IBM ThinkPad T40 (2003) - Overview & Demo

[@charbokh]

I loved IBM ThinkPads I worked at the time on GBM (an IBM alliance company) a bank in my country ordered 50 units of T42 ThinkPads. I had the privilege to start them for the first time and configure them for the bank needs. They were awesome 👌 I always wanted one. ❤

[@JackStavris]

17:05 and now you know where my KZbin intro jingle comes from. That's been an easter egg I've had for years as a throwback to my IBM ThinkPad R51 that the channel was originally named after lol.

[@biankaataegina0101]

8:07 FYI When translating the date codes of ThinkPads, the year comes before the month. This means that your laptop would have been made in March 2004. I found that out when I looked at the similar sticker on my Lenovo ThinkPad P53 which was made in November 2019 (19/11). I just thought I'd let you know, but April 2003 is pretty close.

[@kyoudaiken]

As a kid, when I saw a ThinkPad, I always thought they look super cool. They looked vastly different from all the other laptops. These colored logos, all these bells and whistles. IBM knew how to make pretty laptops back then that are also very functional and reliable. I'm not found of Lenovo at all in contrast to that. I wish IBM would still make ThinkPads to this day, although I think the way IBM operates is not really sustainable these days anymore for making laptops. In the 80s it took them SEVEN years to design a printer... They were so strict with their internal processes, that it slowed them down a lot.

[@musicmoviesandgames2004]

My dad had one of these from the place he used to work at when I was very young. He held onto it long enough that it is now in my possession!

[@TheNostalgiaMall]

What a fun little laptop that seems to be. I'm especially intrigued by the Windows 98 compatibility. Sadly, I no longer have any ThinkPads, old or new, but they are still some of the coolest laptops ever made, especially Gen 4 i series and older.

[@metalslavery666]

What a neat little machine. I got two Thinkpads myself, a fairly modern X390 and my good old T430s (old by years, not by usability with an SSD, 8 gigs Ram and i5 processor). Thinkpads are just great computers!

[@JackStavris]

Nice one! I own an R51 as well as you know, being my first laptop and this one looks quite similar, guess that makes sense since the R51 is the lower-end variant of the T42. I've also not owned another vintage pre-Lenovo ThinkPad, a friend of mine has an X24 that they wanted to sell and I did express interest in buying it from them, however I sorta forgot about it and I'm not sure if they still have it. It would be a cool one to own since I've always wanted an early X-series ThinkPad. Never quite felt the need to own a T4x laptop though, as my R51 fills that need and I'd rather keep the R51 due to sentimental value. That particular T40 either didn't come with Wi-Fi or came with a non-Intel Wi-Fi card from the factory, since it has the original Pentium M badge instead of a Centrino badge. The Centrino badges were applied to denote a laptop that came with the trifecta of a Pentium M CPU, Intel 855 chipset, and an Intel 802.11g Wi-Fi card. My R51 has this combo and also shows the Centrino logo during POST. Removing the Wi-Fi card changes the logo in POST as well so if you added an Intel Wi-Fi card to this you'd get the Centrino logo during POST, same if you changed the CPU to something like a Celeron M, you'd get a Celeron logo during POST. Looks like that one has had a BIOS update at some point though since it has the newer 2006-era Pentium logo during the POST instead of the original. Fun fact about the tri-colour IBM logo, it was originally intended to denote colour display models of first-generation ThinkPads. Monochrome equipped ThinkPads had a standard blue logo like you'd have on a PS/2, whereas the coloured ones have the RGB logo, and the RGB logo was kept since eventually all models would ship with a colour screen. I also miss the power-control beeps for low battery, sleep/wake and when you connect/disconnect from power that classic ThinkPads had. I think the T420 was the last model to use these. I also own one of those and used it as my primary laptop for quite a long time. None of the newer machines I've owned or used for work have the power control beeps which is kind of sad since the more modern ThinkPads feel a bit soulless.

[@catgirl_eva]

Wow, it was 2021 that I sent it to you? Time really gets away sometimes.

[@NitroDubzzz]

Nice laptop man!

[@eDoc2020]

Not a bad machine, kind of like a larger version of my X31. The CPU isn't fast by today's standards but I'd agree that there's no need to upgrade. I mainly just use mine for faxing and my 1.6GHz CPU is more than enough.

[@GeorgeGraves]

People will post up to reddit/FB of them using these old machines calling it "Hey guis! Look at my new dailery driver!" - it's such BS just for attention. I love thinkpads, but some of all'yall are attention seekers.