proved more successful than the transfer speeds. In 1992 SunDisk created the CF Card standard with the help of Kodak and Canon to be utilized in the emerging digital camera market. In 1995, the company changed its name to SanDisk to avoid confusion with Sun Microsystems. SanDisk might of never been the giant it is/was today if not for the IBM ThinkPad.
Why was it called ThinkPad?
THINK is IBM’s slogan since the beginning. Thomas J. Watson, IBM’s first CEO had used the THINK slogan when he was managing departments at National Cash Register Company (NCR). When Watson left NCR and went to Computing Tabulating Recording Company (CTR), he took the slogan with him. By 1924 CTR would become International Business Machines, eventually THINK would become a mantra at IBM. As per usual of IBM producing patents, they made sure the slogan would be copyrighted. When buying or leasing equipment from IBM, you would be welcomed with the THINK slogan on placards when receiving IBM mainframes or computers. The slogan was popular around the world thanks to IBM’s dominance in the business market.
THINK wasn’t only used for customers or marketing, IBM’s employees were bombarded by the slogan as well. In particular, IBM handed out pocket-sized notepads to its employees. They were bounded by black leather and had THINK emblazoned in gold. Because IBM pushed its employees to write down their ideas, future products, it was standard protocol you had one at all times. Employees nicknamed the little book, ThinkPad. While in the development of the 2521, there wasn’t a project or codename for the product, it was just simply the pen computer project. Danny Wainright was an engineer who was working on the project and said to everyone, “Why don’t we just call it the ThinkPad?”. The name stuck with the people working with the project, and when the marketing team came along to see it, they liked the name as well.
The name did not stick well to upper heads at IBM & executives, as it was standard protocol to name products as numbers, not names. One concern was marketing the product to non-English speaking countries, that it would confuse the consumers & their brand. Had the execs got their way, it would have just been called the 2521 IBM Pen Computer. IBM’s Vice President of Product Development, Kathy Veith sided the developers and liked the ThinkPad name. When the 2521 was announced at a computer trade show in April 1992, she pushed forward with the name ThinkPad. The 2521 was a popular hit, it amazed every one of its capabilities, battery life, and most of all, everyone remembered it by its name. ThinkPad.
I have a pair of IBM 2521’s from an eBay auction, I was lucky because the seller sent it with a leather bag, documentation, two adapters, and a few batteries. On these tablets there isn’t any ‘ThinkPad’ name or logo on the device at all. There’s a start-up guide that calls the 2521 ThinkPad, & there are also a few personal notes to which the tablet is referred to as the ThinkPad. Eventually, IBM executives caved in and went to call their the new line of laptops, ‘ThinkPad’. These computers were worlds apart from what was released previously from the American Division, so the brand name would be good to use.
ThinkPad Released
In October 1992 IBM officially launched four portable computers under the ThinkPad family, 700, 700C, 700T, & 300. The 700T fixed some issues with the 2521, notably they strengthened the tablet to be more robust, additionally, the first four numbers of the MTM are the same. IBM did sold other laptops alongside the ThinkPad line in the US markets such as the CL57 SX (8554), N54SL (8551). In Japan, the PS/55 Note line had a few non-Thinpads as well like the N27sx, C23V, & 5525-S line. There were some ‘clones’ of ThinkPads, the C52 was the PS/55 version of the 700C, and the T22sx was like the 700T but with added features, a number pad, a keyboard stand & had a docking port of sorts.
700C Color Flagship, 700 Business Standard
At the center of the launch, the 700C was aimed directly to business executives, it was IBM’s flagship for their new laptop line, using IBM’s Micro Channel Architecture. It cost $4,350 USD and its price was the highest laptop out of the trio, but cheaper than the 700T pen tablet. The 700/C introduced the iconic 7 Row keyboard layout, it was compact for laptops yet not cramped, & it felt like a proper keyboard to type on. IBM spare no expense at the keyboard, and it’s build feel & quality gave it the legacy from day one.
The laptop standard with a 25MHz IBM 486SLC, & had a 120MB drive which was large at the time. IBM’s processor had good video performance via PC Mag’s testing and was a bit better than other competitors with Intel/AMD 486SX, 486SL, & Cyrix 486SL/C processors. The 700C was an evolution of the PS/55 Note N23SX (N33 in the USA/EU), so the CPU was IBM’s clone of the Intel’s 486. If the 25MHz Processor was not enough, you could option it for a 50MHz upgrade, unfortunately I can’t find the original cost of it, maybe it was a $500 upgrade looking at an old PSREF.
If you didn’t want to pay that much for a color display, you could have gotten the 700, no suffix. It has a monochrome passive matrix (DSTN) instead, the mono display had a lighter weight by a pound, used less energy but suffered from lower response time. Playing video games on this system would have been a disaster, but at $2,750 it came with an 80MB drive and $2,950 with a 120MB drive, it was considerably cheaper. The main reason why the 700C cost so much was the color display, supposedly it cost $1500 from Toshiba. The 700 also benefited with better battery life than the 700C, IBM stated they lasted up to 4:15 hours & 3:30 hours with power management but PC Mag found it was much lower. They did a few tests, one where it tested longevity, and another one where for performance, on the latter they got 1:46 hours of battery life with the 700C at 22nd place, about 3:32 hours with the 700 that ranked 2nd, and 4:18 hours with the 300 which ranked 1st! The magazine published on March 30th 1993, so this was a few months before the “2nd” generation of ThinkPads.
The Budget 300
If the 700 was still too expensive, IBM offered a budget laptop, called the 300. This laptop was outsourced to Zenith Data Systems (ZDS), and it cost $2,375 with an 80MB HDD, or $2,575 if you needed 120MB of space. The laptop came with the older & slower 25MHz 386SL, & it was painted grey, a similar shade on other laptops. The unit had a different design than the 700/C, it had a 6-row keyboard design and no trackpad built-in. A few online posts are saying the parts were similar to the ZDS Z-Note systems, like the 325VLp. Richard Sapper design prototype had D shaped keys, which predates the island keys of the X1 Carbon.
Although they sounded like a bargain, Zenith’s quality control was terrible and the systems were faulty. When IBM kept on seeing returns, they would take away manufacturing from Zenith and do it in house. In February 1993, IBM announced they would drop the price of their computers up to 14%, with the 300 starting at $1,999! Despite its failure in durability to the 700 models, the 300 won design awards and sold well, the 300 line was here to stay. The 300 did not use IBM’s MCA like the 700 did, because it was based upon a Zenith system, I can’t find out info if it was using EISA either.
Moore’s Law was in full effect, as every six months there looked to new emerging technology updates on every laptop. Intel was the leader on processor design & it licensed it’s chips to other manufacturers, there was Cyrix, IBM and AMD who made Intel clones, and you also had chips made from Motorola, NEC, NexGen, & Texas Instruments. The Intel 386 clones weren’t equal though, some processors had better instruction sets or more power as well. Companies began researching CPU architectures that would succeed Intel’s, RISC based processors was envisioned as the next leap, DEC, Sun, Acorn & IBM would build their processors apart from the Intel ecosystem. Companies were starting up left and right, new technologies emerging, material costs dropping & more laptops coming out to the market. IBM wanted to add more to the trio of the ThinkPad line up and offered new models for the 1993 year.
PS/55 Note Variants
In Japan and East Asian markets, the PS/55 brand stayed, they would get similar ThinkPad models that were rebranded. Even when IBM officially introduced ThinkPads to Japan/EA markets, there were still a few PS/55 models being sold, til about 1995. Additionally, in NA/EU markets, there are still a few laptops launched under the PS/2 Note name, even some were ThinkPad clones in the grey color. Previously the PS/55 Note N27 sx was their big color laptop and the N23 SX was the mid-tier economy model.
T22sx was released in Japan, it was based upon the 700T but it had a small number pad to the right of the LCD. What made this machine different was that it was able to have finger input alongside the Wacom Digitizer! It also had a port on the “bottom” that allowed you to connect a floppy disk, kickstand & keyboard. It never came to the NA or EU markets, perhaps it would have cannibalized sales of the 700T or it would have cost too much in comparison. It would win a design award from G-Mark, but information about this machine is mysterious.
In Japan, the “clone” of the CL57 SX was the PS/55 Note N27 SX, though I’m sure the PS/55 model is the original. Both systems have similar specs, design, footprint, & it was an MCA based laptop with IBM DOS 5.0 or OS/2 J 2.0. It came standard with a 20MHz 386SX Intel processor and could be upgraded with a 387SX Math Co-Processor. This model did not come with a TrackPoint, but had a floppy drive as standard. I think it had a slightly different exterior, as it has a sharp 45-degree angle hinge on the LCD that is accented by a 90-degree quarter circle akin to Sapper’s 300 design prototype. Another difference was the CL57 SX had a second button to the left of the LCD base, the N27 SX does not… maybe it isn’t a clone. :O
PS/55 Model C52 was the sexy flagship with a TrackPoint, color LCD & compact bento box design. It is completely identical to the 700C, 4MB RAM standard, upgradable to 16MB. However, it differed by having a 240MB IDE HDD standard and could be upgraded to a 340MB HDD. This info isn’t set in stone, so I might be wrong, but I believe the Japan laptop had gotten an IBM 386 SLC processor while NA/EU model got the Intel 386 SX. Additionally, I believe it cost 782,00 YEN for the 9552-Y0B (Base Model), which translates to $6,421 USD. If the brochure is right, it means that the unit cost much more than the US counterpart, but it did come with a newer, more advanced processor and it’s HDD size was three times larger!
PS/55 Model C23V, this model looks to be an evolution from the N23V, which I’m assuming was the Yamato Labs economy model with a color display. Looking at the PS/55 & ThinkPad timeline, it shows that is a precursor to the 320. It has a 10.4″ TFT 256 color LCD, but it doesn’t have a Trackpoint. Its design is different than the 300… but it is as small as the 700. Its specs are similar to the 700C from the german wiki & aichi.to, perhaps this was a cheaper 700C without a TrackPoint installed. I just noticed that on the brochure it has “IBM ThinkPad” on the logo but doesn’t specifically state that elsewhere. There is a model that is extremely similar to this machine, down to the specs, the M23V. I can’t read the image because it is in Japanese, but the M23V looks to have 16-bit colors, and is lighter.
Other ThinkPad stuff
Three lines of laptops released, but historically we know there were 6 lines of ThinkPads; so what about the 800, 500 and 200? There’s a rumor that a Boca Raton employee had thought of naming the models after BMW’s cars, the 7 Series being the flagship, 3 Series being economical and 5 Series being mid-range. What worked was that the pricing was similar, as it progressed on the higher numbers, but as far as size and form factor they were quite different. The second and third digits designate the engine’s liter size, for IBM a higher number meant a newer model… usually. The letter suffix typically signified an upgrade to the model without the use of a different chassis, or it could be quite a different variant of the original machine. *soo off topic*
I think IBM wanted to see what sold well with the consumers, would they like the ThinkPad or would they prefer the PS/2 Note line? Two new laptop lines would be introduced, eventually four, but I don’t think IBM had planned that through. For example, we wouldn’t see the 800 lines for a few years, the development of the PowerPC chip started in 1991 and the first products with that processor would launch around 1994. Even the first PowerPC laptops weren’t from IBM, it was by Apple.
200 Monolith
The 200 series is known as the extremely portable laptop line, most of the models were only released in Japan and East Asian markets. During the 1992 launch, there was no ThinkPad 200, nor was there one in 1993, but there was a 220 that had a little roller ball mouse. RIOS (IBM/Ricoh Joint project) had a prototype ultraportable nicknamed “Monolith”. I found this information-digging into the PC110 PalmTop. Supposedly the machine was in development in 1991, its design is much different than other PS/55 machines at that time, but it could have been a competitor to Toshiba’s cheap T1100 notebook.
Reading from Basterfield’s site, the project looks to be a PC110 precursor. On the motherboard of that machine, it says “Monolith 1992”, so it could be an evolution to the original project. This machine is highly elusive, as the photo shown above is from this design prototype, and which had buttons on the lid. The machine was designed to be the size of a VHS tape, and the keyboard retained the 7-row design of the 700C. The number pad and FN key buttons are strange because there wasn’t a Thinkpad that would have something like this. The T22sx would use the number pad layout but would use traditional buttons instead of these thin or capacitive type.
Leapfrog – Concept
Richard Sapper designed a concept tablet device that envisioned what future computers could be. The Leapfrog is simply a design exercise and would be impossible to make. “Vision 95” was a design project that was part of IBM’s Strategic Design Department. It is a slate tablet with an interesting thick bezel design, and it could be connected to a dock of some sort and a thin space saver keyboard with a TrackPoint. Currently, a prototype is housed at Cooper Hewitt Museum, and it appears the machine was functional with Windows 3.1 at one time. I would say that the TransNote is the spiritual successor to the Leapfrog.
From 1993 and on, IBM added new features and innovations to the ThinkPad line to set them different from the rest. Toshiba was dominating the market, but they started to get increased competition from IBM, Dell & HP. Although IBM made a deal with Ricoh for their first laptops, they would work deals with their competitors; Canon, Toshiba, Apple, & Motorola. But IBM still had the “Big Blue” mentality and screwed over Jerry Kaplan’s Go Corporation. IBM’s tablets would switch from PenPointOS to a specialized Windows OS for Pen Computing. Although the name ThinkPad was used as a selling name for their tablet computer, many companies who launched a pen based computer lost out except for Palm, Wacom & Fujitsu.
This post took longer than the others, I will get back to the ThinkPad history after getting used prices done for the Winter season.