Image: Lenovo
There’s absolutely nothing rather like the practical radiance of timeless IBM ThinkPad laptop computers, motivated by Japanese bento boxes and cherished for their strength. And none is so cherished as the ThinkPad 701 series from1995 With its two-part fold-out keyboard that squeezes a full-sized typing surface area into a style under 10 inches broad, it’s an apparent classic. It is practically 30 years old, so great luck utilizing it for anything other than Space Cadet Pinball
Enter modder Karl Buchka This fan of the initial style took a damaged ThinkPad 701 C and changed its motherboard with the one from the Framework Laptop, a modular style that’s ended up being all the rage in maker and right-to-repair circles. In a modding job that’s taken 6 months to finish, Buchka has actually made the 701 C’s real estate and keyboard/Trackpoint mouse deal with the Framework’s modern-day Intel guts, consisting of USB-C, USB-A, and gigabit Ethernet ports, plus Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. His task was identified by Tom’s Hardware
Because the 701 C’s 640 ×480 LCD screen leaves something to be preferred by contemporary requirements, Buchka took his mod one action even more and changed it with the screen panel from an iPad 7, linked to the motherboard by means of an internal eDisplayPort adaper. The fold-out “butterfly” keyboard and its Trackpoint mouse are plugged into a Teensy microcontroller running QMK. It appears like the develop utilizes a Framework laptop computer battery, too.
So far the modder has actually needed to develop a brand-new lower case and hinge bracket through 3D printing in order to make it all suit the ThinkPad’s initial measurements. When the mod remains in its last model, he states he’ll publish the style files on Github for others to imitate.
