ThinkPad 701

"The computer solves the problem of cramped notebook keyboards. Although its screen is only 8.25 inches wide, the keyboard spans 11.5 inches. How? The board is in two halves, which can slide into the 4.5-pound ThinkPad's tiny body. The computer has racked up 27 design awards and sold 215,000 units, making it the top-selling notebook PC of 1995, according to market researcher International Data."

It went out of production in 1996.

I took my Butterfly out of daily service in January of 1999 when I bought a Toshiba Portege 3010CT. At 2.8 pounds, the 3010 was great for travel. But over the years it lost the ability to charge its batteries and eventually died.

I replaced the Toshiba in February of 2002 with an IBM X22. At 3.8 pounds, the X22 is lighter than the 701 (but heaver than the 3010). But it's nice to be back using the IBM trackpoint again. And the X22 has the nicest keyboard of any laptop I've used.

Pluses
1. Keyboard expands to 85 full sized keys
2. Sub-notebook size and weight
3. Swappable disk drives
4. IrDA-compatible infrared transceiver
5. Upgradable to 40MBs of memory
6. Genuine Intel processor
7. It will run Unix

Minuses
1. VGA display (only 640×480)
2. Older technology batteries
3. Largest disk only 720 MB
4. Modem speed only 14.4 Kbps
5. Fastest processor only 486 DX4/75
6. Satan Inside
7. It will run Unix

Operating systems
Butterfly's come with PC DOS 6.3 and Microsoft Windows 3.11 preinstalled. The 75 MHz models also come with OS/2 Warp. They will run Windows 95; this is one of the systems I regularly run on mine. I'm told it runs Windows NT. You can also run Unix. I'm currently running FreeBsd and BSD/OS. I've also heard that some people are running Linux and NetBSD.

---