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Rare IBM Portables

The IBM 5499 On Line Note was a notebook form-factor, cream-coloured IBM portable, which was intended to access mainframes via serial, infra-red or dialup.

The IBM PCradio was an odd, ruggedised early attempt at remote working, using an early form of wireless radio communication or fixed phone line to log in remotely, do some work and check your mail!

The IBM Convertible was a Desktop-cum-Portable concept with a flat-panel LCD and CRT output, with modular peripheral add-ons, sharing much of it's connectivity with the IBM PC Jnr.

The IBM Thinkpad 130 was a short-lived rebranding of the Acer iSeries Thinkpads. It's certainly rare, but not very desirable! My one is branded on the bottom as Type 1171 -7GJ, which would otherwise be called iSeries. It has the non-IBM BIOS utility with a Celeron 700Mhz CPU, 10Gb HDD, CD-ROM and 192Mb RAM (likely upgraded). My one also appears to be relatively unused and came with a variety of original documents and sealed media.

The IBM Thinkpad 220 was a japanese-only machine, never yet seen in the wild, somewhat like a PS/Note machine.

The IBM Thinkpad 500 was an ultraportable Thinkpad made by Lexmark/Ricoh copying lots of Thinkpad design cues, but often feeling slightly 'off'.

The IBM Thinkpad 550BJ and 555BJ were early collaborations between Canon and IBM, which incorporated both a laptop computer and bubblejet thinkpad into a single unit.

The IBM Thinkpad 700T, 710T, 730T & 730TE were early greyscale tablet & stylus machines based on the notebook Thinkpad hardware, but smaller and held as a slate. There is a great comparison on all these early IBM tablets here.

The IBM Thinkpad 701c was an early ultraportable with small DSTN or TFT screen and a folding-out keyboard.

The IBM Thinkpad 360P and 750P were convertible Thinkpads which could be both a Notebook computer and a Tablet, with Stylus.

The IBM Thinkpad 755CV and CDV were convertible Thinkpads which could be used as a Notebook computer and a presentation-device by decoupling the rear of the lid and laying the machine flat on an Overhead Projector (OHP)

Here is the 755C(D)V in action:

The IBM Thinkpad G50 is an evolution of the G40 and G41 series which is intended as a large, desktop-replacement with Desktop Pentium CPUs and a large screen.

The earlier G41 on the left and the later, and less common G50 on the right:

The IBM Thinkpad S30 and S31 are Asia-only ultraportable machines, smaller than the X20, similar in size, but higher specification than the 240 and taking design cues with the larger-than-screen keyboard from the 701c.

The IBM P20 and Transnote computers were a combination of the 240's hardware and the Cross Crosspad to invent a new style of digitising hand-written notes on your portable computer.

 

4851 Point Of Sale Terminal

I decided to see what this weird machine is all about. The HDD had failed so I switched it out to a 2.5" SATA drive and reinstalled Windows XP.

I also installed the video and touchscreen drivers.

I tried to recap the PSU but it was a bit of a mess and decided to leave it alone.

Read more: 4851 Point Of Sale Terminal

Comparing the G41 and G50

I've managed to get a G41 and G50 side-by side. The two main external differences is simply that the G50 has a 'regular' Thinkpad power connector (the larger one) and the LCD is much brighter. The G41 is entirely IBM-branded, whereas the G50 is lid-branded IBM Thinkpad whilst the LCD bezel and base is branded Lenovo. The G50 BIOS has also list the 'IBM' name as well as a few less options...

The biggest difference is that the G41 has a Pentium 4 CPU rated at 3.06Ghz, whilst the G50 has a Celeron M running at 1.6Ghz. Is this the performance hit that it seems like on the surface? I mean maybe a Core 2 Duo at 1.6Mhz, with the right OS might somehow compare to a P4, but a Celeron!? Seems like a massive downgrade. But I don't really know much about comparing the two.. Any comments? I do wonder if I could upgrade the CPU to a Core 2....

I think perhaps both of these machines were actually manufactured by Acer or something like that? Funny how that worked with the transition of IBM IP to Lenovo.



Ideally, I'd like to replace both keyboards with less -shiny ones but they're not exactly common now. The keyboards are the same on the G40, 41 and 50 so you can easily do so.

IBM Workpad Transnote

Spotted this and I thought I would share some early pics of this weird thing I picked up.

It's in mock IBM packaging - so much so, I thought it was IBM for a while. Supposedly you slot in your little Workpad and it will transcribe written text into notes on the wordpad.

Read more: IBM Workpad Transnote

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IBM 5535 Multistation

IBM Japan had a range of Kanji-character-enabled desktop computers, called the Multistations. This was part of that family with the addition of a greyscale LCD display. Although 5535 is the 'laptop' range of machines, With the sheer size and weight (7kg), I think you would consider it more like a 'space saving desktop', much like the IBM Convertible. It has a sibling called the 5535-S which has a slightly different design and is 'less boxy'.

Read more: IBM 5535 Multistation

IBM PS/2 Model CL57 SX

This is a massive, stange, outlier in IBM's journey into portable personal computers. CL for 'Color Laptop' and 57 for....... fuck knows.  The type is 8554 and it runs MCA bus. It's almost completely unique although it shares a look similar to that of the possibly-vaporware, Japan-only PS/55 Power (PC) Laptop EWS - which also feels like a skunkworks project.

Some sources state this machine started as a Model N27sx - a 'for fun' IBM Japan design for domestic japanese market. I can't find much source material that this is true though. Apparently, the CPU was downgraded from a 486 to a 386 so as to not compete with other PS/2 machines. Supposedly there are some hidden clues on the machines that despite it's international 85xx model designation, the plant ID is 97 which is IBM Japan Entry Systems factory in Fujisawa.

Read more: IBM PS/2 Model CL57 SX

PS/55 Note N51 SX and SLC

After the successes of the original note (1st Gen), the N23 (2nd Gen) and the N33 machines, two machines share the third generation space - the still-monochome MCA N51 and TFT Colour, ISA C23V.

Read more: PS/55 Note N51 SX and SLC

Notes on notes

Note: The 5499 On-Line note isn't really part of the brand note family. Whilst it's certainly a notebook, it's a weird dead end portable terminal which has very little use unconnected to a maintrame.

PS/55 note - The PS/55 was a range of Type-55xx computers for only Japan. They're based on the PS/2 but ISA bus and with special Japanese localisations supporting the more technically difficult languge to display on screen and type on a keyboard.

The 'note' branding was devised for the Notebook versions and within Japan all had to be in the 5523 model range (as opposed to 5535 for laptops). The original (or 1st Generation) 12Mhz PS/55 Note was the 386 5523-S0x model with sandwiched planars and room for either a FDD or HDD.

Read more: Notes on notes

PS/55 Note (1st Generation)

This was the first mass-market (well - Japan!) IBM Notebook - specifically a seperate model line to the type 5535 laptop models, which is why they simply badged it with 'note'.

The first generation PS/55 notes had the type 5523-S0x

Read more: PS/55 Note (1st Generation)