Top all-time · #24519
Ged Carroll
Personal blog · renaissancechambara.jpbusinesshardware
Ged Carroll's personal blog at renaissancechambara.jp covers business and hardware. Since 2012, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog's posts on the IBM ThinkPad 701, the 1995 laptop with a butterfly keyboard, for photos and historical information about it.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
(renaissance chambara since 2003)
What Hacker News says?
Well, there was the "Meat Puppets", formed in 1980. And then Terry Bisson's "They're Made Out of Meat", published in 1990:[0] > "They're made out of meat." > "Meat?" > "Meat. They're made out of meat." > "Meat?" > "There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat." So yeah, it's a term…
Comment linking /2017/06/14/oprah-time-true-names-by-vernor-vinge/
on “One of the Biggest At-Home DNA Testing Companies Is Working with the FBI”Submitted Reflecting on Yahoo's Q2 2015 progress report on product prioritisation as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn the mid-1990s, I bought a used IBM ThinkPad 701 in Hong Kong. Ten years before "netbooks," this wonderful little laptop had a very unique approach to compact size: A "butterfly" keyboard that unfolded when you opened the laptop. There are some photos and historical information about the 701 here: http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/ Supposedly, the design was inspired by a black bento box. A…
Comment linking /2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/
on “ThinkPad’s 30th Anniversary: An Insider’s Perspective”Submitted 48 hours with the Apple Watch as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIn the mid-1990s, I bought a used IBM ThinkPad 701 in Hong Kong. Ten years before netbooks, this wonderful little laptop had a very unique approach to compact size: A "butterfly" keyboard that unfolded when you opened the laptop. There are some photos and historical information about the 701 here: http://renaissancechambara.jp/2012/04/26/throwback-gadget-ib... Supposedly, the design was inspired by a black bento box…
Comment linking /2012/04/26/throwback-gadget-ibm-thinkpad-701/
on “Happy 20th Birthday, IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad”I had one! I bought a used IBM ThinkPad 701 in a Hong Kong computer market in 1996 while backpacking through China and Southeast Asia. I think it was $800 or $900. Although primitive by today's standards, it was a solid little laptop that served me well for the tasks I was engaged in at the time … writing, Web surfing (on a very slow modem), learning HTML, and playing Doom. It had a color screen, a big improvement o…
Comment linking /2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/
on “A look at IBM's short-lived "butterfly" ThinkPad 701 of 1995”Yawn. OK, I gotta recycle this from John Markoff:[0] > "True Names" by Vernor Vinge (1981): "The basic premise of that was, you had to basically hide your true name at all costs. It was an insight into the world we’re living in today … We have to figure it out. I think we have to go to pseudonymity or something. You’re gonna participate in this networked existence, you have to be connected to meatspace in some way."…
Comment linking /2017/06/14/oprah-time-true-names-by-vernor-vinge/
on “The Last Free Generation (2018)”What made the IBM ThinkPad 701 special was the butterfly keyboard designed by John Karidis solved the problem of making a portable computer with a full-size keyboard. It had a better action than modern laptops in terms typist feedback and was a compact full size keyboard. This was unheard of at the time. It was delicate the way it folded into place as one opened the lid on the laptop and robust enough to cope with t…
Comment linking /2012/04/26/ibm-thinkpad-701/
on “US MacBook owners have two months to claim up to $395 over butterfly keyboard”