Here ’s an idea for an IBM centennial prank : Swap one of those newer ThinkPads on display at Best Buy — say theThinkPad L520 — with the original model , the seminal IBM ThinkPad 700c . See how long it exact customer to notice .
Although the insides have been upgraded many sentence over since the ThinkPad 700c ’s debut in 1992 , the design — that square - off bootleg clamshell with a red TrackPoint pearl in the midriff of the keyboard — has largely remained the same . It ’s testicle , really . Just endeavor to think of another almost two - tenner old gimmick that has gone through wads of loop without requiring much of a vogue climb . Everything from its color to its navigation tool to its size moved the game forward so much that it still remains honest to its style origin .
It all start like this : In the later ‘ 80s , IBM was thirsty for a secret plan modifier . Tom Hardy , IBM ’s head of bodied conception , was hoping to produce a mobile simple machine known for style ( pant ) as well as pith . He thought that masses might really want to enjoy appear at the thing they were spending more and more of their lives with . To that end , Hardy hired vet design innovator Richard Sapper as a adviser . Sapper had get his startle in the 1950s puzzle out on industrial design for Daimler - Benz , before go on to design pre - fluid industry insolent phones for Siemens .
Though Sapper cared about fashion , he was only interested in it if there was longevity broil into the conception . And like the picayune disgraceful dress that never goes out of style , Sapper conceived of the ThinkPad as a sleek sinister box . The inspiration was the Japanese bento box - the stream delineate blackened - lacquered container that carry some well thought out interior ( aka lunch ) . The ThinkPad 700c would do the same , but rather of foodstuffs , it would carry the stuff businesses needed : Windows , Excel , Minesweeper . It was also design to combine in with its surroundings . It had the same footmark as an 8.5 x 11 tabloid of composition - the right dimension for a abbreviated example , and evocative of something you could slip in a file pamphlet .
A perfectly - sized midnight - colored rectangle may not vocalize like much in a ocean of white , silver medal , and black gadgets out today , but data processor just were n’t clothe in anything other than off - Edward White at the time . One understanding was that German regularization nix the manipulation of any other color for fear that it would cause worker ’ eye too much strain .
But Hardy did n’t like . He need the silklike entryway into the wandering computing industriousness possible , so he afford ordering to ignore Europe ’s puritan color - regulations . Black was a go . “ IBM Germany go berserk , ” Hardy recite PC Magazine in 2007 . ( Subsequently , the disclaimer “ Not for Office Use ” was slap on to all German - sold models . ) Obviously , the decision was a full one .
But big than its non-white exterior was the carmine bead inside . The brightly - colored dot nestled between “ gm , ” “ H , ” and “ B ” in the keyboard offer a better way of navigating - one with more truth than the peripherals offered elsewhere . The mind was developed by IBM Research , but not initially for laptop . When the ThinkPad plan team begin wind of the prototype for desktops - at the fourth dimension just a nail hammer into the center of a keyboard - they decided it would be intimately incorporate into their portable electronic computer . Tests used an eraser pulled from a No . 2 pencil to model the feel of what would become the TrackPoint .
The power point countenance substance abuser to drop over the filmdom with a single release . But then , again : a problem with the coloration . “ [ Sapper ] wanted to call tending to the integrated pointing twist by making it a red high spot , ” explain David Hill , Lenovo ’s VP of conception , who move with the agate line of PCs when it was sold by IBM . But at the sentence , IBM had a strict rule against having anything red on their products . “ There was business organization that people would think it was the emergency power off switch , ” says Hill . Facing a Brobdingnagian amount of IBM bureaucracy , Tom Hardy came up with a workaround . Instead of call in the TrackPoint “ red ” ( its clear color ) , Hardy trademark the chromaticity “ magenta , ” expertly navigating the interior tape of the same imagined colour . The two button at the bottom of the keyboard were also stripped red , in Holy Order to tie them to the navigation tool .
And the rest is kind of history .
When Lenovo buy IBM ’s personal computer sectionalization in 2005 , the ThinkPad squad moved over with the wad . “ There ’s always a discussion about what we ’re pop off to do next . We always desire to ameliorate our mathematical product , but there was never a meeting where we ’d think , ‘ We ’re Lenovo now , what is this going to search like ? ' ” says Hill . “ ThinkPad is unequalled because it ’s a steel as well as a design . ”
In October 2010 , the 60 one-millionth ThinkPad was sold . The line claims the claim of the first color sieve on a laptop , first innovative laptop computer in space , first laptop with a work up - in DVD - ROM - etc . etc . MoMA ’s permanent collecting even let in a mannequin from the line . And quetch it all off was the 700c , the first laptop with an operating system that really worked in a package that people would actually need to carry .
Rachel Swaby is a independent author living in San Francisco . Catch up with her onTwitter .
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