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The transforming keyboard mechanism here is the stuff of legend, super excited to get this video out there finally. Shame that they only used it on the 701, but as you'll see in the video it makes sense why it didn't last.

Big thanks to Sam for letting me borrow this unit for the video! Wasn't sure I'd ever get my hands one of these since they're such costly and sought-after collector's items.

Files

IBM ThinkPad 701C: The Iconic Butterfly Keyboard

Comments

Evangeline Domenech

Any chance we'll ever see a video on that HP OmniBook 800CT that was in the video?

Anonymous

As soon as I saw the thumbnail with the keyboard that's wider than the laptop, I was like "OMG butterfly keyboard!" I've always wanted one of those.

LazyGameReviews

Absolutely, it's got a bunch of neat quirks on its own! I also own the other subnotebooks I showed/mentioned by name from Compaq, Gateway, and Toshiba, so all of the above are possible video topics.

LazyGameReviews

Heck yeah, it's a truly legendary device! Sadly they're only getting more expensive over the past several years so I was all too happy (and a bit anxious) to borrow this one.

Anonymous

Thing is... When those tiny netbooks came out, I would have killed for this keyboard. The small form factor made them ideal for me (at the time) to carry instead of my larger units, but the keyboards were just too tiny to ever be productive with my larger than usual hands.

Kris Asick

I actually remember seeing the television ads for these computers, and I do also recall that those ads didn't air for very long...

Anonymous

I could just open and close that lid all the time, it looks so fun!

Juri

This kind of adapter reminds me of the daily MacBook dongle struggle.

Anonymous

Soon as you mentioned the issues of getting data into the thing reminded of the issues I had with a laptop I bought for dos gaming. It was a journey, in the Ed I installed freedos on to a hdd via virtual machine (by mounting the virtual hdd after and duplicating it on to the original hdd) mind you after weeks of various attempts to do it with the laptop alone unsuccessfully. It was a pain, but I got it done lol. Now I have that laptop, a compaq presario 1210, with about 100 dos games and direct access 5.1 for a nice old school menu system. Keep up the great videos man, I look forward to them every week.

Anonymous

I've never heard of these things until now, but it looks like some Tony Stark invention. I would have probably broken the mechanism from so much using it if I ever had one.

moosemaimer

When I was a poor college student my desktop died and I couldn't afford replacement guts, so every day I came home and plugged everything into my Dell Vostro because it had a plethora of connections available. I can't stand computers that have maybe one or two ports and expect to make up for it with "BUT THE CLOUUUUD!"

Ryan Kelly

Love the outro music.

Anonymous

Whoa, Clint! I love the "ERROR, HOLY CRAP INSERT BOOT DISK" message. How did you do that so flawlessly? Seriously, even down to the pixels.

Anonymous

I understand why they discontinued it at the time, but it amazes me that such a design hasn't reemerged in 25 years. Imagine a full-sized Bluetooth butterfly keyboard that you can use with a phone or tablet. You'd think somebody would've made that by now.

Carey Brown

Man, I loved this thing when I first saw it. My Dad saw it as a gimmick and didn't see a reason for me to have a laptop, even if I used it to take notes in class. So we made a deal, if I could type fast enough to record what people were saying, then he would buy this model. Sadly, when I inevitably practiced and was good enough to do so, it was no longer available.

LazyGameReviews

Totally, I bought into the late 2000s netbook craze myself and this keyboard would've been great. By then Lenovo owned the design and Thinkpad business and they've never seemed interested in returning to it.

LazyGameReviews

Yeah I can only find a couple ads from the summer of '95 and that's about it. Crazy how fast these disappeared.

Anonymous

So, you could say that popularity (short lived, but still) of this thinkpad was a part of "butterfly effect" (because keyboard design)?

Anonymous

Interesting video! On the subject of rare subnotebooks, have you ever come across a Powerbook 2400c?

Anonymous

The problem was you didn't learn how to type from Mario

Anonymous

That mouse pad at around 9:30... Awesome. :)

Anonymous

That keyboard design = awesome with a capital A.

evistre

Too cool. I dig the reviews of retro hardware!

Gary DiFiore-Ridolph

I totally did a double take when you opened it up!! Great video :)

Lindsay Michelle

That is a really unique keyboard. Never seen it before! ...Did the sound of it clicking together give you ASMR tingles? :P Also, that mousepad... where the heck did you get that? I need an epic looking mousepad like that for work. I use my mousepad from like, circa 1995 for my gaming computer today - it has dolphins and other ocean life on it and it's super tacky and 90s. I love it. :D

LazyGameReviews

Pretty sure I found it on eBay years back. It was something like "cosmic space kitty DJing pizza mousepad" haha

Lindsay Michelle

Update: I was mousepad shopping on Amazon and look what I found :D <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V07VWTU?pd_rd_i=B00V07VWTU" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00V07VWTU?pd_rd_i=B00V07VWTU</a> I ended up buying this mousepad <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N63FKT1/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N63FKT1/</a> - such a dignified spacesloth.

Anonymous

Wait, you can't charge it without the dock?