Thinkpads Forum

My first one was a 380Z (which sounds suspiciously like a Datsun sports car). I bought it in 1999 used for an astronomical $1800. I immediately put Mandrake Linux on it and it served me well for several years. It was retired in 2002 or so when I replaced it with an A21m (which is still quite a capable machine these days and can run modern Linux distros). A couple of years ago I thought it would be fun to see if I could shoehorn a more recent Linux distro onto the 380Z. The 96 MB RAM limit is pretty harsh these days, but I managed to get a cut-down PCLinuxOS called TinyMe onto it after some hacking of the install scripts.

I'm now using an R61 (running Linux Mint 9) and an R50p (running Linux Mint 6), and have an X41 arriving in a few days. I guess I'm an addict. I've looked at other laptops and netbooks, but just can't live without ThinkPad features like the TrackPoint, the great service manuals, and the elegant design, to name just a few.

I got my similar 380XD up to 160 MB of RAM by installing a 128 MB memory module. That, plus the 32 MB built-in memory brings it up to 160. The modules are hard to find and expensive when you do. I bought mine on eBay for $48 back in 2006. The auction said it would also work in the 380Z, as well as a Dell Latitude. Look for 128 MB EDO 60 nS low profile (1" tall).

Just for grins, I once installed Windows XP Pro on this machine. It worked, but was rather painful to use, so I went back to Windows 98SE.

DPHMIN wrote:My first Thinkpad was a TP500 subnotebook with 4 meg of Ram, 170 meg hdd, SL2 50mhz processor and a mono screen. After it got stolen, I used 701's until I went to a 240. From there, I went to an X23 (which I am using to type this), and an X31. ....

My first Thinkpad was also a TP500. It's still runs w95 osr2 with a few files from back loaded from osr1 so the Home and Away ether/modem would still work. Still runs and is in fine shape (except for the battery). I still use it to talk to old bar code guns. Daily driver is a T40 ...

My first Thinkpad was a Transnote (but without the notepad part).
I got it from my dad that used it for work, but it got stolen, my dad bought another thinkpad, then the thiefs were found and we finally got the Transnote back (but the thiefs had snatched the notepad part ...).

My first was a 600E, which was issued from work cause I couldn't afford one. I then moved onto T22. I didn't buy my first new ThinkPad until I got my T41. I think I paid like $1200 for it, which I thought was a pretty good deal at the time, but it had a CD-ROM and no wifi. I didn't know much about adding wifi at the time. I ended up selling it shortly after getting it because I didn't like the XGA screen.

I never really took a shine to my 600E or T22. While I recognized they were well engineered notebooks, I didn't really care for the pointstick and I was really more of a desktop person at time time. I purchased mice for the 600E and the T22. It wasn't really until my T42 that I was won over. Perhaps it was the gorgeous flexview screen did it and those had trackpads. My X200 is really the first Thinkpad I've owned where I used the trackpoint exclusively. It's taken me 6 months to get decent at it, but I'm still no pro.

365XD in July 1998. Bought 2nd hand for the equivalent of $1000.

Immidiately gave it Windows NT 4.0 Workstation which took 130MB of the 1.08GB harddrive
P120, 40MB RAM, 6xCD. 10.4" 64K TFT.

It was and still is a great miniature laptop. It was my primary computer up until June 2003.
In the meantime, replaced the 40MB stick with 64MB, giving 72 MB, when the first tale of configuring beyond specification (40MB) came in sight. To this day I think a 128MB stick will work, if I can find one. [128MB, EDO, 144pin SO-DIMM, 66MHz]

The first battery lost its breath. Bought a new a couple of years ago. It holds full charge. 1½-2 hours.

Exchanged the harddrive last year with an original IBM IDE 1GB SSD and threw a Windows 2000 at it. Works like a charm. Boots in no time.
Thought of having a 4-8GB CF-Card/IDE, but that would be too easy. Better having the machine maxed out with equipment from within its natural timeframe.

The 365XD is now completely silent and basically function as an oddball CD-Walkman, those two times a year I have it up'n running.
The machine is one of the later manufactored from March 1997. 13 years old and in perfect health.

Still looking for a P133 replacement CPU and still seeking knowledge if a better CPU from a 380/385 machine might fit/work. (Same type of CPU-card on the 380/385 ??)

My first thinkpad was the T30. My dad found it in the trash a little over a year ago. He knew I loved IBM, but I hadn't really discovered thinkpads yet. It has a p4 1.6GHz, 256 Ram originally but I upgraded it to 1 gig. The keyboard is simply amazing. I never knew a computer could be so well designed. I really like the scroll click, the back page and forward page keys next to the arrow keys, I like how the keyboard goes all the way to the edge. I also noticed that is has a very small bezel around the screen. I have like 50 laptops in my house and that T30 has the smallest bezel I will ever see. Obviously the specs suck but I just hope that modern thinkpads are made just as well. I plan on buying the 20th anniversary when it comes out, but if I can't wait till october I'll get the new T series with ivy bridge which will probably come out in april.

750c.

It was remarkable at the time because it came with a 2.88 MB floppy drive: I could store *twice* what I could with another computer!

A T30... I consider it to be my "first" since it was the one which waked my "Thinkpad Mania". My current collection started from this T30, which I was allowed to keep when I left the company (that provided it to me) in 2007.

In the company I was working previously I've had a T21, a 600 and another one I don't remember the exact model (at that time I was a Thinkpad ignorer ).

I got my first thinkpad 2 years ago, it was a beautiful 380z. Not sure why i wanted to buy it, because it isn't very functional compared to todays standards. Anyway it was being sold on ebay with a sound card problem. So i got it for 99p and £10.00 postage. It came with xp installed so i removed that and installed win 98, and it worked perfectly, even the sound. It is immaculate apart fom some scuffs on the top lid.

Since then i have bought all the thinkpads that are on my signature, i love them.

380D was my very first laptop ever, in 1997, followed by a 560e, then a 600, and actually used a 701C as my daily laptop as late as 2000, then for several years I went away from Thinkpads, but came back with a 240x, then my first truly new Thinkpad, a T61, followed by my current T400, which I will keep running as long as possible because it has firewire and a cardbus slot, which are impossible to find now but needed for working on old laptops and for video capture. I now collect Thinkpads and here is my collection, all working:

500 subnotebook (monochrome) 486/50 Win 3.11
730t tablets (monochrome) (2) 486/33 Windows 95 with penwin 2.0
701C 486/75 Windows 95
360pe 486/50 tablet Windows 95 with penwin 2.0
755cse 486/100 Windows 3.11
760xd Pentium 166 Windows 98
560x Pentium 233 Windows 98
770e Pentium II 266 Windows 2000
Transnote Pentium III 600 Windows XP

I like to think my collection includes all of the "milestones" and the truly great or "game changing" models, but that might be the subject of dispute. I am open to trades and buying the classics. I am still looking for a 600 and a 380 for my collection, and I would love to find a good 720 and a 365 although I have never considered any of the 3 series except the tablet to be even near great models.

There is nothing like a Thinkpad. Everything else is just a laptop.

Interesting posts! Somehow I missed this thread when it was first posted. There was a similar thread a while ago, which I think was even more interesting:

How did you fall in love with Thinkpads?

Check it out!

It's all about the build.....the keyboard. I used to keep an old 755 next to my desk just to type on....while I also had something I am sure was in excess of 1 ghz sitting there, too.

First ThinkPad and first laptop was a 560E (2640-40U) that I bought off of one of my bosses back in '98. Kept it until sometime around 2004 when I found someone to purchase it and bought a 600X (2645-9WU). In the meantime, I also owned a 390X (2626-M0U) (BEAST!) and got to play around with a 701C. I would still love to find a 701C for my personal laptop museum (yuk yuk). In addition to the 600X that now spends time as a Motorola radio programming workstation, I have an X41 Tablet that has been seeing lots of use lately while I am taking Cisco certification classes. It amazes me that even today that old X41 Tab can still turn heads.

Foaming at the mouth over the W520 (4276-3NU) that I hope to have on order soonish. :9

For me it was a used X40 from Ebay a few years ago.

Needless to say, now I have a few more. I love the X and T series. 'nuff said

750cs, later upgraded to TFT screen when a good used panel came my way. First of many ThinkPads...

My first Thinkpad was a well used, well abused Thinkpad 600E. Pentium 2 and 128MB of RAM, with a 20GB hard drive. I used the computer until the trackpoint finally died, then kept using it.. still own it, still works fine to this day.. and I still use it.

Got it in 2006, kept it for the longest time. Like I said, still have her and use her today.

But I didn't truly fall in love with Thinkpads until I used something else. I had an Acer netbook that I used throughout 2009, gave me a lot of troubles.. but not TOO many.

What motivated me to be the Thinkpad fanatic I am, was using an HP G60. That computer was the worst computer I've ever used. Bar none. It overheated, even caught fire once. And it wasn't durable at all.. the case had flexed in the 6 months I owned it, and it went through a fan.

When it finally kicked the bucket, my grandmother purchased me a used IBM Thinkpad R40 from ebay, $50. I missed the superior method of input, and most importantly, the superior build quality a Thinkpad provided. That system lasted for a little over a year before falling fate to the famous GPU issue.. I bet you thought those were only T40s, huh? Yeah the previous owner pretty much destroyed that old laptop, the case had a few cracks in it when I got it.. the flex was to be expected. Tried reflowing it, failed.. if anyone has a screen and a PM motherboard for one of those that they wanna sell for about $10, PM me.

But for my birthday, my grandmother surprised me even more. She ordered me a refurbished Thinkpad T61 with Intel graphics, and I own it now. The superior build quality, performance, and reliability is back in my hands, and after being abused and left on every day all day, she's working fine with OS X right now. Best computer I've ever owned.


You truly never realize how good these laptops are until you're found using something else. And sure, if you have a Thinkpad, you might buy another brand once.. but I'll bet money you won't buy another brand twice.

My first Thinkpad (will never forget) was the 760E.. You know I had forgot all about how upgradeable the Thinkpads are and I decided to go back with Thinkpads, I sold the 760E back in 2004 but man it was a tank.

Poster above me is right.. I do have 2 Toshiba's and one Fujisu Lifebook, but the Thinkpad feels more solid then all

My first ThinkPad was a 600X running Windows 2000. I absolutely loved it! It just had everything I could wish for, even good speakers. It had had 576MB of RAM as well a 20GB Hitachi Travel Star HDD.

My very first ThinkPad was my R60. I liked it very much, but I was too slow for me to replace my old desktop, so I had to replace it with a newer one. The R60 stayed alive until last month in the hands of a friend of mine. Then it sadly died because of defective onboard RAM (the RAM within the ATi GPU died).

*technically*, my first Thinkpad was a 760. That got me into Thinkpads, I always loved how cleverly designed it was.

The first Thinkpad I legitimately used was a 14" T60p I picked up for cheap on ebay. Using this Thinkpad constantly made me crave the 15" with the IPS screen, and I'm now proud to say I have one, but I don't use it unfortunately. As a computer for classes, it's since been replaced by an SXGA+ X60 Tablet.