@@RERM001 The Sony VAIO line and Toshiba's Satellite lines were amazing. Back then i ALMOST got either of these but that was around the time both sold off their Laptop division and i was like "welp... i guess not then."
IBM ThinkPads were way ahead of the technology available at the time. The Framework laptop made it's rounds lately because of its module design, this Thinkpad has it beat by decades! The modularity of this laptop is genius and just another deciding factor why ThinkPads in general were so prevalent in the business realm. Great video!!
Honestly they still are to this day. The quality that you get compared to other laptop's is crazy. I've had my l380 Thinkpad yoga for 3 years now and it's still perfect. I would love to see Lenovo do something cool with a keyboard on a laptop sometime as like a prototype
Oh yeah like this windows 95 ibm thinkpad laptop that had a butterfly keyboard which expanded itself into a wide form whenever the display was opened but once closed, then the keyboard would fold itself into a small square shape
@@NeoGeo822 while I like (and own) the newer ThinkPads, they are nothing compared to the ingenious engineering of the older models. The last good ones were ~2012 I think. The UltraBay was great. The swappable battery as well. also swappable CPU and RAM in most models. The quality of the modern ThinkPads however is still quite good, and they still provide very good maintenance manuals. Something that you should not take for granted these days. CPUs and RAM are not swappable in most ThinkPads today however. Especially RAM being soldered is a crime...
@@TheRailroad99 Thinkpad line was sold to Lenovo. So it makes sense. There are a few problem units with the thin thinkpads series with the newer ones. One thing hasn't changed. They still command a premium.
I’d pay damn good money for a laptop this well thought out. I’ve broken my fair share of clips getting to the hard drive and ram. This is a breath of fresh air.
Fascinating! I found a pristine 1997 380ED in the trash. It's one of my most treasured vintage laptops. Also a 2002 Alienware Area-51 5620D notebook with 1600 X 1200 resolution, and a Clevo-Sager D800P.
This how every laptop should’ve done it tbh. Like you say, it’s like a car, which somehow is very accessible but just as confusing, complicated and easy to mess up for a layman. Yet portable computers are locked inside a casket behind 8-12 screws.
@@LegoWormNoah101 This was the exception. Most laptops of the era had proprietary everything. Not to mention the slots where the battery/2nd drive unit goes is proprietary. Those batteries were a fortune. I don't have this exact model, but I have one in the same line. You should see the docking station. It adds ISA slots and like 4 full size bays. It's buried in my garage somewhere, so don't quote me on the 4 full size bays, it may be 2. But what really sucks about these machines is the screen, at least for modern day gaming. The screen only looks good at the native resolution and has ghosting all the time. The active matrix doesn't have the ghosting, but it's still not great for any game that scrolls and it still gets distorted, really, really bad when not in it's native resolution. I supported hundreds of these things. When they work, they are great. But when they don't work, I hope you get paid by the hour....
That's why I use a ThinkPad t520. Keyboard can be removed with 2 screws and then the memory and CPU is free to access. SSD is under a flap on the bottom and the CPU (Sandybridge i7) is still plenty for today
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Nothing is designed to be serviceable today. Most things you cannot get schematics for. At best, you are only supposed to go to board level, not component level. But the boards are so expensive that it is cost prohibitive to replace any board after it's like 2 years old.
In 2002 my parents bought one of these from a garage sale and it was my first computer. I still have it and I love that mechanism. Mines a bit worse for wear, and the Sound Card/Modem has long since died, but its an absolutely great machine. However, I've had this computer for nearly 20 years and I literally screamed at the screen when you locked the mouse buttons. I never knew you could do that.
This was the first laptop I ever owned, as a teenager with no money in 2005. It was outdated then but it did the job. I still have it today and it still works!
The XD variants of this line-up were used in the ISS, so keyboard tilting aside, the 760s have a place in history. Edit: Also, to those unfamiliar with the original ThinkPads, that modularity was a key part of the original design ethos. ThinkPad design was inspired by Bento lunch boxes from Japan, with the clamshell opening to reveal the contents and the compartmentalized inner layout.
The IBM design team was one of the most innovative ever. This is why IBM's motto was "Think." Unfortunately, an old Chestnut about IBM is that if IBM was marketing sushi they would call it raw dead fish. Completely factual but less than appetizing. This is why Apple is dominating the mass imagination while building on the shoulders of IBM, Intel, and Microsoft.
Yeah, innovation was the first thing Lenovo killed once they annexed the ThinkPad brand.… followed by functionality, built quality and sturdiness. And now there's absolutely nothing left anymore. Except maybe the black ABS plastic cases and the trackpoint.
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 You're absolutely correct. The last few remaining innovations like the drain holes for spilled liquids on the keyboard are gone as well as the ultrabay drive to swap DVD, extra slice batteries and another HDD. The trackpoint is the only thing left.
When I remember I had a broken IBM butterfly keyboard machine. I THREW IT AWAY! I am still kicking myself. But also it’s nice to know the ThinkPad has still got a second battery option.
Goo Gone, the stuff they sell in the Dollar Tree is absolutely the best way to deal with the rubberized 90s coating. Not only does it remove the stuff very quickly and easily, it leaves behind a great surface. I recently just did a large 6v lantern floodlight with it (the ENTIRE thing had the rubberized coating) and it turned out perfectly. It was a horrible sticky mess. But in about 1/2 hour and an oz of this stuff brought it to like 'new plastic' condition. I've also done a few 90s media players that had the rubberized coating and had the same success.
Had two of this series...an 760 EL and a 760 XD Rock solid.heavy but EXTREMELY reliable.... At least the 760XD has an integrated MPEG-2 chip onboard.... Miss these machines!
Thank you for making this video! I found one of these and this was an amazing walkthrough. I have two batteries, optical drive, floppy. This is an amazing piece of product design. You have a great walkthrough.
The 760! My favorite Thinkpad! I still have my 760XD that I had in the 90's to this day, and it still works great. Hard drive died but SD card fixed that issue right up.
@@EgoShredder Yeah, as someone living in germany, Thinkpads are NEVER this cheap to find here in Europe, like they are in the USA for some reason, where you can get them for pennies.
Timely video. I just picked up a 760LD for $5. Has a floppy instead of CDROM and no MIDI/composite/capture card. Love the mechanical design and looking forward to playing with it once I hack together a charger for the funky power connector.
The keyboard that can be raised like the hood of a car to allow easy upgrades or option switches is the best I've ever seen. I'd have thought it would be continued in other laptops well into the future.
Apparently there's a solution for the stickiness of the rubber parts of the old Thinkpads. I've heard that applying a small amount of Nivea (or an equivalent) with a cloth or a tissue can help revive the rubber.
I have a Thinkpad 760EL somewhere in the garage. Got some good use from it for a couple of years and then gave it to my daughter when she went to college.
I actually own one of these! Not a 760D but a 760. My mom used it in college. Super fascinating to learn about stuff I didn't know it could do, like locking the keyboard down and being able to install a second battery.
Hi Colin, thanks for yet another retro Thinkpad video. I'm always enjoying your videos, we have a common interest in retro electronics. I have a 760cd model in my collection, and the things you run in to are typical 760 problems. Aren't they great? The rubberized coating on the palm rest can be scrubbed away. You will not notice much of a difference in color without it. I suggest you remove all the parts and give the casing a nice warm soapy bath. This will restore its original feel. The lid can be restored with a magical eraser and hand creme. Be careful and delicate though! Greetings from The Netherlands.
@@colombianguy8194 You are welcome. Parts where the rubber coating are gone can not be restored of course. apply and reapply the hand creme a couple of times, a few days. Clean it with a non staining glass cleaner then re-apply again. etc. Be careful with the magic eraser, the coating will be gone before you know it.
Neat Laptop Colin! I remember when I was young (mid 90's) the commercials for these on TV. Wish I had bought this model or the 701c in my younger years. I did have a 380ed due to both cd and floppy being internal (which I think I still have). The 380ed had the same BIOS, very neat. Though I think if you update it, you can make it boot off CD rom. Thanks again for the videos!!!
I have this identical machine so it's cool to see that you've done a video about it! Anyway, a bit of ThinkPad backstory/urban myth for you. If you'll go look at some of the OS/2 graphics from the era, you'll see that a lot of it is very similar to what you see in the BIOS here. Also (as far as I can remember); at one point, IBM was developing some software product (probably OS/2), when they purportedly hired some software folks from Apple which might explain some of the whimsy from this timeframe. Don't quote me on this! I used to be a moderator on the ThinkPad Forum and back then there were a number of old guys who had been through the tech wars and knew things!
I had a 760XL back 20 years ago. my grandma would use it with dialup to access her email at her vacation home in the mountains in NY. by the time I got to it, I shoved a 6GB drive in, updated the BIOS, replaced the battery twice, and had installed everything from 98 to XP RTM on it. it did pretty good for the speed of it... which was an MMX 166 pentium. If you can't find restore media for the ED, find restore media for the 760XL since it's more desirable and people will have it.
These ThinkPads are always so cool and different, it’s a shame that this level of modularity isn’t around anymore. I would prefer a larger laptop if it meant that it had more options like this.
I have a copy of the video playback software if you'd like to try it. I couldn't get it to work reliably on my 770x, but maybe it'll work for your machine. Many years back, I was obsessed with the 760s, and literally bought three EDs and an XD off of eBay, because I loved the tilting keyboard and other quirky features, and also learned that NASA used the XDs on the ISS back in the late 90s. They're really neat machines, but aren't too practical to use these days. I'd rather have something like a Compaq Armada or similar machine of this era if I wanted to actually use the machine for more than just a novelty/collectors piece. I recall having to disable onboard devices in Windows 98 because of IRQ conflicts, because there weren't enough addresses available to use everything all at once. That, and the procedure of restoring from the factory media required using an internal floppy drive and an external CD drive for it to work, otherwise it would error out. I didn't have an external CD drive, so I ended up using Smart Boot Manager on a floppy to boot off of CD and load a retail copy of Windows 98 onto the machine that way.
I have a very similar unit, plus the docking station. The docking station is impressive. It's got an ISA bus in it as well for adding cards. But then there's the bad news about IBM ThinkPads of the era. the screen. The screen looks great, until you put it in a different resolution than the native resolution or even just open a dos box. It's HORRIBLE. UGLY as sin. I still remember the first time I tried to play a game on a Thinkpad at work. Oh, god does it look terrible.
@@tarstarkusz The docking stations are awesome in there own right! That was back when docking stations had support for PC expansion cards and additional drives, not just glorified port replicators becoming synonymous with the term. I had one for my 760XD, and another one for my 770x, although that beast mostly collects dust due to its humongous size. The screens are annoying to deal with, as it is for most early TFT panels from that era. I recommend using letterbox mode to avoid the stretching and distortion at lower resolutions.
@@foxyloon I supported a few hundred people with variants of this laptop. Compaq made some really nice docking stations as well. I'm pretty sure that I remembering correctly that many of them had automatic insertion and ejection of the laptops. You can chose better resolutions, but these early screens really only look passable at their native resolution. It's put away right now, but I am 99% sure it was a 486 and not a Pentium class. I know the screens got much better really quickly.
@@foxyloon I have a 760XL and a 770X, the track point of the 770X died :-( maybe you have a spare track point module for sell? Greetings from Colombia.
I picked up a 760XD a while back just to mess around with. Had to find another hard drive since the one it came with didn’t boot. I love the modularity of the machine - such a neat concept that should have been more standardized.
Here's what I don't get about your channel and, more specifically, some of the people that view it. Your content is about your hobbies - i.e. collecting, showing and repairing (generally) older tech gadgets. That's one of my hobbies too, so I come here, watch your content and, most of the time, I enjoy it. If I don't enjoy some content that much, then it's because of gadgets I don't have a lot of interest in, like portable tape players. But I still watch the videos because I appreciate the hard work you put into them and you're a fellow "tinkering geek" like I am. Because I enjoy your content so much and because I have hobbies, I don't have enough time in my day to complain that your videos are too long because you've dragged me away from the social media on my mobile phone for more than two minutes, or stopped me pouring an energy drink down my self-entitled neck five times every hour. In summary, please do not pander to the self-entitled brats that were unfortunate enough to be brought up by parents that never said the word "no" to them enough or were never told to sit at the dinner table, stop fidgeting and wait for everyone else to finish eating before the leaving the table. If these people have the attention spans of sub-normal goldfish, no patience and no willingness to just watch and maybe learn something new, that is entirely their problem to resolve, possibly with the assistance of a good therapist. Thank you for consistently good content, from an "old bloke" that sometimes just sits quietly, listens and learns.
I had the 755CD, was my first colour screen laptop! Had the 32mb ram card (enclosed unit, no slots) for a massive 40mb. It also had the locking mouse buttons and easy access hinged keyboard.
@@Appleboy78165 It did, however mine was an ex-corporate refurb and didn't come with the proprietary cables. It also didn't have the manual so I wondered what those ports did for a long time! I did have the swappable CD/floppy dives though.
The blue flake on the lid was a common understated touch IBM/Lenovo did on some of their Thinkpads. I have a T410 with that same blue flake. As these machines get older, it gets harder to see without some kind of additional light but when they were new, and if you were paying attention, you can see it with just ambient light.
hey, found this online. not sure if you've tried this already or not. 760el, 760ed, 760xl, 600, 600e, 600x, 770 and 770x Can boot from PCMCIA/CF. PCMCIA must be added to the Startup sequence in EasySetup and ide2 must be disabled. To disable ide2, the Thinkpad Configuration Utility must be used. in the dos version, the command is PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled
Oh my. I have 2 of those! One originally purchased in Singapore, which doesn't boot due to battery corrosion, and one originally purchased in the US, which partially works also due to battery corrosion, and I've been meaning to get the former up and running once I can repair the 'keyboard card' to get around the battery corrosion, but have been too busy with other projects.
I rescued the same machine from a dumpster, complete with charger &external floppy drive, it actually works fine, although has the nasty sticky rubber problem. Even the battery still holds a charge, these were a very good quality machine, unbelievably heavy for the size!
You got me wanting to get a Think pad now not so much as a daily driver so to speak but it be cool to have something to run a oldschool pin printer or laser jet with as far as it goes I've been away from PC and laptop for some time
I miss the Infrared ports on laptops. Used to have one on my Compaq Evon610C back then, which was my very first laptop, and i made lots of use with it when i had to move some photos i took with my phone back then and move it over to my laptop, without any cable. Yes it was of course a bit slow but it freaking worked like a charm. It didn't cost anything extra and was super easy to use.
With their desktops of the same era. The “EFI” style BIOS was actually installed on a hidden partition on the HDD. Since it was far too much to put on a chip on the system board. I assume you had to use the system recovery CDs if you ever installed a new HDD otherwise it would be dead. Now I am referring to Compaq office type desktops. But seeing your IBM using a similar type bios. Makes me wonder if it’s the same concept?
I doubt it. I have a few PCs from 1995-1999 which all feature graphical BIOSes. They can boot to BIOS with just the Board, memory and CPU. These were quite common in the second half of the 90s, but disappeared rather fast again.
That is a well engineered laptop. The only things I would add to it are a couple of features from the Toshiba 780DVD; external camera, ability to play DVDs, and connector port for cell phones.
I have a IBM that has a display that pops up and comes out, it also has a feature where you can write on a built in pad thing to the right and it will translate what you wight on it *on paper over the thing, comes with a nice pen too.*
Man! When handling these old machines you are probably the shakiest hands youtuber ive seen recently. No offense im extremely shaky too and people always ask me why im so nervous when im not. So i get it but its so noticeable in those close ups it looks like me lol
Thanks for putting this one out. I recently acquired a Thinkpad 560e but didn't get any drives whatsoever. I think that I can help out here with the MWave device. Look up a contemporary Aptiva model. I suspect that it's a very similar model modem-sound card combo that was in my Aptiva, which was the very first PC I owned. All I can remember of the model number was 2160 iirc. Mine had a Pentium 100MHz in it, so it might work if you can find it.
Somewhere in my house I have a ThinkPad that is even earlier than this with the tiltable keyboard. I don't recall if it auto-tilts or not. I also have the docking station to it. This was back when docking stations were more than port replicators. You can put a CD and a hard disk in it and I'm pretty sure it has ISA slots too. Some of them even had motorized docking stations that automatically sucked in and then locked the laptop in place. I'm about 99% sure it's a 486. Great little machine.
I have a large docking station for one of my Thinkpad Z61p machines, which can take a SATA hard drive and PCIe graphics card and has a small case cooling fan. The latter is a bit fiddly to get working, which I will have another go at before long.
I've noticed the older Thinkpads will boot off CF card in the PC Card slot - my 360 will, but my 760 won't. Not sure what the difference is. I think it will boot the ATA PC Card hard drives though, like the one out of my 730T.
I used a 760ED as a daily driver (running linux on it) for years... and I never knew the keyboard had the lock-down lever and the mouse button latches!? And yes, the coating on mine turned into goo years ago. :(
One day we will have a thinkpad with a butterfly keyboard that rises in the back, and it grows erector set legs to follow you around using heat detection so you don't have to carry it around.
Old video but worth noting: The palmrest of the keyboard has the the CMOS battery pack that like your Mac videos is prone to corrosion - its definitely worth checking because if it corrodes it eats the traces of the keyboard and renders it inoperable.
"I guess I'm collecting these now?" It only becomes a problem when you get a new old stock ThinkPad in original packaging and have *WATA* grade it 9.8 or higher!
Since it has built-in MPEG-2 hardware acceleration, I wonder if they ever produced a DVD drive for it. 1996 was at the very beginning of the DVD era, and it was a few more years before DVD drives in laptops became more common, but it would be a neat upgrade.
For the 760 series DVD drives were unavailable. The next generation, the 770 series were the first ThinkPads with DVD drives, the MPEG-2 hardware acceleration were an add-on card under the hard drive bay. My 770X were the last of the bunch, it has Trident cyber video chip with MPEG-2 decoding, apparently I don't need the extra decoding card. Unfortunately I didn't have the DVD drive. Greetings from Colombia.
What an absolutely brilliant overall design! Even though this thing probably weighed 15 pounds, every inch was thought out, and it's like IBM took the top 3 design teams of the day, stuck them in a room and told them they weren't coming out until they came out with the best laptop they could dream up.
@@WrikBhattacharyya still is a classic high end and rare Thinkpad, i remembered a long time ago when I saw a T43p with the 1600*1200 LCD in my country ebay like website, it was cheap but I didn't had the money :-(
I have a 760EL, I didn't know you could disable the autolift on the lid, good to know. The MWave was optional, as I don't have it or a modem. Thankfully mine isn't as sticky as yours. I got the CD ROM and the Floppy drives for mine, I used this laptop as a floppy emulator for the Atari 800 computer, over serial, before SD card solutions were available.
Drinking game: Take a shot every time I say "whatever" in this video. RIP.
I didn’t notice it. You’re good.
it would be so cool to have a modern laptop with this kind of modular design that does not cost a ton of money to own
Or "like".
Nurse says I’ve got to drink the barium in one go…😬👍
I am ded
IBM realized how smart and forward thinking their laptop division was and sold it off. 😂
So did SONY... and Toshiba. Sadly when bad management happens at the top you can have the best parts of those companies to chose death or departure.
@@RERM001 The Sony VAIO line and Toshiba's Satellite lines were amazing. Back then i ALMOST got either of these but that was around the time both sold off their Laptop division and i was like "welp... i guess not then."
IBM ThinkPads were way ahead of the technology available at the time. The Framework laptop made it's rounds lately because of its module design, this Thinkpad has it beat by decades! The modularity of this laptop is genius and just another deciding factor why ThinkPads in general were so prevalent in the business realm. Great video!!
it too immediately remind me of framework laptop
Honestly they still are to this day. The quality that you get compared to other laptop's is crazy. I've had my l380 Thinkpad yoga for 3 years now and it's still perfect. I would love to see Lenovo do something cool with a keyboard on a laptop sometime as like a prototype
Oh yeah like this windows 95 ibm thinkpad laptop that had a butterfly keyboard which expanded itself into a wide form whenever the display was opened but once closed, then the keyboard would fold itself into a small square shape
@@NeoGeo822 while I like (and own) the newer ThinkPads, they are nothing compared to the ingenious engineering of the older models.
The last good ones were ~2012 I think.
The UltraBay was great. The swappable battery as well. also swappable CPU and RAM in most models.
The quality of the modern ThinkPads however is still quite good, and they still provide very good maintenance manuals. Something that you should not take for granted these days.
CPUs and RAM are not swappable in most ThinkPads today however. Especially RAM being soldered is a crime...
@@TheRailroad99 Thinkpad line was sold to Lenovo. So it makes sense. There are a few problem units with the thin thinkpads series with the newer ones. One thing hasn't changed. They still command a premium.
I’d pay damn good money for a laptop this well thought out. I’ve broken my fair share of clips getting to the hard drive and ram. This is a breath of fresh air.
Fascinating! I found a pristine 1997 380ED in the trash. It's one of my most treasured vintage laptops. Also a 2002 Alienware Area-51 5620D notebook with 1600 X 1200 resolution, and a Clevo-Sager D800P.
Ah back in 2002-2003 i craved these Alienware laptops sooooo much xD And now i'm eying on the old Sony Vaio laptops.
Hahaha the impatient people thing made me stop in my tracks... thanks for sticking with it!
That was pretty good lol
This how every laptop should’ve done it tbh. Like you say, it’s like a car, which somehow is very accessible but just as confusing, complicated and easy to mess up for a layman. Yet portable computers are locked inside a casket behind 8-12 screws.
Nowadays it's perfectly sealed and repair is intentionally impossible for money
Planned obsolescence. Started in the great depression and only has gotten worse. Supporting companies that avoid that is getting pricey.
@@LegoWormNoah101 This was the exception. Most laptops of the era had proprietary everything. Not to mention the slots where the battery/2nd drive unit goes is proprietary. Those batteries were a fortune.
I don't have this exact model, but I have one in the same line. You should see the docking station. It adds ISA slots and like 4 full size bays. It's buried in my garage somewhere, so don't quote me on the 4 full size bays, it may be 2.
But what really sucks about these machines is the screen, at least for modern day gaming. The screen only looks good at the native resolution and has ghosting all the time. The active matrix doesn't have the ghosting, but it's still not great for any game that scrolls and it still gets distorted, really, really bad when not in it's native resolution.
I supported hundreds of these things. When they work, they are great. But when they don't work, I hope you get paid by the hour....
That's why I use a ThinkPad t520. Keyboard can be removed with 2 screws and then the memory and CPU is free to access. SSD is under a flap on the bottom and the CPU (Sandybridge i7) is still plenty for today
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Nothing is designed to be serviceable today. Most things you cannot get schematics for. At best, you are only supposed to go to board level, not component level. But the boards are so expensive that it is cost prohibitive to replace any board after it's like 2 years old.
In 2002 my parents bought one of these from a garage sale and it was my first computer. I still have it and I love that mechanism. Mines a bit worse for wear, and the Sound Card/Modem has long since died, but its an absolutely great machine.
However, I've had this computer for nearly 20 years and I literally screamed at the screen when you locked the mouse buttons. I never knew you could do that.
This was the first laptop I ever owned, as a teenager with no money in 2005. It was outdated then but it did the job. I still have it today and it still works!
That toolless access design is brilliant!
Glad I watched those whole 2 minutes of video for just one simple trick, I'm totally not missing out by being impatient
Im not impatient but he almost got me for a second.
One of the best machines to run OPENSTEP on!
Do you have any ThinkPad 760 series machines you will be featuring on your channel?
Modern laptop companies need to take notes!! IBM was way ahead of its time!! I wish my laptop was this easy to take apart!!
I had one in high school. Loved it! Amazing build quality, crystal clear TFT.
The mechanical design on that this is SO COOL! I love the car hood keyboard and its dual-purpose latches.
I always say “hey everyone it’s Collin. How’s it goin?” before I click your videos. Always makes me smile.
#metoo
The XD variants of this line-up were used in the ISS, so keyboard tilting aside, the 760s have a place in history.
Edit: Also, to those unfamiliar with the original ThinkPads, that modularity was a key part of the original design ethos. ThinkPad design was inspired by Bento lunch boxes from Japan, with the clamshell opening to reveal the contents and the compartmentalized inner layout.
I loved this design and I would pay for a modern laptop hardware with the same design.
@@suprshin Same here, and it doesn't have to be this thick to work. Framework could definitely do better...
The IBM design team was one of the most innovative ever. This is why IBM's motto was "Think."
Unfortunately, an old Chestnut about IBM is that if IBM was marketing sushi they would call it raw dead fish. Completely factual but less than appetizing. This is why Apple is dominating the mass imagination while building on the shoulders of IBM, Intel, and Microsoft.
Yeah, innovation was the first thing Lenovo killed once they annexed the ThinkPad brand.… followed by functionality, built quality and sturdiness. And now there's absolutely nothing left anymore. Except maybe the black ABS plastic cases and the trackpoint.
apple innovating? lol
If the IBM way of doing things was so great, they would not have had to sell off the Thinkpad division.
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 You're absolutely correct. The last few remaining innovations like the drain holes for spilled liquids on the keyboard are gone as well as the ultrabay drive to swap DVD, extra slice batteries and another HDD. The trackpoint is the only thing left.
@@klwthe3rd Yeah... RIP Ultrabay..... Something that made these laptops sooo versatile instead of just being glorified tablets with keyboards.
Thats because laptops like this thinkpad is as legendary as it is. That 7xx series had soo many cools thickpads.
When I remember I had a broken IBM butterfly keyboard machine. I THREW IT AWAY! I am still kicking myself. But also it’s nice to know the ThinkPad has still got a second battery option.
Nobody throws those butterfly keyboard away! Holy crap!!! What did you do?
Goo Gone, the stuff they sell in the Dollar Tree is absolutely the best way to deal with the rubberized 90s coating. Not only does it remove the stuff very quickly and easily, it leaves behind a great surface. I recently just did a large 6v lantern floodlight with it (the ENTIRE thing had the rubberized coating) and it turned out perfectly. It was a horrible sticky mess. But in about 1/2 hour and an oz of this stuff brought it to like 'new plastic' condition. I've also done a few 90s media players that had the rubberized coating and had the same success.
That's interesting to know, thank you!
Had two of this series...an 760 EL and a 760 XD
Rock solid.heavy but EXTREMELY reliable....
At least the 760XD has an integrated MPEG-2 chip onboard....
Miss these machines!
Thank you for making this video! I found one of these and this was an amazing walkthrough. I have two batteries, optical drive, floppy. This is an amazing piece of product design. You have a great walkthrough.
The 760! My favorite Thinkpad! I still have my 760XD that I had in the 90's to this day, and it still works great. Hard drive died but SD card fixed that issue right up.
I think the pointer buttons lock for accidental triggers while "insane" typing sessions. Had the same laptop no other use to it..
My 365x has those same locks, I think my 750c does too but I don't have it with me at the moment so I don't know for sure
I'm strangely nostalgic for those older, chunky ThinkPads, even though I never owned one.
A model like the one in the video is collectable, but if you're OK with getting one from the following decade, you can get them for like nothing.
@@BilisNegra Maybe if you live in the USA but if you live in say England, prices for Thinkpads can be quite high.
real men prefer thicc laptops!
@@EgoShredder Yeah, as someone living in germany, Thinkpads are NEVER this cheap to find here in Europe, like they are in the USA for some reason, where you can get them for pennies.
@@KRAFTWERK2K6 I absolutely, 101% agree.
Nice! A Thinkpad 760EL was my first Thinkpad (and Laptop) that I bought used in 2001. Still works as well (and even holds some charge!).
I have a 760EL! And 4 other vintage Thinkpads. I love them!
One of the things I loved about those models of ThinkPad's; graphical BIOS, built in diagnostics, etc. :D
One of the best executions of the "bento box" design concept. And cursor becomes a rectal thermometer when you are on the self-diag screen :p
NO way! Are you serious?
Holy crap, how I wish every laptop were as easy to upgrade as this thing
you wouldnt....
Timely video. I just picked up a 760LD for $5. Has a floppy instead of CDROM and no MIDI/composite/capture card. Love the mechanical design and looking forward to playing with it once I hack together a charger for the funky power connector.
I once had a modem card with an IBM Mwave DSP. It allowed you to turn your data modem into a answering machine with multiple voice mailboxes.
The MIDI port sold me on this laptop. It's infinitely more cool than others just for that.
These old ThinkPads have a better BIOS than most modern laptops.
The keyboard that can be raised like the hood of a car to allow easy upgrades or option switches is the best I've ever seen. I'd have thought it would be continued in other laptops well into the future.
Wow - not surprising they were very expensive model back in the day. Very cool - thanks for sharing!
Apparently there's a solution for the stickiness of the rubber parts of the old Thinkpads. I've heard that applying a small amount of Nivea (or an equivalent) with a cloth or a tissue can help revive the rubber.
I have a Thinkpad 760EL somewhere in the garage. Got some good use from it for a couple of years and then gave it to my daughter when she went to college.
I actually own one of these! Not a 760D but a 760. My mom used it in college. Super fascinating to learn about stuff I didn't know it could do, like locking the keyboard down and being able to install a second battery.
Hi Colin, thanks for yet another retro Thinkpad video. I'm always enjoying your videos, we have a common interest in retro electronics. I have a 760cd model in my collection, and the things you run in to are typical 760 problems. Aren't they great? The rubberized coating on the palm rest can be scrubbed away. You will not notice much of a difference in color without it. I suggest you remove all the parts and give the casing a nice warm soapy bath. This will restore its original feel. The lid can be restored with a magical eraser and hand creme. Be careful and delicate though!
Greetings from The Netherlands.
Thanks for the tips, i also have two ThinkPads, i will try those tips, Greetings from Colombia.
@@colombianguy8194 You are welcome. Parts where the rubber coating are gone can not be restored of course. apply and reapply the hand creme a couple of times, a few days. Clean it with a non staining glass cleaner then re-apply again. etc. Be careful with the magic eraser, the coating will be gone before you know it.
Neat Laptop Colin! I remember when I was young (mid 90's) the commercials for these on TV. Wish I had bought this model or the 701c in my younger years. I did have a 380ed due to both cd and floppy being internal (which I think I still have). The 380ed had the same BIOS, very neat. Though I think if you update it, you can make it boot off CD rom. Thanks again for the videos!!!
I have this identical machine so it's cool to see that you've done a video about it! Anyway, a bit of ThinkPad backstory/urban myth for you. If you'll go look at some of the OS/2 graphics from the era, you'll see that a lot of it is very similar to what you see in the BIOS here. Also (as far as I can remember); at one point, IBM was developing some software product (probably OS/2), when they purportedly hired some software folks from Apple which might explain some of the whimsy from this timeframe. Don't quote me on this! I used to be a moderator on the ThinkPad Forum and back then there were a number of old guys who had been through the tech wars and knew things!
I found it quite humorous how you "got rid of all the impatient people"
Great video and quite an interesting machine.
Wait, what, it's over? Oh...clever Colin...
I never knew about the 760ED. That is an amazing piece of IBM engineering!
This design is incredible
Genius design! Amazing flexibility and modularity.
I had a 760XL back 20 years ago. my grandma would use it with dialup to access her email at her vacation home in the mountains in NY. by the time I got to it, I shoved a 6GB drive in, updated the BIOS, replaced the battery twice, and had installed everything from 98 to XP RTM on it. it did pretty good for the speed of it... which was an MMX 166 pentium.
If you can't find restore media for the ED, find restore media for the 760XL since it's more desirable and people will have it.
I have a 760XL right now and in full working order, were i can find the restore media? Thanks!!
These ThinkPads are always so cool and different, it’s a shame that this level of modularity isn’t around anymore. I would prefer a larger laptop if it meant that it had more options like this.
But at least there is the Framework laptop, which IS designed around reparability.
@@MCAlexisYTthat thing is overly expensive
"I don't know, this laptop seems pretty standard and boring..."
"It's got a flappy bird mouse cursor!"
"It's mine. How much did you want for it?"
I have a copy of the video playback software if you'd like to try it. I couldn't get it to work reliably on my 770x, but maybe it'll work for your machine.
Many years back, I was obsessed with the 760s, and literally bought three EDs and an XD off of eBay, because I loved the tilting keyboard and other quirky features, and also learned that NASA used the XDs on the ISS back in the late 90s. They're really neat machines, but aren't too practical to use these days. I'd rather have something like a Compaq Armada or similar machine of this era if I wanted to actually use the machine for more than just a novelty/collectors piece.
I recall having to disable onboard devices in Windows 98 because of IRQ conflicts, because there weren't enough addresses available to use everything all at once. That, and the procedure of restoring from the factory media required using an internal floppy drive and an external CD drive for it to work, otherwise it would error out. I didn't have an external CD drive, so I ended up using Smart Boot Manager on a floppy to boot off of CD and load a retail copy of Windows 98 onto the machine that way.
+
I have a very similar unit, plus the docking station. The docking station is impressive. It's got an ISA bus in it as well for adding cards.
But then there's the bad news about IBM ThinkPads of the era. the screen. The screen looks great, until you put it in a different resolution than the native resolution or even just open a dos box. It's HORRIBLE. UGLY as sin. I still remember the first time I tried to play a game on a Thinkpad at work. Oh, god does it look terrible.
@@tarstarkusz The docking stations are awesome in there own right! That was back when docking stations had support for PC expansion cards and additional drives, not just glorified port replicators becoming synonymous with the term. I had one for my 760XD, and another one for my 770x, although that beast mostly collects dust due to its humongous size.
The screens are annoying to deal with, as it is for most early TFT panels from that era. I recommend using letterbox mode to avoid the stretching and distortion at lower resolutions.
@@foxyloon I supported a few hundred people with variants of this laptop. Compaq made some really nice docking stations as well. I'm pretty sure that I remembering correctly that many of them had automatic insertion and ejection of the laptops.
You can chose better resolutions, but these early screens really only look passable at their native resolution. It's put away right now, but I am 99% sure it was a 486 and not a Pentium class. I know the screens got much better really quickly.
@@foxyloon I have a 760XL and a 770X, the track point of the 770X died :-( maybe you have a spare track point module for sell? Greetings from Colombia.
I picked up a 760XD a while back just to mess around with. Had to find another hard drive since the one it came with didn’t boot. I love the modularity of the machine - such a neat concept that should have been more standardized.
I love the modularity
Awesome video 👍it's always a pleasure to watch your videos
Here's what I don't get about your channel and, more specifically, some of the people that view it.
Your content is about your hobbies - i.e. collecting, showing and repairing (generally) older tech gadgets. That's one of my hobbies too, so I come here, watch your content and, most of the time, I enjoy it.
If I don't enjoy some content that much, then it's because of gadgets I don't have a lot of interest in, like portable tape players. But I still watch the videos because I appreciate the hard work you put into them and you're a fellow "tinkering geek" like I am.
Because I enjoy your content so much and because I have hobbies, I don't have enough time in my day to complain that your videos are too long because you've dragged me away from the social media on my mobile phone for more than two minutes, or stopped me pouring an energy drink down my self-entitled neck five times every hour.
In summary, please do not pander to the self-entitled brats that were unfortunate enough to be brought up by parents that never said the word "no" to them enough or were never told to sit at the dinner table, stop fidgeting and wait for everyone else to finish eating before the leaving the table.
If these people have the attention spans of sub-normal goldfish, no patience and no willingness to just watch and maybe learn something new, that is entirely their problem to resolve, possibly with the assistance of a good therapist.
Thank you for consistently good content, from an "old bloke" that sometimes just sits quietly, listens and learns.
lmao tldr
I had a 760XL back in the early 2000s and I didn't even know about the locking mouse buttons. This brings back memories.
I had the 755CD, was my first colour screen laptop! Had the 32mb ram card (enclosed unit, no slots) for a massive 40mb. It also had the locking mouse buttons and easy access hinged keyboard.
The 755CD also had the video in/out jacks too, if I remember correctly
@@Appleboy78165 It did, however mine was an ex-corporate refurb and didn't come with the proprietary cables. It also didn't have the manual so I wondered what those ports did for a long time!
I did have the swappable CD/floppy dives though.
The blue flake on the lid was a common understated touch IBM/Lenovo did on some of their Thinkpads. I have a T410 with that same blue flake. As these machines get older, it gets harder to see without some kind of additional light but when they were new, and if you were paying attention, you can see it with just ambient light.
The same applies to my X220. It it visible when the lid is wet, especially with hand sanitizer.
I love this content, Colin! Glad I'm not impatient.
If this channel ever changed to being a Thinkpad only channel, I would be totally cool with that lol.
hey, found this online. not sure if you've tried this already or not.
760el, 760ed, 760xl, 600, 600e, 600x, 770 and 770x Can boot from PCMCIA/CF.
PCMCIA must be added to the Startup sequence in EasySetup and ide2 must be disabled.
To disable ide2, the Thinkpad Configuration Utility must be used.
in the dos version, the command is
PS2 IDE2 DISABLE ULTRABAY
in the windows version the steps may vary, but it will be something like
Device Bay -> Warm Swap Devices -> disabled
This laptop is so clever. I wish more gear would be designed like this these days.
Oh my. I have 2 of those! One originally purchased in Singapore, which doesn't boot due to battery corrosion, and one originally purchased in the US, which partially works also due to battery corrosion, and I've been meaning to get the former up and running once I can repair the 'keyboard card' to get around the battery corrosion, but have been too busy with other projects.
Same thing happened to me, I had to repair the keyboard card, and clean all the nastiness left by the green NiMH battery.
Many Thinkpads of the 90s had that blue flake in the lid coating. 701C has it too.
I rescued the same machine from a dumpster, complete with charger &external floppy drive, it actually works fine, although has the nasty sticky rubber problem.
Even the battery still holds a charge, these were a very good quality machine, unbelievably heavy for the size!
i love that you showed the battery indicator at 69
You got me wanting to get a Think pad now not so much as a daily driver so to speak but it be cool to have something to run a oldschool pin printer or laser jet with as far as it goes I've been away from PC and laptop for some time
I miss the Infrared ports on laptops. Used to have one on my Compaq Evon610C back then, which was my very first laptop, and i made lots of use with it when i had to move some photos i took with my phone back then and move it over to my laptop, without any cable. Yes it was of course a bit slow but it freaking worked like a charm. It didn't cost anything extra and was super easy to use.
When the moon hits your lap and you touch the key caps, that's a....thinkpad.
These Thinkpad designs generally age well.
With their desktops of the same era. The “EFI” style BIOS was actually installed on a hidden partition on the HDD. Since it was far too much to put on a chip on the system board. I assume you had to use the system recovery CDs if you ever installed a new HDD otherwise it would be dead. Now I am referring to Compaq office type desktops. But seeing your IBM using a similar type bios. Makes me wonder if it’s the same concept?
I doubt it. I have a few PCs from 1995-1999 which all feature graphical BIOSes. They can boot to BIOS with just the Board, memory and CPU.
These were quite common in the second half of the 90s, but disappeared rather fast again.
nope. i have a 765 and changed the dying hdd with a CF and works perfectly.
I did a clean install for my IBM 760E and had no problems
I seriously want these features in my laptop!
That is a well engineered laptop. The only things I would add to it are a couple of features from the Toshiba 780DVD;
external camera, ability to play DVDs, and connector port for cell phones.
I have a IBM that has a display that pops up and comes out, it also has a feature where you can write on a built in pad thing to the right and it will translate what you wight on it *on paper over the thing, comes with a nice pen too.*
Man! When handling these old machines you are probably the shakiest hands youtuber ive seen recently. No offense im extremely shaky too and people always ask me why im so nervous when im not. So i get it but its so noticeable in those close ups it looks like me lol
*makes a >2 inch thick laptop with a keyboard that lifts up*
IBM: I have achieved E R G O N O M I C S!
Great laptop video as always!
From fully modular, with everything upgradeable, to everything soldered on the board, with nothing upgradeable. That's how the laptops "evolved".
Yup… and not only that, they also ALL look the same. Ugly, boring and totally not ergonomic or usable.
Thanks for putting this one out. I recently acquired a Thinkpad 560e but didn't get any drives whatsoever. I think that I can help out here with the MWave device. Look up a contemporary Aptiva model. I suspect that it's a very similar model modem-sound card combo that was in my Aptiva, which was the very first PC I owned. All I can remember of the model number was 2160 iirc. Mine had a Pentium 100MHz in it, so it might work if you can find it.
Somewhere in my house I have a ThinkPad that is even earlier than this with the tiltable keyboard. I don't recall if it auto-tilts or not. I also have the docking station to it. This was back when docking stations were more than port replicators. You can put a CD and a hard disk in it and I'm pretty sure it has ISA slots too. Some of them even had motorized docking stations that automatically sucked in and then locked the laptop in place. I'm about 99% sure it's a 486. Great little machine.
I have a large docking station for one of my Thinkpad Z61p machines, which can take a SATA hard drive and PCIe graphics card and has a small case cooling fan. The latter is a bit fiddly to get working, which I will have another go at before long.
I've noticed the older Thinkpads will boot off CF card in the PC Card slot - my 360 will, but my 760 won't. Not sure what the difference is. I think it will boot the ATA PC Card hard drives though, like the one out of my 730T.
Lenovo ThinkPad T410 has the same blue mtalic glitter-like sparkles as well :D
I used a 760ED as a daily driver (running linux on it) for years... and I never knew the keyboard had the lock-down lever and the mouse button latches!? And yes, the coating on mine turned into goo years ago. :(
My Thinkpad 755cv with a 486dx4 cpu does the locking mouse button thing, so it was done a generation before this 760
One day we will have a thinkpad with a butterfly keyboard that rises in the back, and it grows erector set legs to follow you around using heat detection so you don't have to carry it around.
Wut?
@@adikgaming7544 It was a joke.
Old video but worth noting: The palmrest of the keyboard has the the CMOS battery pack that like your Mac videos is prone to corrosion - its definitely worth checking because if it corrodes it eats the traces of the keyboard and renders it inoperable.
IBM made the Framework laptop before Framework themselves did
"I guess I'm collecting these now?"
It only becomes a problem when you get a new old stock ThinkPad in original packaging and have *WATA* grade it 9.8 or higher!
"Hello, you absolute lege--" oh wait wrong channel
Since it has built-in MPEG-2 hardware acceleration, I wonder if they ever produced a DVD drive for it. 1996 was at the very beginning of the DVD era, and it was a few more years before DVD drives in laptops became more common, but it would be a neat upgrade.
For the 760 series DVD drives were unavailable. The next generation, the 770 series were the first ThinkPads with DVD drives, the MPEG-2 hardware acceleration were an add-on card under the hard drive bay. My 770X were the last of the bunch, it has Trident cyber video chip with MPEG-2 decoding, apparently I don't need the extra decoding card. Unfortunately I didn't have the DVD drive. Greetings from Colombia.
Not gonna lie. I did not expect @10:00. This thing is a beast of nature. I want one, and a modern system that does all that +
everytime I hear your intro sound I vibe with it lol
"Close the door and the light STAYS ON!"
no comments on the LCD information display on the keyboard?
Most modern laptops have a multiple screws some of different length and thats just for getting the into the laptop (even more screws inside)
What an absolutely brilliant overall design! Even though this thing probably weighed 15 pounds, every inch was thought out, and it's like IBM took the top 3 design teams of the day, stuck them in a room and told them they weren't coming out until they came out with the best laptop they could dream up.
Watching this video on a T43p...IBM ThinkPad...those were the days...
That T43p is a beast!!! Does it have the ultra high resolution display?
@@colombianguy8194 sadly it doesn't 😣
@@WrikBhattacharyya still is a classic high end and rare Thinkpad, i remembered a long time ago when I saw a T43p with the 1600*1200 LCD in my country ebay like website, it was cheap but I didn't had the money :-(
Nice demonstration.
I have a 760EL, I didn't know you could disable the autolift on the lid, good to know. The MWave was optional, as I don't have it or a modem. Thankfully mine isn't as sticky as yours.
I got the CD ROM and the Floppy drives for mine, I used this laptop as a floppy emulator for the Atari 800 computer, over serial, before SD card solutions were available.
I dont suppose theres any way to update the bios?
Perhaps a bios update fixed the cdrom boot issue?
That was quite an impressive laptop. It is much like the popular butterfly keyboard.