Old IBM sub-sub-notebook information?

June 25, 2006 2:27 AM

Asking for the boyfriend: I saw an extremely small IBM ThinkPad sometime in the mid-90's. It ran DOS and had an external floppy drive, and it sparked my love of sub-sub-notebooks. Does anyone else remember the machine I've described, or know its model number or where more information can be found?
posted by dreamyshade to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Was it the 701 Butterfly?
posted by b1tr0t at 2:51 AM on June 25, 2006

The Wikipedia Thinkpad page seems to point to the 500 (500, 560) being the smallest thinkpad line ever mass-produced. Additionally, they started their production run with 486SX procs, putting them towards the end of the DOS age. The only other thing I could think of would be the Thinkpad Transnote which I've never been hands-on with. Are you sure this was a Thinkpad and not a Jornada or Libretto?
posted by datacenter refugee at 3:02 AM on June 25, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Sounds like the PC110 series. Sold mostly overseas, it was part of the ThinkPad line, but was often called the PalmTop.

It shipped with a 486 processor, but it's still powerful enough to handle Linux and FreeBSD.
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:24 AM on June 25, 2006

Thanks, guys! The boyfriend is quite happy.
posted by dreamyshade at 3:57 AM on June 25, 2006

If your boyfriend is looking for something in a similar vein but with modern specs, he might be interested in checking out the Toshiba Libretto U100.
posted by furtive at 7:24 AM on June 25, 2006

I'm writing this on a Thinkpad 240, which I bought in 1999 and which is still going strong (running Debian now). It weighs 2 point something pounds and has a 10-inch screen. Maybe not the smallest Thinkpad ever but still painless to carry around all day. I am very fond of it.
posted by Eater at 9:07 AM on June 25, 2006

I'd second the Thinkpad 240, I used to have one which ran Win 2k and could be hidden inside a bag easily, great for big cities. It always attracted the interest of people suffering from dislocated shoulders from carrying huge laptops on trains and planes. You can get them on ebay for a few hundred dollars
posted by MrC at 10:57 PM on June 25, 2006