Thinkpads Forum

I was sorting through some stuff and couldn't help but take a couple of pics of these little stowaways whilst they were out. The 3 x 701c machines are full working and all are running a 486 @ 75Mhz with 16Mb RAM and boot from a CF card adaptor. One has all original rubber which hasn't yet degraded at all and the other two have been sympathetically polished back to the black plastic below...





The PC110 is one of 4 and is actually in the worst condition. I have de-vinegared the screen and replaced the polarising film. It isn't perfect colour representation but it's pretty close. I think there is an issue with the keyboard ribbon cable though and I need to replace the keyboard at some point.

https://ibb.co/tzskdtY
https://ibb.co/Rp3R0Kp
https://ibb.co/3NGRvGC

Nice job!
They look brand new on those pics!

It's a shame some of the most iconic IBM machines of the 90s tend to look terribly rough these days. 701c, 600, PC110 (LCDs)..... Thanks - they're not perfect but I think they're probably a B+ or above....

Very nice photos! A 486 @75MHz could be a nice little DOS gaming laptop...

Impressive- most 701c look pretty rough! Congrats
on the fine collection.

The dream...

How was the de-vinigearing process?
I am afraid to try it out on old machines, but I couldn't really find a guide to do so.

How was the de-vinigearing process?

Um, it's messy but straightforward. Some LCDs only have one film, usually on the top but a lot of the screens I've seen with the issue in IBMs have 2 layers - one on top and one sandwiched in the middle.

Most of them you can unpack and fold out the layers without having to desolder anything. I think with the PC110 I've done it by both simply unfolding and also desoldering one layer from another and then soldering it back in afterwards.

You can be really firm, I actually find the best tool to do the scraping is my own fingernail, though you can also get soft-ish plastic scrapers on amazon. My fingernail is tough enough to scratch off but not so as to scratch the glass. The glass is strong but you should use a thin cloth to do it on so that the other side doesn't scratch against the workspace you're leaning on.

I've tried lots of chemicals including 100% IPA but I've found that warm water is as good as anything.

The film - I've never actually found a perfect replacement and would love to hear anyone who has. I saw a guy in Japan who had found a perfect replacement but wasn't willing to share what it was. You can get various replacement films on ebay. I would try and get one that doesn't have one side sticky because it isn't necessary when you can tape it in place around the edges and then it's easily reversible. I paid less than £10 for the film.

There was another guy who had managed to modify a new TFT screen with a breakout board and then 3D printed a new front bezel, but his process was pretty handcrafted and repeating the process was looking at being expensive, time consuming and leaving the machine very much unoriginal...

ah! It was you who posted that photo on r/thinkpad. Nice machines, I’m pretty jealous. Nice systems.

Good info. I hope some of these folk just let us know where to source the materials...
Unless they want to DIY it themselves for a heavy profit.

I wonder if we would be able to use the film from newer TFT screens and just have to cut precisely to fit them in.
Quite a bit of these HD screens are a cheap $25 sometimes.

I don't know all that much about polarizing film but I think most, if not all the time it's glued or part of the glass digitiser element of an LCD. I've dissected a lot of LCD panels hoping to procure some polarizer and never found any...