Among all the laptops produced over the last few decades, there is one which rises above the rest and which has retained an appeal long after its meager computing resources became obsolete. It’s the IBM 701c, the famous “Butterfly” laptop, whose fold-out keyboard still gives it star quality, and [John Graham-Cumming] has documented the restoration of one from the tattered remains of two scrap examples.
The two laptops in question were someone else’s never-started project, and were in a sorry state. The flexible cables were in poor condition, and the 1990s Ni-MH batteries had leaked and damaged both circuits and case. We were unaware that NiMH leakage could damage plastic, but the parts of these machines were significantly damaged.
One had a working mainboard, the other a working modem card. One keyboard was in pretty bad shape, the other was complete. Of the pair there was a double super twisted nematic (DSTN) display and a more contemporary thin film transistor (TFT) panel. Be thankful if you have never had to use a DSTN laptop, as they were truly awful. From this pile of parts a working machine could be made, and with a new CMOS battery, that cable repair, and a repaint, he was ready. Or at least, as he says, ready for 1995.
This isn’t the first 701c restoration we’ve seen, and within reason, it’s even possible to give them a retro processor upgrade.
There a double space between star and quality :)
wow! you must be real fun to live with to nit pick something like that.
Clearly you don’t have OCD… ;P
Stood out vividly to me like an Arduino where a 555 would do…
Details matter.
My god man, now I can’t unsee it!
Possibly the double space was intended to provide emphasis to *star*, even if grammatically incorrect.
I worked at a place and the execs loved those things. They were all like kids. Get the ONE model that is most likely to cause problems and than act surprised when it causes problems. IBM did not abandon that idea because it worked well.
I wonder if you could shove a Framework board into one of these and really modernize it?