The IBM ThinkPad 701 is a

subnotebook Subnotebook, also called ultraportable, superportable, handtop, mini notebook or mini laptop, is a type of laptop computer that is smaller and lighter than a typical notebook-sized laptop. Types and sizes As typical laptop sizes have decreas ...

in the

ThinkPad ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop and Tablet computer, tablet computers produced since 1992. It was originally designed, created and manufactured by the American IBM, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation. IBM Acquisit ...

line by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. The 701 is colloquially known as the Butterfly due to its sliding keyboard, which was designed by John Karidis. It was developed from 1993 and sold from March 1995 until later that year and priced between and . The 701 was the most sold laptop in 1995 and has received 27 design awards. It was based on either the

DX2 DX may refer to: In arts and entertainment * DX (album), ''DX'' (album), a 2013 album by Friendzone * D-Generation X, a professional wrestling stable ** D-Generation X: In Your House, 1997 pro wrestling PPV * Design Exchange, a museum of design ...

or the

DX4 IntelDX4 is a clock-tripled i486 microprocessor with 16 KB level 1 cache.http://www.pld.ttu.ee/~prj/486dev.pdf Intel named it DX4 (rather than ''DX3'') as a consequence of litigation with Advanced Micro Devices over trademarks. The ...

version of the Intel

i486 The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor introduced in 1989. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the i386, Intel 386. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the Inte ...

, combined with the CT-65545 graphics chip. The 701Cs version used a

DSTN DSTN (double super twisted nematic), also known as dual-scan super twisted nematic or simply dual-scan, is an LCD technology in which a screen is divided in half, which are simultaneously refreshed giving faster refresh rate than traditional passive ...

display, while the 701C used a

TFT LCD A thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT LCD) is a type of liquid-crystal display that uses thin-film transistor, thin-film-transistor technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active mat ...

. It was pre-installed with Windows 3.11 and for the DX4 models also with

OS/2 Warp OS/2 is a proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, intended as a replac ...

3.0. The 701 was discontinued because the keyboard design was no longer a necessity after screen sizes increased.

Development

The 701 was a collaboration project between the manufacturing facility at the

Research Triangle Park Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the United States; it occupies in North Carolina and hosts more than 300 companies and 65,000 workers. It is owned and managed by the Research Triangle Foundation, a private non-profi ...

near

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, United States and the development facility at Yamato,

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Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. The concept of the keyboard was first developed as a photocopy of a keyboard in spring 1993. In the summer, a

plexiglass Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is a synthetic polymer derived from methyl methacrylate. It is a transparent thermoplastic, used as an engineering plastic. PMMA is also known as acrylic, acrylic glass, as well as by the trade names and bran ...

prototype was developed. The decision to fund the notebook was made in the fall of 1993, with the introduction planned a year later. Because the process was delayed, it used the Intel 486 instead of the faster Pentium when it was released.Dell, Deborah The keyboard was designed by with John Karidis,

Sam Lucente Samuel "Sam" Lucente (born 1958) is an industrial designer. Education Lucente studied at the University of Cincinnati. Career He worked for IBM between 1981 and 1996. He was responsible for the design of computers, including the Leapfrog com ...

and Robert Tennant.

Richard Sapper Richard Sapper (30 May 1932 – 31 December 2015) was a German industrial designer who was based in Milan for much of his career. He is considered to be one of the most influential figures of post-war design. His products typically feature a comb ...

has been responsible for the overall ThinkPad design. Other contributors include Lawrence Stone, Michael King, Martin Tucker and Gerard McVicker. The 701 was codenamed butterfly internally at IBM, and engineers also wanted to use this name as the official one. The IBM legal department did not allow the name of living creatures for products. It was part of the subnotebook series like the

ThinkPad 500 The IBM ThinkPad 500 is a subnotebook from the ThinkPad series released by IBM in 1993. History The ThinkPad 500 (type 2603) was announced on 16 June 1993. It was the first subnotebook by IBM, made and registered with the FCC by their then-rece ...

, but they did not want to attach the same name to this model due to bad sales of the previous 500 model. The 600 series was a reserved name, so they used the 700 series which was intended for the high-end models. ''

PCMag ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Magaz ...

'' noted that the

LCD manufacturing LCD manufacturing is the process of making liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. It involves using glass and silicon substrates. Photolithography is used to pattern the substrates, and liquid crystal materials are added. In the case of a color TFT LC ...

Sharp Corporation is a Japanese electronics company. It is headquartered in Sakai, Osaka, and was founded by Tokuji Hayakawa in 1912 in Honjo, Tokyo, and established as the Hayakawa Metal Works Institute in Abeno-ku, Osaka, in 1924. Since 2016, it is majority o ...

was a departure from

Display Technologies, Inc. Display Technologies, Inc. (DTI) was a joint venture between IBM Japan Ltd. and Toshiba Corporation for manufacturing LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses ...

for the 700 series.

Release

IBM bought advertising space in major newspapers, in the lower corner or on the upper right side of a page. They only used an image of a butterfly without anything else. Days later, they added the IBM logo with a butterfly icon. A couple of days later, the text "Watch for the announcement" was added. After the announcement, IBM received a legal threat about the usage of the name "butterfly" by someone known only as George, as it violated their company's trademark on a

supercomputer A supercomputer is a type of computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instruc ...

product named Butterfly. IBM replied that they did not plan to use it as a brand name, and no legal action or further correspondence took place. Initially, IBM failed to supply the demand for the 701. Because of the high reward of the 701 design, model kits were developed so a souvenir version of the 701 could be made.

Specifications

The subnotebook series was released in different variations, with either the

Intel DX2 The Intel486 DX2, rumored as 80486DX2 (later rebadged i486DX2), is a CPU produced by Intel that was first introduced in 1992. The i486DX2 was nearly identical to the i486DX, but it had additional clock multiplier circuitry. It was the second CP ...

Intel DX4 IntelDX4 is a clock-tripled i486 microprocessor with 16 KB level 1 cache.http://www.pld.ttu.ee/~prj/486dev.pdf Intel named it DX4 (rather than ''DX3'') as a consequence of litigation with Advanced Micro Devices over trademarks. The ...

, LCD with dual scan or TFT active matrix. They were sold with different disk sizes. They all contained the same graphics chips and preinstalled software, except for the DX4 versions which were dual booted with IBM OS/2. It was based on the

AT bus Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) is the 16-bit internal bus of IBM PC/AT and similar computers based on the Intel 80286 and its immediate successors during the 1980s. The bus was (largely) backward compatible with the 8-bit bus of the 808 ...

and could be extended with a Dock II type.

Pre-installed software Pre-installed software (also known as bundled software) is software already installed and licensed on a computer or smartphone bought from an original equipment manufacturer (OEM).cc:Mail, Organizer,

ScreenCam ScreenCam (formerly ''Lotus/IBM ScreenCam'') is a screencast tool for Microsoft Windows that is used to author software demonstrations, software simulations, branched scenarios, and tutorials in .swf (also known as Adobe Flash) format. ScreenCam ...

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America Online AOL (formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City, and a brand marketed by Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo! Inc. The service tra ...

Video for Windows Video for Windows was a suite of video-playing and editing software introduced by Microsoft in 1992. A runtime version for viewing videos only was made available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, which then became an integral component of Windows ...

1.1 Runtime and Audiofile TalkWorks. The

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

installed was IBM DOS 6.3, Windows 3.11, while DX4 machines included OS/2 Warp 3.0 in dual boot mode with selected BonusPack. The

graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics, being present either as a discrete video card or embedded on motherboards, mobile phones, personal ...

(GPU) was a CT-65545, with 1MB DRAM by

Chips and Technologies Chips and Technologies, Inc. (C&T), was an early fabless semiconductor company founded in Milpitas, California, in December 1984 by Gordon A. Campbell and Dado Banatao. Its first product, announced September 1985, was a four chip Enhanced Graph ...

on VL-Bus 2.0. It supported an external SVGA display up to 1024x768 with 256 colors at 70 Hz.

Keyboard

The

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mus ...

used in the 701 is officially known as the ''TrackWrite'', but commonly known and code-named as the ''butterfly keyboard.'' The design allowed the 701 series to be both compact (when closed) and comfortable to use (when open), despite being just 24.6 cm (9.7 in) wide with a 26.4 cm (10.4 in)

VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the IBM PC compatible industry within three years. T ...

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

. The keyboard is split into two roughly

right triangle A right triangle or right-angled triangle, sometimes called an orthogonal triangle or rectangular triangle, is a triangle in which two sides are perpendicular, forming a right angle ( turn or 90 degrees). The side opposite to the right angle i ...

pieces that slide as the laptop's lid is opened or closed. As the lid is opened both pieces slide out to the sides, followed by one piece sliding downward. The two halves mesh to form a keyboard 29.2 cm (11.5 in) wide which overhangs the sides of the laptop body. Conversely, as the lid is closed one piece slides back, then both slide inward until the keyboard can be covered by the lid. The movement of the keyboard is driven by a cam on the lid's hinge, so the motions of the keyboard parts are always synchronized with the movement of the lid.

Reception

In a 1995 review of the 701C by

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (''IW'') is an American information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a Web-only publication. Its parent company is International Data Group, and its sister pu ...

the full-sized keyboard, large matrix screen and built-in multimedia features were positively noted. The nonstandard I/O ports were seen negatively. The ThinkPad 701 has received 27 design awards, including the "Good Design Award" from CES Innovation and "1995 Product of the year" in the subnotebook category from

Domus In ancient Rome, the ''domus'' (: ''domūs'', genitive: ''domūs'' or ''domī'') was the type of town house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. It was found in almost all the ma ...

noted in a 2019 article that: "Even today, this portable PC amazes anyone who sees it open and close, and more than twenty years have gone by.". The 701C was the top selling laptop of 1995.

Walt Mossberg Walter S. Mossberg (born March 27, 1947) is an American retired technology journalist and moderator. From 1991 through 2013, he was the principal technology columnist for ''The Wall Street Journal''. He also co-founded '' AllThingsD'', ''Re ...

considered it the most unusual and clever laptop he ever reviewed. The laptop is still popular with collectors, 26 years after its release. According to John Karidis, the

IBM ThinkPad 700 The IBM ThinkPad 700 (also named model 700 PS/2) is the first notebook computer for the ThinkPad brand that was released by IBM on October 5, 1992. Another series was released alongside it, the ThinkPad 300 series. The 300 series was meant to be a ...

succeeded because of the large screen size and full-sized keyboard, while other companies cramped their keyboards and failed. Karidis observed that the limiting factor in the laptop size was the keyboard width and that the screen and keyboard surface were equal with different aspect ratios. The laptop is being displayed in the design collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

Manhattan, New York Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

Die Neue Sammlung Die Neue Sammlung is one of the leading design museums in the world, with the largest collection of industrial and product design. Founded in 1907 with the ideas of the German Werkbund, Die Neue Sammlung became an official state museum in 1925 ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and in the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the Digital Revolution, computing revolution and its impact ...

. The ThinkPad 701 was briefly shown in 1995

James Bond The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

film ''

GoldenEye ''GoldenEye'' is a 1995 spy film, the seventeenth in the List of James Bond films, ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions, and the first to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional Secret Intelligence Service, MI6 agent James Bond (lit ...

'', ''

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'' and '' Mission: Impossible''.

Discontinuation and later history

The 701 was withdrawn per December 21, 1995, which IBM announced a month before. This was due to newer laptop models containing larger screens, so the laptop could contain a full sized keyboard without a folding mechanism. Other companies were also moving to Pentium processors. The 701 series has been described as a product that had innovative features that were well received in the market, but the total package missed the competitive mark. A few months after the release of the 701, the ThinkPad 760 was released which is based on the original

Intel Pentium Pentium is a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel from 1993 to 2023. The original Pentium was Intel's fifth generation processor, succeeding the i486; Pentium was Intel's flagship processor line for over ...

processor. In 2003, '' ZDNet'' reported that the IBM Design Center was experimenting with new laptop models that included a butterfly keyboard. David Hill stated that he tried to bring back the butterfly design, but was not able to do so. In 2021, Lenovo has filed a patent for a keyboard that is similar to the one used in the 701. In 2014 it was reported by ''

Hackaday ''Hackaday'' is a hardware hacking website. It was founded in 2004 as a web magazine. Since 2014, Hackaday also hosts a community database of open-source hardware designs. History Hackaday was founded in 2004 by Phillip Torrone as a web maga ...

'' that it was possible to desolder the original

and replace it with a faster

Am5x86 The Am5x86 processor is an x86-compatible CPU announced in November 1995 by AMD for use in 486-class computer systems. It began shipping in December 1995, with a base price of $93 per unit in bulk quantities. Before being released, it was in ...

. In 2023, hacker Karl Buchka

retrofitted Retrofitting is the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Retrofits can happen for a number of reasons, for example with big capital expenditures like naval vessels, military equipment or manufacturing plants, businesses or go ...

the mainboard of the Framework Laptop into the 701. The keyboard is controlled using the QMK firmware on a

Teensy This is a non-exhaustive list of Arduino boards and compatible systems. It lists boards in these categories: * Released under the official Arduino name * Arduino "shield" compatible * Development-environment compatible * Based on non-Atmel processo ...

References

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

External links

* * * * * {{IBM personal computers ThinkPad 701

701 __NOTOC__ Year 701 ( DCCI) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 701st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 701st year of the 1st millennium, the 1st year of the 8th century, and the ...

Computer-related introductions in 1995