I have the main unit, power adapter and disk drive.
type computer
country USA
year 1992
os MS DOS / Windows 98
cpu Intel Celeron
speed 300 MHz
ram 64 MB
hd 6.4 GB
graphic 800 x 600 10.4″ TFT
colors 32.000
sound beeper
ports monitor, keyboard/ mouse, RS323, centronigs, PCMCIA, modem, audio
The IBM ThinkPad Series — The World’s Most Iconic Laptop
Introduced on 5 October 1992, the IBM ThinkPad is universally regarded as the most iconic laptop computer ever created. Designed by German industrial designer Richard Sapper — IBM’s chief design consultant since 1980 — together with IBM’s Kazuhiko Yamazaki and Tom Hardy at the Yamato Development Laboratory in Japan, the ThinkPad’s matte-black ”black cigar box” aesthetic was a deliberate rejection of the ”hideous beige” that dominated computing in 1992. Sapper’s design philosophy was simple: create an object that ”on the outside shows nothing of what it is” — beautiful in its restraint, serious in its intent.
The ThinkPad’s distinctive red TrackPoint pointing stick — introduced on the original 700C and 700 — became one of the most recognisable and debated elements in laptop design history, beloved by touch-typists who never need to move their hands from the keyboard and tolerated with varying degrees of enthusiasm by everyone else. It has appeared on every enterprise ThinkPad ever produced, surviving IBM’s sale of the ThinkPad line to Lenovo in 2005 and continuing through to the present day — over three decades of continuous production.
The ThinkPad line is in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), which accessioned the 701c ”Butterfly” model in 1996 on the basis of its industrial design merit alone. Few laptop lines have achieved this level of cultural recognition, and none has maintained the combination of engineering excellence, design consistency, and professional reputation that the ThinkPad has sustained across its entire history.
The IBM ThinkPad 240 — The Ultralight ThinkPad
The IBM ThinkPad 240, released in 1999, was IBM’s ultralight subnotebook — a compact, lightweight ThinkPad targeting users who prioritised portability above all else. Weighing approximately 1.7 kg and measuring just 2.4 cm thick, the 240 used an Intel Celeron processor and omitted the built-in optical drive to achieve its compact dimensions. It was sold primarily in Japan, where the subnotebook market was significantly more developed than in Western markets — Japanese commuters and business travellers had particular need for genuinely pocketable computing devices.
The Subnotebook Category
The ThinkPad 240 occupied the subnotebook category — machines smaller and lighter than mainstream laptops but more capable than palmtops or handheld computers. In Japan, this category was well-established by manufacturers including Sony (VAIO), Panasonic (Let’s Note), and Sharp, who had developed sophisticated miniaturisation techniques for the demanding Japanese market. IBM’s ThinkPad 240 applied the ThinkPad brand’s quality standards and keyboard heritage to this compact form factor.