ThinkPad 820 PowerPC [WARNING: PICS]

[ThinkDan]

I bought this in late 1997 / early 1998 from a guy in the States who had bought it on the IBM employee purchase programme (EPP)... Reading between the lines I don't think he realised what he was getting with a PowerPC ThinkPad... almost no native applications on NT PPC, software emulation required to run Win32 applications like Office. IIRC IBM sold a native version of Office 4.2 for PPC but good luck finding that... I remember seeing it listed on the EPP but the only version I could find recently was 4.2 for NT x86 & Alpha.

The hard drive is a 2.5" SCSI, common with early Apple Powerbooks, and the CD-ROM is SCSI also. The 820 has quite a low RAM limit (48MB IIRC) but the 850/860 went up to 96MB or more. Overall it has a solid feel like the 750/755/760 series. The system setup is a lovely full-colour update of the classic 750 style system setup.









NT 3.51 PM (also known as PMZ or "power managed version Z") is an interesting beast - power management that was almost the equal of Win95 with suspend and hibernate. This was a special release of NT 3.51 that was ported at the IBM Kirkland Programming Centre in Seattle - I visited them in May 1997 when IBM sent me over to Seattle for an NT Cluster Server course at Microsoft. Kirkland had done the port of NT to PPC - I think that was the .01 version bump from 3.5 to 3.51 - and then they carried on to do the PM release of 3.51, then the PPC port of 4.0. Kirkland were also doing IBM's NT and Win95 hardware qualification - anyone supporting NT back then will remember the great long lists of hardware specifically tested and supported for NT 3.1 / 3.51 / 4.0. Lots of server, desktop, and portable x86 equipment in the lab area as you might imagine - including point-of-sale equipment and a few odd tablets that looked like greatly updated 730T models with hand straps and docking cradles. I never did work out what they were, perhaps prototypes or contract work for another manufacturer.

At the time I visited Kirkland they were very much in minimal maintenance mode with NT PPC, which was a shame as the guys there were so committed to the PPC hardware and proud of the work they'd done porting NT across. They had worked on the PM version of NT 4.0 PPC but it was canned before release. I had an interest in what they were doing as some months earlier I'd scrounged a PowerSeries 440 'Sandalfoot' desktop prototype back in the UK to run NT 4 PPC (so we could understand ARC bootloaders and software limitations/capabilities in the Helpcentre), and was looking to build support connections for escalating any specific NT PPC issues to them. I had also (then) just recently pulled a complete ThinkPad 850 setup off the crusher line at the dealer return centre in the UK. I gave the 850 to the Benelux agents at the Helpcentre and they were frothing at the prospect of an AIX laptop!

There's good summary info out there on the PPC ThinkPad hardware already - notably the same models of 820 and 850 were sold in parallel branded as either ThinkPad or RS/6000, with two parallel sets of type numbers for the same hardware depending on which part of IBM sold them (PC Company or RS/6000 division.) Mine is labelled as a 6040 on the box and both a 7247 and 6040 on the underside of the machine. They were manufactured in Japan, and the similarities with the 750/755 are obvious, inside and out.

Here's some more detail shots:

Full-colour splash screen during POST. Notice how it's a TFT screen with two sliders.



Audio controls on the front. Yes, the CD-ROM fit is gappy. Front latches are for lifting the keyboard.





Side latches open the screen.



Expansion port - I don't know of any external expansion options for these.



Rear ports: SCSI, floppy, parallel, serial, VGA, power, video break-out (under power). It uses a standard large power brick of the 700-750 era.



Memory is in 3x DIMM slots under the CD-ROM, max 16MB per slot. Same HDD cradle as the 75x series, but a SCSI drive inside.



Additional bits supplied. Classic rubber TrackPoint caps plus 'cat's tongue' variants. Video break-out dongle. Floppy bezel - but if the CD-ROM is SCSI, which floppy fits & works? Need to check.



The two type numbers. Note 'Manufactured by IBM Japan' rather than 'Made for IBM'; The architectural similarity to the 75x series is striking - was it a Yamato labs design?



Enjoy

[theterminator93]

Nice read, I've never actually "seen" one of those. Beautifully preserved!

I don't suppose I could talk you into sharing an ISO and image of the recovery disks for preservation in the recovery media archive?

[fultontech]

Awesome pictures! That's my favorite notebook.

[solidpro]

Wow. I'm frothing at the mouth. Is the plastic hard and durable or rubbery like the 760?

I totally get the nerdy love affair with AIX and PPC NT but I don't really know it. I was just getting into doing IT support in a bank when NT4 had just came out but only ever supported it on intel. I also had a variety of weird Unix-family stuff back in the day - NeXT, SGI, and I vaguely remember having a weird Canon objectstation I didn't know what to do with (regret selling as I've never seen another!). I think I just love the fact it's IBM and it's of that golden era of computing where Microsoft and Apple were still 'pirates' of silicon valley (even though MS weren't in CA!) where everything seemed still a bit 'emerging' and changing. You did well to keep this for so long as I dread to think about everything else that came and went through my attics!

What happened to the PowerSeries 440 'Sandalfoot' desktop prototype?

[ThinkDan]

Thanks guys, thought it impolite not to share!

I must take a video of the system setup (F1 at boot) - it's like a high-res full colour 75x system setup, only with isometric icons for everything. A glipmse of what could have been... and now we get 80 column text mode FFS!

solidpro - it's textured and rubberised like a 750/755, and the case plastics are of the same design & finish. I took it out of the box again today to check it, as the photos above are from a few years ago. It feels like a 755CD in so many ways - black matrix TFT, Trackpoint III era keyboard with that lovely 'clunk' travel to the keys, just thick enough to house the CD-ROM, and the general proportions and case materials. Oh, and lifting the keyboard to unplug the drives, which use the same release wires and push connectors. You'll be pleased to know the rubber is almost perfect, but for the left side which has a little bit of adhesion from the plastic bag. I checked it over for an obvious CMOS battery but couldn't find one, so it'll need some dismantling to check for that and a sleep battery.

Yes, PowerPC was an interesting time, although it was clear the major players quickly ran out of commitment when delays to the 601 CPU led to it being comparable to intels' pentiums, rather than streets ahead. All but Apple ditched PowerPC quickly, and Apple moved away from the PReP standard to do their own thing, so it was effectively over by late 1997.

IBM regularly cleared end-of-life PC products through the Employee Purchase Plan, which was how I bought my 750CS (mid 1995), my 701CS (mid 1997), and how the 820 found its way to me. As well as the online listings via mainframe mail and the terminal applications, we had an employee shop on-site at the Greenock plant where you could wander in, browse the current PC hardware and software offerings, and order and collect. This was the era where you could buy an IBM product with everything made by IBM - chassis, system board, processor, memory, expansion bus, video adapter, storage adapter, disk drives, monitor, network card, modem, keyboard, mouse, printer, operating system, applications. The problem was, each one of those components was a business division in its own right... it wasn't sustainable with the IBM model of management.

[Bondi]

Nice find and awesome read! Thanks for sharing!

[solidpro]

Not OT because it's regarding the rubberiness of a NIB machine....I've got a 555BJ brand new in box, which is probably 2-3 years prior to this and although it's new you can hardly touch it. You leave fingerprints on it because the rubber is so soft. I am in two minds whether to just leave it to rot and keep it original or try and disassemble it and strip it back. Also have a few T and X machines NIB and they're still perfect, but I think they've pretty much perfected the forumla by then.

[ThinkDan]

There is a clear tension between preservation of the original finish and preservation of an item that is visibly degrading. Since it crosses so many models of this vintage, perhaps better to give it its own thread

Have you done a thread for the 555BJ? Never seen one, would be very interested if you can bear to handle it for the photos!

[astral]

I think all or at least some of the 800 series had the cancer varta batteries in them. I’d tear it down further to check, including the keyboard assembly if it looks like one could fit in there, that’s where they put in on the 76x series.

[Bondi]

By the way, ThinkDan, isn't two sliders an indication od a passive matrix? What makes you think it's a TFT display?

[fultontech]

I think I remember playing quake on it for AIX

[macos_2017]

A great item in great condition!!

My 851 has started suffering from “sticky” plastic.
I have 3 drives. One has NT3.51, one has AIX4.1.4 and the last one has Solaris Desktop 2.5.1. Nice interchange and experience OSes

Also looking for the 3button mouse


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[astral]

By the way, ThinkDan, isn't two sliders an indication od a passive matrix? What makes you think it's a TFT display?

if it looks like one. once you know what to look for it’s pretty easy to tell which a display is from a still photo most of the time. That image says to me that’s a T-F-T lcd.

[Bondi]

By the way, ThinkDan, isn't two sliders an indication od a passive matrix? What makes you think it's a TFT display?

if it looks like one. once you know what to look for it’s pretty easy to tell which a display is from a still photo most of the time. That image says to me that’s a T-F-T lcd.

Well, I'm not saying it's not a TFT (although it's better to judge on a moving rather on a still image), but I've never seen a TFT LCD with a contrast slider.

[astral]

i've seen plenty that have one. it serves no purpose, in cases where it's included the manufacturer was just too cheap to make a separate mold for the tft option versus the stn option. very common.

[Bondi]

I'd be really surprised it that turns out to be the case. IBM was not a cheap manufacturer, and I've never encountered such approach. The opposite, IBM liked to make parts and accessories incompatible accross the series and models. Let alone the Power Sries was a kind of hi-end machines with bunch of expensive options and a bespoke case (that volume wheel is quite unique). So I think there has to be some other explanation.

[ThinkDan]

By the way, ThinkDan, isn't two sliders an indication od a passive matrix? What makes you think it's a TFT display?

It's a TFT.

The announcement letter states that the 820 and 850 were offered with 640x480 or 800x600 black matrix TFTs. Black Matrix was also a marketing feature of the 755CD/CE/CX models. It's a black border superimposed over the pixel array to prevent bleed-through between RGB sub-pixel elements, giving better colour fidelity.

The sliders do work, one for contrast and one for brightness. Remember the 700C and 720C came with two sliders on their 10.4" TFT panels:



Generally, yes, the rule for all 360/750 models onwards was one slider = TFT, two sliders = DSTN. Perhaps the 8x0 models were done with two slider TFTs as a "luxury" feature to match the "workstation" image and price tag. The 820 started at $5,700 in June 1995, 850 was quoted as $12,400 in 1996.

[ThinkDan]

Interesting to see the manufacturing locations cited in the announcement letter above. 4 in total, the usual ThinkPad locations - Greenock, Raleigh, and Fujisawa - plus RS/6000 system manufacturing in Austin.

Code: Select all

ISO 9000 registered IBM Locations:
   Research Triangle Park, NC, USA [23]
       Manufacturing           ISO 9001
 
   Greenock, Scotland [55]
       Manufacturing           ISO 9001
 
   Austin, TX, USA [26]
     RS/6000 Sys. Mfg.         ISO 9002
 
   Fujisawa, Japan [97]
       Manufacturing           ISO 9001

I've added the plant codes as [55] for Greenock, etc. The serial number for IBM hardware at this time usually was of the format XX-YYYYY or XXYYYYY, with XX being the plant code and YYYYY being the unit serial number (alphanumeric, type specific).

Research Triangle Park is also known as IBM Raleigh, as the plant is/was located in the Research Triangle Park complex outside Raleigh, NC. I'm 90% sure they manufactured the ThinkPad 500, mine plus all the photos Mr. Google can find shows these as having a 23 plant code.

If you look at the photo above, you'll see that my 820, sold as a domestic USA model, was made in Fujisawa, Japan. Again, with the limited 820/850/860 images available via Google that show serial numbers, I can only find machines made in Japan. I guess production began at one plant until demand justified regional manufacturing.

[Bondi]

By the way, ThinkDan, isn't two sliders an indication od a passive matrix? What makes you think it's a TFT display?

It's a TFT.

The announcement letter states that the 820 and 850 were offered with 640x480 or 800x600 black matrix TFTs. Black Matrix was also a marketing feature of the 755CD/CE/CX models. It's a black border superimposed over the pixel array to prevent bleed-through between RGB sub-pixel elements, giving better colour fidelity.

The sliders do work, one for contrast and one for brightness. Remember the 700C and 720C came with two sliders on their 10.4" TFT panels:



Generally, yes, the rule for all 360/750 models onwards was one slider = TFT, two sliders = DSTN. Perhaps the 8x0 models were done with two slider TFTs as a "luxury" feature to match the "workstation" image and price tag. The 820 started at $5,700 in June 1995, 850 was quoted as $12,400 in 1996.

Thank you for the information! This is what I like this forum for, you learn something new, although I thought that it was impossible to learn anything new about legacy thinkpads.
Is there any use for the contrast control other than cranking it all the way up?

[skurlin]

Hi.

Great info on this system. Is it for Sale by any chance?

Regards

Steve Kurlin

[solidpro]

Get in line, Steve! Get in line!!

[ThinkDan]

Well folks, I'm just preparing the eBay listing, so thought I would add extra images, continuing my theme of "document and dispose" with the less mainstream models.



It feels rather sad to be disposing of this after 26 years, but I've had my fun with it and I know there are others very keen to get their hands on a Power Series / PowerPC ThinkPad. Looking back through the paperwork, I bought it from its original owner in May 1998 for $800 plus $125 shipping to UK. I think I mentioned above that the original owner had bought it through the IBM Employee Purchase Plan when these were heavily discounted, but I don't think he realised the limitations of the PowerPC platform. Being a 6040-986 with middling spec and an original list price of $6,750, it was probably on the EPP at about $2,000 in the US. I remember seeing these come up at around the £2,000 mark on the UK EPP, but bear in mind I'd previously had a 750Cs for £1000 and a 701Cs for (IIRC) about £1200-1400 when they were similarly cleared after end of production, so the 820 was not a bargain, and I knew then that they were limited in usability.

For giggles, here's the list prices in USD from the original announcement:

Code: Select all

IBM ThinkPad Power Series 820 and Supporting Options Deliver Power and Flexibility for Mobile Users

June 19, 1995
Announcement Number: 195-179

...

CHARGES
                           Machine                  Part    Purchase
Description                Type         Model       Number  Price

IBM ThinkPad 820
 (No operating system)     6040         0CD         30H1553 $7,999
IBM ThinkPad 820 (AIX)     6040         0DD         30H1554  8,799
IBM ThinkPad 820 (NT)      6040         0ED         30H1555  8,299

IBM ThinkPad 820
 (No operating system)     6040         06D         30H1477  7,549
IBM ThinkPad 820 (AIX)     6040         07D         30H1478  8,399
IBM ThinkPad 820 (NT)      6040         08D         30H1480  7,849

IBM ThinkPad 820
 (No operating system)     6040         966         30H1482  6,449
IBM ThinkPad 820 (AIX)     6040         976         30H1486  8,399
IBM ThinkPad 820 (NT)      6040         986         30H1484  6,749

IBM ThinkPad 820
 (No operating system)     6040         006         30H1487  5,699
IBM ThinkPad 820 (AIX)     6040         017         30H1491  7,649
IBM ThinkPad 820 (NT)      6040         026         30H1489  5,999

Options Available
                                            Part        Purchase
Option                                      Number      Price

ThinkPad Power Series 540MB Hard Disk       30H1388     $  899
ThinkPad Power Series 810MB Hard Disk       30H1392      1,299
ThinkPad Power Series 1.2GB Hard Disk       30H1467      1,749
ThinkPad Power Series 50W AC
 Adapter (U.S.)                             30H1403         99
ThinkPad Power Series Travel Quick
 Charger U.S.                               30H1373        199
NiMH Battery Pack U.S.                      30H1369        149
Personal Microphone                         12H1504         49
Black Three-Button Mouse                    30H1519         49

Scroll down for the options, they're rather fun - 1.2GB HDD for $1750, anyone? Of course these are the now-unobtainium 2.5" SCSI drives

So the major news with this example is that it did suffer some sticky soft-touch degradation. Unfortunately when I pulled it out of storage about a year ago, the plastic bag had just started to stick to the rubber. Most of the damage is light and confined to the edges, but the sides seemed to get the worst of it. I suspect a light magic eraser session, followed by Nivea cream, would improve matters. I've not tried any remedy for this, it's just had a wipe down with a dry cloth to get any dust and finger marks off for the photos. The good news is that keeping it aired in a cool dry environment for a year does seem to have removed the tackiness, so it now feels like good quality soft-touch coating again.



The last photo shows how intact it is generally. Previously I'd taken out the standby battery and refreshed the CMOS battery, so no spreading green corrosion and it knows the time and date Screen is bright, no stuck pixels that I can see, and it passes diags with flying colours... which reminded me how nice the animated isometric colour EasySetup is on these Internally and externally it's an odd mix of familiar 750/755 general design & layout with unfamiliar additions, almost like an alternative development path to the 760 that was tried but then shelved. To reiterate a point that has come up before, these used a two-slider TFT, much in the vein of the 700C, 720C and early 750C. Either the Windows drivers are unfinished, or the panel supports a maximum of 65536 colours.



For interest, here's the boot sequence. Splash screen, followed by ARC loader, followed by NT 3.51 PPC PMZ. The ARC loader was a part of the PReP spec, a firmware bootloader. You had to apply the correct ARC for AIX or for NT prior to installation, in a 5MB reserved partition. To put it in Windows NT terms: the ARC loader replaced NTLDR and the boot menu, but with extra tools. As the ARC loaded it presented a boot menu and access to various tools for managing the boot menu entries, partitioning, and installing supported OSes.



The version of NT that came with this is not what is found on the standard Microsoft NT 3.51 CD in the PPC directories. Instead, this is a separate version of NT 3.51 that was ported at IBM's Kirkland labs in Seattle, and included platform-specific features and driver support, such as for power management. It was known as PMZ or 'Power Managed version Z'. I've taken an ISO of the disc and will upload it to archive.org shortly for posterity. Power Series ThinkPads also came with a 'Program Pack' CD, with audio/video introductions to the hardware and software platform, and an illustrated online reference manual. I know I have these but they appear to have got separated, I'll find the 820 one and include it in the box. To be honest the software support was very sparse as the whole NT PPC project was halted by IBM in mid 1996, just a year after launch, when it terminated all non RS/6000 PowerPC platform development. There is a copy of Motorola SoftWindows 32 for running Win32 applications, I don't recall ever trying this in anger though! I've also had AIX running on it, from memory it is a very specific version of 4.1.2 or 4.1.3 to support these, but the standard CDs for these versions include the ThinkPad support.

I'll also include the green IBM 'PowerPC - an inside view' book, which is a fascinating view into the PowerPC / PReP revolution whilst IBM/Apple/Motorola were still confident they could up-end the PC and workstation markets. Barely a mention of the ThinkPad models, but it adds a whole lot of understanding to what this machine represents. There's also the photocopied HMM, which is how IBM UK Publications supplied it in 1998!



I'll add the eBay link when I've completed the listing - need to work out the packed volume and weight for international shipping...

[ThinkDan]

Here's the eBay link.

Enjoy!

[ThinkDan]

More good news - not only did I find the ThinkPad 820 Program Pack CD up in the attic, but also the 850 Program Pack CD and HMM. I'll list the latter two as a pair shortly, I have no need for them.



Still lost somewhere in my boxes are: PS/2e system unit, 360PE lid, 701 Dock II interface kit... plus other stuff I've no doubt forgotten I had

No further ThinkPads have come to light, though, so that's a good thing in a way, at least the degree of hoarding is known and finite as far as they are concerned

I did find a second Netvista X41 that I'd forgotten about, though

[panips]

You really have a lot of good stuff.
820 is a nice one but the end time is around 5am in west coast so I have to pass. I *really* want to get a 8xx series, especially the 800, for $1~2k but it's not easy to find.
I have a 360PE but with vinegar syndrome. I know it has a touch panel so I'm afraid if I can remove that part and have polarizing film replaced. If you can find your 360PE lid, please do let me know if you're willing to trade.
Talking about trade, well, I saw you have a 701c listed in your signature but no idea if you're gonna sell it. I need a working one to help me repairing my dad's old one (which has a bad system planar but I'm still struggling on how to take out the battery and tear it down)

[RealBlackStuff]

Try https://www.esnipe.com/
Been using this for years!

[ThinkDan]

Try https://www.esnipe.com/
Been using this for years!

+1

Set max bid to snipe in at the last minute, walk away and let it do its magic. If the gods are with you, you win it, if not you still have no less today than you had yesterday

[Skilowi]

Congrats! Extremely lucky and rare find!

[panips]

Try https://www.esnipe.com/
Been using this for years!

I'm good...I'd rather negotiate for a rational price within my range. For auction, seller wants to get a best price but not the best owner for a collectible. So I'd stay away from the bidding game.

[theterminator93]

I can't find the software on archive.org, assuming it was already uploaded. If so, where are you hosting the recovery software? I'd like to add it to my stash.