What laptop is the most loved, and maybe the most famous laptop in the world? Which laptop went into space? Which laptop won over 300 design awards? I’m sure many of you will be thinking of something made by Apple, but the truth of the matter is that we’re talking about something else: IBM’s ThinkPad. You might wonder, where does that name come from?
The IBM ThinkPad was first introduced in 1992, and it was an instant hit. It sported the industry’s first 10.4″ TFT colour display, and had a 120MB hard drive, a 486 processor, and ran the Windows 3.1 operating system. It also had a peculiar little red dot in the middle of the keyboard.
This peculiar red little dot was actually a little stick used to control the mouse pointer. It was not developed by IBM; it was actually conceived at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center by Ted Selker in 1984. Selker would later join IBM, where he perfected the design of the pointing stick, but people higher up at IBM were not exactly thrilled by the idea. In the end it took Jim Cannavino, general manager of IBM’s Personal Systems Group, to realise that the pointing stick was a much better alternative to a trackball, which were used up until then to replace the mouse on notebooks.
In any case, let’s get back to the name ThinkPad. The name consists of two parts – think and pad. Both have their own history within IBM, and since ‘think’ comes first, and also has the longest history, let’s start with that one.
THINK was actually a one-word slogan for IBM, conjured up in the 1920s (!) by IBM founder Thomas J. Watson, Sr. It appeared all over IBM offices, plants, company publications, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and appeared in translated forms all over the world for local branches of the company. In fact, even though there’s no way to know for sure, it could be that it inspired Apple’s ‘Think Different’ campaign. THINK has its roots in the rationalist beliefs of Watson, Sr. In 1915, he told his employees: “All the problems of the world could be solved easily if men were only willing to think.”
Then there’s the ‘pad’ part. Some of you probably already knew about the THINK part, but the ‘pad’ part is more interesting. What many probably don’t know is that the ThinkPad actually started out as a tablet computer, an idea IBM took from GO. When IBM’s tablet was nearing its big unveiling to the press, the company still needed a name.
In 1991, Denny Wainwright, a senior planner at IBM, worked on the tablet computer product at IBM. He proposed calling the machine ThinkPad, a name he derived from, well, the non-digital version of the tablet concept: a notepad. As in, paper bundled together covered in leather. IBM employees were given these posh notepads labelled with the company’s slogan – THINK – embossed on the leather in black letters.
IBM’s corporate naming committee did not like the name. First, it didn’t have a number. How could IBM ship a computer without a number? Second, IBM sold a lot of machines outside of the US. How would an English name catch on in the non-English speaking world? Kathy Vieth, vice president at IBM, ignored corporate and unveiled the name at a press event anyway – it caught on immediately, and the name stuck.
We’re still talking tablet here. The tablet market failed, and nobody was buying tablets. As such, IBM decided to use the ThinkPad name for a laptop it had in development in parallel to the tablet. The original ThinkPad laptops, the 700, 700C, 700T and 300, were instant hits, and transformed the laptop market from utilitarian machines to something you really wanted to have.
“The ThinkPad rocked the market,” said Bob O’Malley, then managing director of IBM Personal Systems, Asia-Pacific, “The early notebooks were like the fleet cars purchased by a utility company… Functional, ordinary. But the ThinkPad was like a Porsche convertible. It made people say, ‘Wow!’ and that ‘wow’ was unprecedented. I remember that none of the geographic areas could get enough ThinkPads. It seemed as though everybody had to have one.”
Up until this very day, the ThinkPad is still held in very high regard. Sure, Lenovo took over the business from IBM, and many believe the ThinkPad is worse off for it, but I still see many a true geek carrying around a ThinkPad.
The original ThinkPad? You can still order them at IBM’s Logo Merchandise Store, but the leather is now fake. You can also still order paper refills.
it is even better than “went into space”
think “is used by 6 space station inhabitants 365 days a year”
Edited 2009-10-02 13:07 UTC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1OTSbIzcwI&fmt=22#t=9m28s
station is full of them
they also use outlook for their space email, how great is that
Am i the only person in the world that thinks the nipple is an awful idea? I much prefer the trackball and the pad to the little dot and with long term use i think the touchpad is pretty horrendous too. But its good too see options exists for all those that prefer their own pointing preferences.
I love the TrackPoint. It allows me to use my computer without ever moving my hands from the keyboard. Touchpads are so inconsistent in their design. On those laptops, I have to type with my wrists arched so I don’t accidently “hit” the touchpad which has the bad habit of clicking outside the intended area. I spend 5-6 hours a day at my Thinkpad, disabling the touchpad and only using the pointer makes a ton of difference.
Agreed. It took me a week or two to really get used to the TrackPoint, but when I did it made a much better pointing tool than the trackpad or trackball.
I wish Netbooks would get a TrackPoint– their keyboard bezel is small enough that a TrackPoint would beat-out a tiny trackpad any day of the week.
Vaio P has a nipple. doesn’t count as a netbook from the price perspective, though. =)
Quite possibly.
I love the “nipple”. Trackballs feel like a step backwards to me.
I guess it just shows that everyone has their own preference and their own (perfectly good) reasons for prefering what they do.
Who wouldn’t love fondling a nipple?
Yeah, I’m a ThinkPad lover as well… main reasons are the “nipple”, build quality and generally good Linux/BSD support.
Am i the only person in the world that thinks the nipple is an awful idea?
Such blasphemy! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with nipples! :O
I actually don’t mind the “nipple” or the dot. What I’ve found in the past is these devices tend to get “stuck” and the mouse cursor tends to drift continuously rather than return to a neutral position and stop when released. Kind of a pain, but I like it a lot better than a trackball or trackpad (which seem to cause carpal-ish pain with prolonged use).
I don’t mind the red button, but I’m not proficient with it. And anything is better than a touch pad – I always tap those accidentally when typing, creating all sorts of interesting but random effects and problems.
I agree, the nipple (trackpad pointing variety) is bloody awful.
Compared to touchpads, I find that it takes longer to get used to a trackpoint – but that a trackpoint is better for anything that requires precision.
Personally I’ll take a decent mouse over either, but I still find trackpoints much more bearable to use than touchpads.
hey dont knock the nipple, its actually quite useful when the the trackpad decides to go belly up and become DOA.
but i too agree that the nipple sucks, but it works in a pinch
dr. d
My T60 has been the best laptop I have owned, bar none. My next laptop will be a ThinkPad.
I’ve got an R61 14″ and I love it. I even bought it with SLED 10 installed, although that was quickly wiped out.
Wish that I could have been able to afford the T61 but it’s a great machine anyway.
I think that the trackpoint coupled with 3 (yes 3!) buttons is absolutely awesome. I hardly ever use the touchpad. The middle button for the trackpoint acts as the scroll, or any other auxiliary function you can program.
I believe the reason you see so many ThinkPads is not because of popularity but pure Darwinism. They are probably the only common notebooks that are not damaged by dropping coffee or cola in them. Apple’s dies in dusins, but are also sold in large numbers. ThinkPads sales are small (at least post IBM), but they live forever.
Edited 2009-10-02 13:39 UTC
That would seem to me to be an argument as to why more people should be buying them.
Like so many others, I love ThinkPads too.
I have four of these currently, from X21 to newer models. Time does not kill these, software does.
PS. Good article, Thom.
Edited 2009-10-02 16:26 UTC
After physical disintegration of my first notebooks I exclusively buy ThinkPad X series. I run them with FreeBSD.
I also like the nipple and intentionally buy models without touchpads. That may be because of what and how I do it though.
ThinkPads shall live.
The GRiD Compass?
Edited 2009-10-02 17:43 UTC
Heh, when I read that that is what first came to my mind.
I want a GRiD 1101 so badly
Who, can resist a computer with bubble memory. They were just the hottest computer you could own in the early 1980:s. Unfortunately they had their own OS, so they could not survive the competition from MS-DOS based systems such as the Thinkpad.
Seeing that GRiD 1101 kind of makes it clear where Dell got its newfound fetish with the extending part behind the laptop’s display.
We’ve had Acer, we’ve had dell, we’ve had gateway, we’ve had apple. But right now there are six Thinkpads active in my household. My wife got through a laptop every eighteen months (she uses her laptop ~12 hours a day), but her thinkpad keeps going. And I so love my X61t I’m thinking of buying a spare…
The only minus of the ordinary thinkpads is the weak backlight…
I conseived in-keyboard pointing device while reading Moran/Card Human Computer Interaction book before I went to Atari Research in 1983. I wrote up a patent and filed it before joining IBM in 1985. I disclosed it to them but when the work at IBM the work got too important to diminsh with complex legal interests. I abandoned the patent pending, and focused on the work at IBM. People making the L40SX looked at and ultimately rejected the pointing device in 1990. People making the Thinkpad models in 1991 looked at and ultimately rejected it. The Thinkpad 700, the first one with the pointing device was the same weight, speed and display size with its unsuccessful predisesor, the biggest difference was getting rid of its thumb trackball and replacing it with the TrackPoint gave the laptop a boost in usability that the press and cusotmers seemed to notice… and aused IBM to tripple its projections and production scheudle three times in the first three months selling $.5 billion of thinkpads in the first year. An exponential growth in sales continued for 3 years.
thank you for commenting ted selker, because I am happy to finally thank, even if in virtual reality, the creator of one of the best physical cursor interfaces ever invented
If you really did invent it, then I want to hug you. I adore the trackpoint. I cannot stand touchpads. They are horrible.
I too would like to thank you for this fantastic device, the little red/blue and what ever colour HP gives it, is just a must for my pc’s.
I even own 2 keyboards with ultranav, because i can’t live without it on my desktops.
And i second the user who mentionen that he disables the touchpad, it is just annoying, not only does it make you move focus from a area you are using, its also unprecise and forces you to have your hands in an unpraticle position.
Wow… i’m impressed. I love the trackpoint since my Toshiba T2130ct. That’s why I’d like to thank you for this great idea.
Yesterday, I got back my first ThinkPad. It is a fully functional 755C (486, 75 MHz, 640x480x256, 300 MB disk, 20 MB RAM, floppy disk drive) from approx. 1995, It works like a charm, and I still use it for programming Motorola mobile radios (which requires a “slow” computer), as well as for amateur radio purposes; OS is DOS + GEOS, but it even ran FreeBSD in the past. The trackpoint works very accurately and enables a pixel-precise (!) placing of the cursor; this precisiion does not change the fact that the trackpoint is an excellent pointing tool for fast operations. The original battery pack still lives and gives more than 2 hours life to the computer. Just imagine what quality this system must be made of – regarding the fact that it is “quite old”.
Furthermore, I just remembered that I have an original IBM OS/2 3.0 box with an interesting booklet (“OS/2 Warp Benutzerhandbuch”, 23H9482). Why is it interesting? Because it shows a compact-sized keyboard with a trackpoint – a trackpoint in a stationary keyboard! Why can’t such a useful thing exist today? (Best idea: A trackpoint on a 122 key keyboard of IBM model M type.)
Something I’d like to add about modern Thinkpads: Next to the trackpoint they offer another feature that I’ve not found yet on other devices (usually equipped with finger slime pad coffee warmers): a middle mouse button. This button is essential to proper X operations, especially for use with the edit buffer, but very handy for the use of Opera (and Firefox).
When I think about buying a new laptop, which I will have to do sooner or later, it makes me sad that it’s quite hard to find such simple things (trackpoint, three mouse buttons, support of standards) on our “modern” home consumer laptops. But as I always say: People want crap, they get crap…
Because it shows a compact-sized keyboard with a trackpoint – a trackpoint in a stationary keyboard! Why can’t such a useful thing exist today?
I’d like one such myself too. Trackpoints take literally no extra space whatsoever, they are very easy to learn to use, and long fingernails don’t hinder using them unlike f.ex. touchpads. If you’re typing something, be it coding, an essay, a story or anything, it’s annoying to have to move your hand away from the keyboard to use a mouse. In those situations a trackpoint is also very handy, you only need to move one single finger instead of moving whole hand.
“All the problems of the world could be solved easily if men were only willing to think.”
While I don’t entirely agree with that, I like the quote nonetheless. I wish there were a Paper Think Pad with this quote embossed in the leather.
I’ve used both for extensive periods of time. At first I was a track pad bigot and hated and resisted the pointer.
But now, I’m all pointer.
Rob http://www.atlantarealestateinfo.com
I’d like to offer my thanks as well. It’s a requirement on any laptop I buy.
I even have a Model M with a Trackpoint, although I think its Lexmark or Unicomp manufacture.