I have the main unit and power adapter.
type computer
country USA
year 1995
os PC DOS 6.3 / Windows 3.1
cpu Intel 486DX4
speed 75 MHz
ram 8 MB
hd 540 MB
graphic 640 x 480 10.4″ active- matrix TFT
colors 256
sound ES688 audio control
ports Modem, IrDA 1.0, Parallel PCMCIA type III slot
The IBM ThinkPad 701CS — The Butterfly Keyboard
The IBM ThinkPad 701CS, released in 1995, is one of the most celebrated pieces of engineering in laptop history — the machine with the ”Butterfly” keyboard, whose ingenious expanding mechanism won the ThinkPad line a place in the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Designed by IBM engineer John Karidis, the Butterfly keyboard solved an apparently impossible problem: how to provide a full-sized keyboard in a subnotebook chassis small enough to fit in a briefcase. The answer was a keyboard that folded in half when the laptop was closed and expanded to full size when opened — a mechanical marvel that remains one of the most elegant engineering solutions in the history of portable computing.
The Engineering Challenge
The 701CS’s target was a laptop small enough that its footprint when closed was smaller than its keyboard when deployed. Karidis’s solution was a keyboard split into three sections that unfolded as the lid opened — the two outer sections swinging outward and locking into position to create a full 84-key keyboard from a chassis measuring just 28 × 21 cm. The mechanism used 20 custom-engineered parts and had to open and close reliably tens of thousands of times. IBM’s manufacturing team completed 25,000 test cycles before certifying the mechanism.
MoMA Recognition
The ThinkPad 701CS was accessioned into MoMA’s permanent collection in 1996 on the basis of industrial design merit — one of the few laptop computers ever to receive this recognition. The museum’s curators cited the Butterfly mechanism as an exemplar of design elegance: a complex engineering solution made to appear effortless and inevitable. The 701CS remains in MoMA’s collection today, testimony to a moment when laptop engineering briefly achieved the status of art.