IBM's PC business up for sale

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 10:53:14 -0500, keith wrote:

Oh, so you're saying that the Thinkpad T21 that I have is an IBM? :-)

Business manufacturing. Perhaps your ThinkPad wasn't made by IBM,
but IIRC the 'T' series was designed by IBM (along with the 'A', and 'X').
FWIG the 'R' and 'I' series were OEM all the way.

My T21 is marked "Made in Mexico." I believe that the factory in
Mexico is/was owned by IBM rather than an OEM manufacturer. My old 701
and 600 ThinkPads were also made in Mexico.

I don't know what I'm going to do when I replace my T21 next year. The
desirable options seem to be diminishing. I'm not too keen on getting
a Toshiba or HPaq made out of rounded, shiny silver plastic. That 12"
Apple Powerbook is starting to look more attractive every day. But the
cost of replacing all of my software plus a printer makes that a
rather expensive proposition.
- -
Gary L.
Reply to the newsgroup only

Gary L. wrote:
I don't know what I'm going to do when I replace my T21 next year. The
desirable options seem to be diminishing. I'm not too keen on getting
a Toshiba or HPaq made out of rounded, shiny silver plastic. That 12"
Apple Powerbook is starting to look more attractive every day. But the
cost of replacing all of my software plus a printer makes that a
rather expensive proposition.

That 12" Powerbook with brushed Titanium is a magnet for scratches. And
those Mac-crack-addicts being the computer-posers that they are, will
not even consider buying a used Powerbook if it's got even one blemish
on it.

Besides, on my T21 Thinkpad, despite the fact that the case is made of
metal, it's much easier to bend it than any of the plastic notebooks
I've had. While I am opening up the display lid, without even too much
effort the display will show pressure marks right at the point where my
fingers are touching the lid. Never had this problem with plastic laptops.

Yousuf Khan

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:33:23 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

I don't know what I'm going to do when I replace my T21 next year. The
desirable options seem to be diminishing. I'm not too keen on getting
a Toshiba or HPaq made out of rounded, shiny silver plastic. That 12"
Apple Powerbook is starting to look more attractive every day. But the
cost of replacing all of my software plus a printer makes that a
rather expensive proposition.

That 12" Powerbook with brushed Titanium is a magnet for scratches. And
those Mac-crack-addicts being the computer-posers that they are, will
not even consider buying a used Powerbook if it's got even one blemish
on it.

I'm sure you're right about the scratches but I'm not really very
concerned about resale value; just usability. The cost of replacing a
fair amount of software makes the Powerbook a poor value. You really
have to be a Mac lover to be willing to pay a big premium to switch.
From my somewhat limited experience with Macs and OS X, there really
isn't enough appeal to me such that I'm willing to pay the premium.

Besides, on my T21 Thinkpad, despite the fact that the case is made of
metal, it's much easier to bend it than any of the plastic notebooks
I've had. While I am opening up the display lid, without even too much
effort the display will show pressure marks right at the point where my
fingers are touching the lid. Never had this problem with plastic laptops.

Hmm. My T21 has plastic case with metal particles embedded in the
plastic. It is quite flexible. When I first bought it, I was
disappointed in the case and keyboard as compared to my 600. The 600
has a much sturdier metal case (aluminum, I think) that was coated
with black rubber, and the keyboard on the 600 seemed firmer and
better supported than the T21 keyboard.

The replacement I was mulling over was an X series; perhaps with a
media "slice" that could remain on my desk. I prefer to have just the
TrackPoint and not a touchpad as well, and the lighter weight would be
nice. It has a titanium shell, but with the black rubber coating. If
the IBM PC business is sold off to some Chinese company, I'm not sure
that I would want to buy another ThinkPad.

So my question is: what other options exist? I want similar build
quality as compared to the ThinkPad, decent driver support, good
battery life and freedom from pre-installed garbage like AOL, previews
of Disney games and MS Works.


- -
Gary L.
Reply to the newsgroup only

Gary L. wrote:
So my question is: what other options exist? I want similar build
quality as compared to the ThinkPad, decent driver support, good
battery life and freedom from pre-installed garbage like AOL, previews
of Disney games and MS Works.

I don't know, maybe an Acer Ferrari notebook? :-) They are supposed to
be using the special Ferrari car paint on those things' cases (yeah,
right!), so I would assume it's a metallic casing too. And it will allow
you to out-pose the Mac-crack posers.

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:
And there's also an early review of the first PC:

The First IBM PC
http://www.darron.net/firstibm.html


a wonderful piece of engineering

* intel 8088: programmers really like this architecture, easy assembler
* isa bus: excellent forward-thinking design, still used today in some pcs
* the best operating system: dos 1.0, boot-time better than windows xp!
* excellent main-storage layout: later extended with xms,ems,hma, ....
* optional coprocessor 8087: revolutionary stack-architecture

Horst Gfrerer wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:

And there's also an early review of the first PC:

The First IBM PC
http://www.darron.net/firstibm.html



a wonderful piece of engineering

* intel 8088: programmers really like this architecture, easy assembler
* isa bus: excellent forward-thinking design, still used today in some pcs
* the best operating system: dos 1.0, boot-time better than windows xp!
* excellent main-storage layout: later extended with xms,ems,hma, ....
* optional coprocessor 8087: revolutionary stack-architecture

The chart shows that the IBM's competition at the time were Tandy,
Apple, Commodore, Atari, HP, Northstar, TI, Intertec Data, Tektronix,
and Exidy Systems. Most of those I could figure out, but what was HP or
Tektronix selling at the time? And some of them like Intertec and Exidy,
I never even heard about.

Yousuf Khan

On Sun, 05 Dec 2004 18:30:30 -0500, Yousuf Khan wrote:

Horst Gfrerer wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:

And there's also an early review of the first PC:

The First IBM PC
http://www.darron.net/firstibm.html



a wonderful piece of engineering

* intel 8088: programmers really like this architecture, easy assembler
* isa bus: excellent forward-thinking design, still used today in some pcs
* the best operating system: dos 1.0, boot-time better than windows xp!
* excellent main-storage layout: later extended with xms,ems,hma, ....
* optional coprocessor 8087: revolutionary stack-architecture

The chart shows that the IBM's competition at the time were Tandy,
Apple, Commodore, Atari, HP, Northstar, TI, Intertec Data, Tektronix,
and Exidy Systems. Most of those I could figure out, but what was HP or
Tektronix selling at the time?

At the time I had a few Tektronix signal processing systems that were
PDP-11 based. Tektronix and HP were both selling microprocessor
*DEVELOPMENT* systems. At $50K to $1.5M there wasn't much
"personal" in there (though they were hard enough to use that they
tended to own a person). We had a network of Intel boxen that were no
different.

--
Keith

On Sat, 04 Dec 2004 16:33:23 -0500, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

Besides, on my T21 Thinkpad, despite the fact that the case is made of
metal, it's much easier to bend it than any of the plastic notebooks
I've had. While I am opening up the display lid, without even too much
effort the display will show pressure marks right at the point where my
fingers are touching the lid. Never had this problem with plastic laptops.

I've been a pretty avid user of the Thinkpad eversince I tried the
T20, then getting my own A20 replaced by a T30 as well as my darling's
T40 (he wouldn't swap with me ). Don't think I've seen the same
problem you did, maybe you were just being too rough with it? pPpP

But this is sad news, I hate to think I've to live with a trackpad
only replacement when my T30 gives up the ghost another year or two
down the road

--
L.Angel: I'm looking for web design work.
If you need basic to med complexity webpages at affordable rates, email me
Standard HTML, SHTML, MySQL + PHP or ASP, Javascript.
If you really want, FrontPage & DreamWeaver too.
But keep in mind you pay extra bandwidth for their bloated code

Yousuf Khan wrote:

The chart shows that the IBM's competition at the time ...

1981 or so?
HP's minicomputer lines had been competing with IBM
for some years, of course.

... but what was HP or ... selling at the time?

If we're just considering "PC" competition, it depends
on what you call a PC.

HP had been selling desktop BASIC- or HPL-only workstations
based on their proprietary 16-bit "BPC" chip since 1975 or
so (and was just transitioning them to Mc68K). There was also
the HP 85A BASIC programmable calc (CPU not known to me), the
HP 120 and 125 (Z80, CP/M as I recall), and some more obscure
but still programmable stuff like the 2647A and 2649A terminals
(808x, OS unknown).

The HP 150 "TouchScreen" PC (808x, DOS), HP's first real (if not
entirely compatible) "PC" probably wasn't out just yet then.

--
Regards, Bob Niland
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.

The little lost angel wrote:
But this is sad news, I hate to think I've to live with a trackpad
only replacement when my T30 gives up the ghost another year or two
down the road

I still don't get this, there are so many pressure-stick fans out there?
I've had two laptops with pressure-sticks (a Toshiba Satellite and the
IBM, and I still have them, BTW); and two with touchpads (a Compaq and a
Dell). I still much prefer the touchpads over the pressure-sticks anyday.

I would guess that will the pressure-sticks disappearing that I'm not
alone in my preference. The touchpads are much easier to learn than the
pressure-sticks, and are usually much quicker to move around. Also the
touchpads are much closer to actual mouse-like positioning than
touchpads, whenever the manufacturer is smart enough to place the
buttoms above the pad rather than below.

Yousuf Khan