A ThinkPad enthusiast
Recently, I talked about the global human network – people creating not only content, but context and relationships through social media – linking, posting, reposting across multiple social networks and sites. So, who are the people in this network? To explore and exemplify this concept a bit further, I invited a handful of customers from our community, each from a different part of the world to try their hand at a guest blog here.
Today, we hear from Steve, who volunteers his time to moderate on both the Lenovo and ThinkPads.com forum. Taking a look at his private collection of ThinkPads, which I hear has nearly doubled since these pictures were taken, it’s hard to imagine anyone who better personifies the moniker of ThinkPad enthusiast…
Imagine a place dedicated solely to ThinkPads, a museum if you will. You walk in the front doors and to the left you see a classic Butterfly, and to the right you see a new T61. In between, you see every other model of ThinkPad made by IBM/Lenovo. This is a dream of mine and I intend to make it happen…even if it is in my own basement.
Hi, my name is Steve and I have an addiction that apparently many other people have. I love ThinkPads…everything ThinkPads! Call me a geek; it’s okay, I don’t mind. I fell in love with ThinkPads after working on my first one, a 600. It had a simple Pentium II 266MHz processor with a 6GB hard drive, but it was so easy to work on and IBM had everything documented in the form of Hardware Maintenance Manuals. The 600 series, including the 600E which I started working on next, had the best keyboard I had ever seen on a laptop. To this day, I still feel that it is the best keyboard ever made. The 600 series was just so sturdy, plain and simple. I continued to work on this series for a number of years, until it seemed to be considered antiquated by the general masses. Since then I have moved on to as many models as I can get my hands on, up to and including my T61. Along the way, I have been buying and selling ThinkPads, creating just enough extra cash flow to allow me to back up and purchase quite a few of the older models to begin building my own shrine to the ThinkPad name. Here are some pictures that I took last year, when I only had about 20 Thinkpads (I now have over 40 working ThinkPad systems):
Some might ask, why the ThinkPad? It looks so plain and simple. Well, I’ll take plain and simple any day, when they are as durable as ThinkPads have proven themselves to me. Besides, I look at it this way, if I were sitting at a coffee shop using my ThinkPad across from someone using a nice and shiny Mac or Dell, and we both turned our backs for a moment…who’s laptop is likely to disappear first? Mr. Flashy, or Mr. Plain and Simple? I rest my case…
During my years of working on ThinkPads, I stumbled across an incredibly informative and professional forum: forum.thinkpads.com. I found myself on that forum EVERY day, reading and learning more about ThinkPads. After about 6 months of surfing that forum, I was asked to become a moderator. Wow, talk about an exciting honor. Then a year and a half later I was honored again, this time by the Lenovo staff, when I was asked to become a moderator on Lenovo’s own forum, as they were getting ready to launch it.
Just for fun and more proof that I am addicted to ThinkPads, here’s one of two videos I created regarding the arrival of my T61 last year. I posted them on YouTube and at the time of this writing, they have over 58,000 views combined!!
From there, I went on to use my original Youtube channel to create ThinkPad repair videos, which I didn’t get very far with due to lack of time. I am hoping to begin posting more videos under that account over the summer. You can check out that channel here.
Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Steve aka tfflivemb2 (Moderator at forum.lenovo.com and forum.thinkpads.com)T61,T42(x2)T41,T40(x2),R40,T30(x2),T23(x3),T21,T20,X20,A31,A21M,600/E/X(multiples of each),770X,i1400(x2),760XL,760ED(x2 w/base),380XD,755CD,750P,360P,365X,560X,701C/CS,730T,PS/Note
Lenovo Meet the Modder Dean Liou
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 2
Lenovo Meet the modder- Chris Blarsky Dairy 1
Lenovo H320 desktop
July 17th, 2008 9:08 pm
Way to go, Steve!! Thanks for all the time you and the other mods spend helping forum members!
July 17th, 2008 9:36 pm
“in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.”
—andy warhol
andy was an intelligent and creative designer but he never predicted we’d have the internet, youtube, or the thinkpad. great stuff, steve.
July 17th, 2008 10:10 pm
Wow, it seems to surreal to see that article posted on the same day that I sold one of my pride and joys (a 15″ T42 Flexview), to buy a motorcycle…
July 17th, 2008 10:39 pm
Congrats on the post, you’ve been a great help to me. And thanks for the R40, its still running great!
July 17th, 2008 10:46 pm
Sweet collection!
July 18th, 2008 1:00 am
Oh god, i think i need to give Mark an email with my blog post.
July 18th, 2008 1:23 am
Steve, wonderful article … and thanks to Mark for letting us all see your wonderful viewpoint and collection!
July 18th, 2008 2:18 am
fantastic! never had a 600, which you claim has the best keyboard, maybe Lenovo should fly you to NC and co-create that experience for today’s generation.
July 18th, 2008 10:05 am
Enjoy your 15 minutes, Steve. Haha, KIDDING, you’re hilarious!
July 19th, 2008 2:44 am
Love the YouTube! E.L.O. never sounded better. Boy, that song brought back a flood of happy memories…
“…but she is an IBM”
July 19th, 2008 3:57 pm
purchased a T61p open box without manual. Any idea where I can get one
Jim
July 20th, 2008 9:09 pm
James,
I don’t believe the systems come with hardcopy manuals . Manuals are available online via the support site in PDF form.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/supp.....country=us
Follow the link above, put in the 4 digit model type of your system like 7661 or 8891 and then on the next page you should see a link for user guides / manuals in the middle of the screen in the box. Following that link you should find the information for the system.
Mark
July 20th, 2008 10:27 pm
i love ThinkPads too, but you could’ve created a better video on a Mac!
July 21st, 2008 7:35 am
That T61 video reminded me of my newly acquired R61e (7650), I had to play it again to see the differences.
I wish I had known about Steve and Thinkpads.com before I sold my 560x. I ended up selling for 24 pounds on ebay the week before last.
I still have a Thinkpad 600x (2645 4eg) that I bought to replace a 600x (2645 7EX) )that was sold to my fiend’s brother living in The Gambia.
As it (the newer Thinkpad 600x) be going to a good home, I wouldn’t mind selling that to Steve to add to his collection.
July 22nd, 2008 12:31 pm
Trisha, are you a worker at Apple? or is this your agenda to spread the word to people in Lenovo and I think we can also find you in HP, Dell or Asus website of you trying to humiliate laptops other than apple with your own imaginative ideas and baseless information. it seems that in every Lenovoblogs, you are trying to tell the world that Apple is the best laptop, it is the most powerful laptop bla bla bla..
it just won’t work that way.
if you really love apple, just go to all apple related forums or blogs and spread your words there. none of us give crap of your iPood and iCrap
July 22nd, 2008 9:34 pm
James Kwok:
i do not work for apple – i am only illustrating the competitions’ offerings in an effort to highlight things that Lenovo can improve upon -
getting ThinkPads to integrate better with video devices and software would be a good thing. Dell does it too!
no need for potty talk, james.
July 22nd, 2008 10:52 pm
trisha,
with all due respect, your comment about steve’s video sounds a bit insensitive considering the amount of work that he puts into his videos purely for his own enjoyment. james’ comment may sound harsh but you should realize that every single post we’ve read from you lately has been pro-apple. you’ve had some constructive comments in the past and i’d like to see you get back into that habit instead of playing the “apple fangirl” role all the time.
in the times you feel the need to say how apple (or any other company) does something better then you should be more specific. for example, if you’ve had trouble integrating an HD video camera through a thinkpad’s IEEE 1394 port while using windows movie maker or adobe after effects then tell lenovo about it in detail. a blanket statement saying “you could have created a better video on a mac” doesn’t help develop better products. instead, it sounds like a dig on steve’s video—and that’s both unnecessary and insensitive.
July 23rd, 2008 12:09 am
take a break, erik – you’re too antagonistic
i am pro thinkpad – i was not judging steve or his accomplishments – steve should be commended-
i was just saying that ThinkPads should be able to do more!
Steve if I offended you – it was not my intent – Thinkpads are powerful pieces of equipment that should DO MORE… Maybe it’s Windows fault, or maybe ThinkVantage should be expanded…
July 23rd, 2008 12:22 am
Trisha you should remember that Lenovo don’t produce their own OS like Apple does, therefore it is difficult to better integrate video devices and software. Video editting is not a particular strong suit of Windows OS’s native software set. People use Thinkpads for all sorts of things, if you cater for only one set of small customer set and not do anything for the rest is unfair. When you stated the comments regarding video editting capability of Mac, you are really saying that the Mac OS is better integrated with multimedia editting, i doubt that Mac running XP/Vista would do a better job than say Thinkpads running XP/Vista.
You really should talk to Microsoft and question them about the lack of software/hardware integration. Or maybe you could pursuade Steve Job to release Mac OS for other computers produced by its’ competitors.
Also your comment regarding Dell does it too, are you saying that Dell have better video devices integration than Thinkpads??? I have used a new Vostro, and i can’t say it is any better or worse than a Thinkpad.
July 23rd, 2008 12:25 am
Thinkvantage software is only used for system support.
July 23rd, 2008 10:46 pm
trisha,
I am not offended, in any way shapre or form. As previously stated, I am a moderator on both the Lenovo and thinkpads.com forums…I am used to reading things for what they are. it is the downfall of text based communication.
As for everyone else (trisha included)…thanks for the kind words…
August 1st, 2008 2:28 pm
Steve, you’re the man!
But I think I’m still one up on you with the left-handed Transnote in my collection!
August 5th, 2008 8:18 am
Thanks James! Glad to see you around these parts, too!
Yeah, you’ve got me on the left handed Transnote…lol
August 5th, 2008 5:45 pm
Hi – it was great reading all about you interest in the Think Pads. I am one of the origional designers of the first Think Pad, the L40. It was designed in Boca Raton, FL. and manufactured in Yamoto, Japan. We took great pains to make it a very durable system, as they also do today. When IBM sold the Think Pad to Lenovo, I was heart broken, but, when I found out that they hired all the people that worked with me on the PC and Think Pad, I was somewhat relieved. I have just purchased a Lenovo Think Pad for my wife, and am very pleased with the design, and function. The quality continues. When we designed the first Think Pad, L40, in the 1989-1990 timeframe, we tested it so an automobile could run over it, and I believe the same is true with todays models.
So, keep doing what you are doing. I am sure you will have a very fruitful, happy life.
I happen to still have an L40, that I would be willing to give you, if you are interested. I am 80 years old, and would like to see it preserved, as it was the fore runner of the great technology we have today.
Fred
I
August 6th, 2008 12:26 am
Fred! You rock!!! We love ThinkPads!
Come talk to us either at Lenovo’s forum or at thinkpads.com and tell us all the inside scoop about designing the L40.
forum.lenovo.com
forum.thinkpads.com
August 6th, 2008 8:26 am
Fred,
I cannot say thank you enough for your offer!! I am MORE than interested in giving that L40 a home!!!
Since I have no way to contact you, would you mind sending Mark Hopkins a message, as he has several ways to reach me. (Email and PMs)
Thank you again, Fred!!
August 7th, 2008 2:28 am
It’s really interesting. No matter for 15 min. Hope for the same type here next time. Best regards.
GURU
August 14th, 2008 9:53 pm
Fred,
Did you fall off the face of the earth?!?
P.S.
Thanks for the comment GURU!
August 26th, 2008 1:03 am
Heh, I only have about a dozen thinkpads, but almost all of them are broken! That’s because I pound the heck out of them, so I got my money’s worth
May 4th, 2009 4:01 am
I just got my X24 back and running for my bro. 6 years old and still youtubin’. My current R61i is AWESOME. Highly recommend these fine machines.