Let's explore this $5.00 IBM ThinkPad find... did I waste my money?? Let's find out! #nostalgia #retropc #windows #ibm #thinkpad #vintage #intel #pentium
I installed an 128GB SSD in my dad's old T60 back in 2011 and it wound up being the perfect upgrade. The laptop was already 5 years old at that point but thanks to that SSD, it was more than fine for doing everything I needed it for. I was watching videos online, playing 2000s-era games, running Photoshop and even doing some light (SD) video editing and live streaming. It wound up being a solid performer for another 3 or 4 years, especially after I set it up as a dual boot with Ubuntu 12.04, which ran beautifully on it. To do the dual boot, I swapped that CD/DVD drive out for a removable 2.5" SATA hard drive caddy, so that each OS had its own SSD. I got so much use out of that thing, even though it was far beyond its intended lifespan.
Nothing like a solid Lenovo / Thinkpad SSD setup! Especially running Linux on it makes a world of difference... To your point extending the lifespan! Now.. Do you still have it? Haha!!
@@TheRetroRecall Oh yeah, i still have that laptop but I moved the drives to other systems. This was back when SSDs weren't so cheap. I got a ThinkPad T410 afterwards, which had a few more bells and whistles like a fingerprint reader and HDMI, but it wasn't quite as iconic and long-lasting for me as the T60.
Fun and cheap finds are always great! I recently got a blueberry imac g3 for $40 with original mouse and keyboard. I’ve been having fun getting it up and running. Just maxed the ram out to 512 mb, and replaced the PRAM battery (original from March of 99 was still installed)! Same story for a $50 g5 DP 1.8 ghz. Fun to get these retro machines running again
My first ThinkPad was a T60 with a Core2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM, Radeon X1400 128MB, 32GB SSD (which I replaced with a 1TB HDD), 14.1" 1400x1050 display. Mine is a bit newer one without any IBM branding
I have and daily use the T41P, I've modded it to accept a Ssd and I've maxed the ram, love the thing, so nostalgic, and completely bulletproof, great video!
I really miss those type of docking stations, now they are USB C and usually on the side. I myself have a T40 laptop with the docking station and matching keyboard, mouse and monitor.
Your dock is an Essential Port Replicator (2505), I have an Advanced Mini-Dock (2504) which also adds serial, parallel, S/PDIF, DVI, and two 3.5mm ports. There's also an Advanced Dock (2503) which on top of all that also adds another USB, a card reader, Ultrabay slot and a PCI-E slot (yes, you can put a desktop GPU in it).
Nice, thanks for the additional info! Now I have to get my hands on the advanced dock! Interesting that you can have a desktop GPU in the dock - talk about opening up possibilities!
just grabbed a new old stock hitachi travelstar sata 500gb for $5 at a thrift store......also grabbed the verbatim slim portable dvd burner nos for $5 as well
@@TheRetroRecall i have a question on the verbatim drive as i look on ebay and they are high dollar, but also from different countries....was this sold internationally? i'm just curious to your take on this
Hey there. To be honest I remember seeing verbatim drives here in Canada so I am guessing yes? Although I don't think they were anything special. In fact tonight while thrifting I found a verbatim USB keyboard in box :)
@@TheRetroRecall they did a keyboard? also i'm trying to buy an ati backpack that is badged leadership development team and the item is in canada....where ati was headquartered.
I have a Thinkpad R61i that was dual branded. As you mentioned in your video, 2005-2007 Lenovo under contract was to offer the OPTIONAL IBM branding on their 60 and 61 model lines. It's rare to see one that's dual branded as only the DIE HARD buyers that wanted the IBM name on their Lenovo laptops would have opted for that upgrade. My R61i is dual branded and it's one of my favorite machines in my collection. There's just something kewl about seeing both IBM(for nostalgia) and Lenovo for modern aesthetics. Once again let me reiterate. Its was a cost option to get that IBM branded badge on those machines back then so my most educated guess would be that only 7 to 10 % of the laptops made during that time period had dual branding. And with Lenovo owning the brand at this time they didnt want to put that IBM badge on their computers unless the client was willing to pay for it. What makes your unit so special is that you have the matching dual brand docking station. Those are super rare since few were made and even fewer survived. That docking station is worth the $5 buck easily.
Love this perspective, thanks so much for sharing this and for watching! I had an R61 but I do not remember it being dual branded so it must have come slightly later in life.
@@TheRetroRecall The IBM/Lenovo deal was inked in late 2005 and the contract stated by IBM that Lenovo had to offer the IBM branding as a cost option for 2 years. After 2 years, Lenovo was free to use the Lenovo name only. So the only dual branded units you will find with be from 2005 to 2007. My R61i was a 2007 machine, one of the last ones made with the optional dual branding. I cherish it like it's a child.
Is the music that you use for the intro and when you're fast forwarding your own, part of RUclips or what? I like it, very catchy has that old video game vibe.
I've got a 2007 X60 with dual IBM/Lenovo branding & running a T5600 Core2Duo at 1.83 Ghz. Battery appears to hold 92% of its original charge capacity, not bad for a 16 year old laptop. It has a 32-bit RAM limit but Core2Duo enables support of 64bit OS'es. I could run 64-bit Linux Mint on this!
"I'd buy that for a dollar!".... or five 😂 Great find, I had my Toshiba L10 512mb ram stored away, got an image of Puppy Arcade Tahr 6.0.6 on it (booted live from USB) & tried to run a youtube video in glorious 240p with more dropped frames than actual frames. At least it can emulate Up to PSX fine! Runs Zdoom with your provided shareware source. It couldn't do much more when I installed XP on internal hard disk. Apart from old windows games like red alert it had Same performance all around but with better support for various emulators.. Yours is superior to mine with more potential ! it can run Max Payne, GTA3, no one lives forever & other games! Maybe it can even emulate model 2? If you feel adventurous you can try windows embedded 8.1 industry pro, End of support is july 2023 !!!! There is a liteOS version on the web that idles @ 250mb ish (if you can't find Sodimm DDR2 RAM then SSD is a MUST because of virtual RAM) Imagine the title end of support on a 5 USD 2006 Thinkpad. Best regards,
Haha! Also thanks for the info and suggestions! Yours doesn't sound that bad either. That's the neat thing about these older systems... We were always pushing them to their limits (and beyond) :)
That was a great deal!👍I have a Lenovo R61e and after a good clean and new thermal paste, I upgraded the DDR 2 ram., to it's maximum of 4 gig., and I installed an SSD., the processor is just a single core Celeron 1.86 ghz., but it can handle a 64 bit OS., so it now has Linux Mint Mate installed and it works well enough for e-mail and browsing the web and it can even play You Tube videos.
@@TheRetroRecall The design of your laptop looks very similar to the R61e and it's ram., is located under the front cover. To access the ram., and the processor there are many screws on the back of the laptop which have to be removed, but they are of different sizes so it's important to keep them in order, the keyboard has to be removed carefully because of it's ribbon cable and there are small screws which hold the panels at each side of the keyboard, the whole procedure is fiddley and patience is required, cleaning the computer's innards helped, especially the fan. There are videos on YT., which show the process.
If you can manage to find 4GB of DDR2 SODIMMs you should be able to upgrade the R61 to 8 gigs of RAM. I'm not too familiar with the R series but the T60 family's RAM is under the touchpad which isn't too hard to get to.
At $5, you probably paid more for shipping than for the device; I'd throw in a SATA SSD for $20 and get the most speed possible out of it, even running at the SATA1 speeds capable in this unit. Perfect machine for lots of uses still.
I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad t530 for 15 bucks no cord, cord was 15 bucks, and a RAM up grade 15 more bucks.. new to ThinkPad now I know the difference between IBM and Lenovo... Keeping my eyes out for the IBM ones ...and the Lenovo too..
I am not sure.. I will need to take another look and see but interesting call out! I also just subbed to your channel!! Thanks for watching and for your support :)
Very cool find especially for only 5 bucks. I like the thinkpad line but the only one ive ever owend was a Pentium 1 machine with a cd rom and was probably twice the thickness of this one.
Thanks - If you look through my other videos I did a review on the Thinkpad 380XD system very close to your description. Take a look and thanks for watching!!
@@TheRetroRecall its probably the same model. I got it for free from a person who got to keep it when their work upgraded and they gave the old one to me. I installed windows XP on it before I sold it to a collector a year or two later.
Any news on the parcel yet ?? And anyways I also have this laptop had it from new might have 20hrs on It, no were on anything, but my dock came with legacy on it, so yours might be newer for the 60p... You can run up to a core 2 duo t7600 (socket M not P) Up to 4gb of ddr2 ram but limited to 3gb due to chipset limitations The 60 had a 14" LCD but the 60p had a 15.4
@@TheRetroRecall I'll see what I can do about it I know it takes a few weeks to get to ....... (Insert address here) from my area but you should of gotten it by now, it ship via CP .. and my think pad battery still kind of holds a charge and the LCD looks good to, if you look for another better specimen of a t60 let me know I'll ship it differently where it's not a 50lb box lol
He also uses solvents on motherboards that will kill them. Don't follow his advice on everything. IPA will also destroy anything made of polycarbonate, so be careful.
Definitely, appreciate the advice! I have been pretty good so far. I have also see a few option including ultrasonic cleaners? All the way to. Putting them in a dishwasher lol.
For older laptops ThinkPads are best (my T61p is arguably the best-feeling laptop I've used) but for more modern ones (after they dropped the keyboard) I'm a little more fond of Dell. My E7470 was released in 2016 but with the "Plus" dock it gains true native (non-USB) serial and parallel ports.
For sure. I found the older systems were both in the running for Dell and IBM / Lenovo. However now, I just don't like the look and feel of the modern Dell's whereas the Thinkpad line kept almost the same design elements, except the keyboard of course. Thanks for sharing!
@@TheRetroRecall I have a IBM Lenovo thinkcentre desktop that my bro gave me that was stripped with a Celeron CPU and mainboard a 500 watt PSU 2 gigs of ddr1 a ES 3.0ghz CPU and a radeon HD3850 AGP vid card and a Blue Ray/DVD burner and I have a High Performance Thinkcentre. It still has a Floppy drive too and wireless lan. I also have an older IBM laptop that needs work.
$5.00? All you need is something to go wrong, and people might mistake it for a Michael MJD video. 😂
LOL! Well I guess I was fortunate enough to get it going :) It really is an awesome machine!!
I installed an 128GB SSD in my dad's old T60 back in 2011 and it wound up being the perfect upgrade. The laptop was already 5 years old at that point but thanks to that SSD, it was more than fine for doing everything I needed it for. I was watching videos online, playing 2000s-era games, running Photoshop and even doing some light (SD) video editing and live streaming. It wound up being a solid performer for another 3 or 4 years, especially after I set it up as a dual boot with Ubuntu 12.04, which ran beautifully on it. To do the dual boot, I swapped that CD/DVD drive out for a removable 2.5" SATA hard drive caddy, so that each OS had its own SSD. I got so much use out of that thing, even though it was far beyond its intended lifespan.
Nothing like a solid Lenovo / Thinkpad SSD setup! Especially running Linux on it makes a world of difference... To your point extending the lifespan! Now.. Do you still have it? Haha!!
@@TheRetroRecall Oh yeah, i still have that laptop but I moved the drives to other systems. This was back when SSDs weren't so cheap. I got a ThinkPad T410 afterwards, which had a few more bells and whistles like a fingerprint reader and HDMI, but it wasn't quite as iconic and long-lasting for me as the T60.
Nice! And for sure... They became more more disposable unfortunately. Either way, I still love all of my Lenovo family haha!
Fun and cheap finds are always great! I recently got a blueberry imac g3 for $40 with original mouse and keyboard. I’ve been having fun getting it up and running. Just maxed the ram out to 512 mb, and replaced the PRAM battery (original from March of 99 was still installed)! Same story for a $50 g5 DP 1.8 ghz. Fun to get these retro machines running again
Amazing find!!!
My first ThinkPad was a T60 with a Core2 Duo T7200 2.0GHz, 4GB RAM, Radeon X1400 128MB, 32GB SSD (which I replaced with a 1TB HDD), 14.1" 1400x1050 display. Mine is a bit newer one without any IBM branding
Now that definitely was much more powerful and sounds like a sweeeet machine! Did you run any games on it??
I have and daily use the T41P, I've modded it to accept a Ssd and I've maxed the ram, love the thing, so nostalgic, and completely bulletproof, great video!
Thank you, one of my older ones for sure haha. Glad to hear yours is updated and still going. Very nostalgic, you are right!
I really miss those type of docking stations, now they are USB C and usually on the side. I myself have a T40 laptop with the docking station and matching keyboard, mouse and monitor.
Nice! And yes I agree - the new ones are just so plain. The older style were so cool.
Wow! Impressive job! That thing looks damn near brand new!
Thanks! Another system saved!
@@TheRetroRecall Magic erasers work great for cleaning older Thinkpads. FYI.
Your dock is an Essential Port Replicator (2505), I have an Advanced Mini-Dock (2504) which also adds serial, parallel, S/PDIF, DVI, and two 3.5mm ports. There's also an Advanced Dock (2503) which on top of all that also adds another USB, a card reader, Ultrabay slot and a PCI-E slot (yes, you can put a desktop GPU in it).
Nice, thanks for the additional info! Now I have to get my hands on the advanced dock! Interesting that you can have a desktop GPU in the dock - talk about opening up possibilities!
just grabbed a new old stock hitachi travelstar sata 500gb for $5 at a thrift store......also grabbed the verbatim slim portable dvd burner nos for $5 as well
Nice!!!
@@TheRetroRecall i have a question on the verbatim drive as i look on ebay and they are high dollar, but also from different countries....was this sold internationally? i'm just curious to your take on this
Hey there. To be honest I remember seeing verbatim drives here in Canada so I am guessing yes? Although I don't think they were anything special. In fact tonight while thrifting I found a verbatim USB keyboard in box :)
@@TheRetroRecall they did a keyboard? also i'm trying to buy an ati backpack that is badged leadership development team and the item is in canada....where ati was headquartered.
@@TheRetroRecall the only thing i see making it higher than a generic dvd burner is that it is also m - disc capable.....never saw m disc in stores .
Nice! Glad you got it working
Thanks. It was definitely a challenge.
I have a Thinkpad R61i that was dual branded. As you mentioned in your video, 2005-2007 Lenovo under contract was to offer the OPTIONAL IBM branding on their 60 and 61 model lines. It's rare to see one that's dual branded as only the DIE HARD buyers that wanted the IBM name on their Lenovo laptops would have opted for that upgrade. My R61i is dual branded and it's one of my favorite machines in my collection. There's just something kewl about seeing both IBM(for nostalgia) and Lenovo for modern aesthetics. Once again let me reiterate. Its was a cost option to get that IBM branded badge on those machines back then so my most educated guess would be that only 7 to 10 % of the laptops made during that time period had dual branding. And with Lenovo owning the brand at this time they didnt want to put that IBM badge on their computers unless the client was willing to pay for it. What makes your unit so special is that you have the matching dual brand docking station. Those are super rare since few were made and even fewer survived. That docking station is worth the $5 buck easily.
Love this perspective, thanks so much for sharing this and for watching! I had an R61 but I do not remember it being dual branded so it must have come slightly later in life.
@@TheRetroRecall The IBM/Lenovo deal was inked in late 2005 and the contract stated by IBM that Lenovo had to offer the IBM branding as a cost option for 2 years. After 2 years, Lenovo was free to use the Lenovo name only. So the only dual branded units you will find with be from 2005 to 2007. My R61i was a 2007 machine, one of the last ones made with the optional dual branding. I cherish it like it's a child.
@@TheRetroRecall It's not that it was LATER but rather the original customer didn't order the extra cost option to get the dual branding.
Ahhhh makes sense. Yes you noted that. Well darn it to the customer who ordered my R61 lol
i love my thinkpads, my t60, t43, and 600e are my favorites out of the ones i have :)
They really are legendary machines!! Go check out my T42 and 380xd videos!
I had to do the bootutil procedure on my own T60 as well. Apparently this is a very common issue with T60's ethernet.
As I read - so weird! Ah well, all good now :)
Is the music that you use for the intro and when you're fast forwarding your own, part of RUclips or what? I like it, very catchy has that old video game vibe.
It's my own! I had it made for the channel :). Thank you!!
The Oldest PC To Support Windows 10!
The best kind!
I think in that thinkpad the ram is located under the keyboard.
That makes sense, a lot of them were over the years. Some much more accessible than others. Today, we have to deal with soldered ram.
I've got a 2007 X60 with dual IBM/Lenovo branding & running a T5600 Core2Duo at 1.83 Ghz. Battery appears to hold 92% of its original charge capacity, not bad for a 16 year old laptop. It has a 32-bit RAM limit but Core2Duo enables support of 64bit OS'es. I could run 64-bit Linux Mint on this!
Nice! Also pretty neat it's still holding a charge!
@@TheRetroRecall Feels robust for its age, they don't make laptops like they used to!
Thst is so true!
"I'd buy that for a dollar!".... or five 😂
Great find, I had my Toshiba L10 512mb ram stored away, got an image of Puppy Arcade Tahr 6.0.6 on it (booted live from USB) & tried to run a youtube video in glorious 240p with more dropped frames than actual frames. At least it can emulate Up to PSX fine!
Runs Zdoom with your provided shareware source.
It couldn't do much more when I installed XP on internal hard disk.
Apart from old windows games like red alert it had Same performance all around but with better support for various emulators..
Yours is superior to mine with more potential ! it can run Max Payne, GTA3, no one lives forever & other games!
Maybe it can even emulate model 2?
If you feel adventurous you can try windows embedded 8.1 industry pro, End of support is july 2023 !!!!
There is a liteOS version on the web that idles @ 250mb ish (if you can't find Sodimm DDR2 RAM then SSD is a MUST because of virtual RAM)
Imagine the title end of support on a 5 USD 2006 Thinkpad.
Best regards,
Haha! Also thanks for the info and suggestions! Yours doesn't sound that bad either. That's the neat thing about these older systems... We were always pushing them to their limits (and beyond) :)
That was a great deal!👍I have a Lenovo R61e and after a good clean and new thermal paste, I upgraded the DDR 2 ram., to it's maximum of 4 gig., and I installed an SSD., the processor is just a single core Celeron 1.86 ghz., but it can handle a 64 bit OS., so it now has Linux Mint Mate installed and it works well enough for e-mail and browsing the web and it can even play You Tube videos.
That's awesome, I was just about to say that the SSD upgrade and adjustment in the OS would have made a huge difference! Thanks for sharing!
@@TheRetroRecall The design of your laptop looks very similar to the R61e and it's ram., is located under the front cover. To access the ram., and the processor there are many screws on the back of the laptop which have to be removed, but they are of different sizes so it's important to keep them in order, the keyboard has to be removed carefully because of it's ribbon cable and there are small screws which hold the panels at each side of the keyboard, the whole procedure is fiddley and patience is required, cleaning the computer's innards helped, especially the fan. There are videos on YT., which show the process.
Yes for sure. I may have cleaned the outside, but the inside will definitely need a good cleaning!
@@TheRetroRecall This video may be of interest. ruclips.net/video/XJJ0jFfJyao/видео.html
If you can manage to find 4GB of DDR2 SODIMMs you should be able to upgrade the R61 to 8 gigs of RAM. I'm not too familiar with the R series but the T60 family's RAM is under the touchpad which isn't too hard to get to.
Mine have very dim screens. I have a 14in and a 15in . It is what it is. Best to run them after dark.
Haha so true. I guess I want today's technology features on yesteryears systems :)
@@TheRetroRecall I've seen some projects in that direction on hackaday
I was just about to comment about isopropyl and toothbrush rubber coating removal method but you already were at that stage in the video.
Haha! Great minds think alike :)
@@TheRetroRecall Yep :)
At $5, you probably paid more for shipping than for the device; I'd throw in a SATA SSD for $20 and get the most speed possible out of it, even running at the SATA1 speeds capable in this unit. Perfect machine for lots of uses still.
Local pickup! Online marketplace. Love the recommendation!!!
I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad t530 for 15 bucks no cord, cord was 15 bucks, and a RAM up grade 15 more bucks.. new to ThinkPad now I know the difference between IBM and Lenovo... Keeping my eyes out for the IBM ones ...and the Lenovo too..
Still that's a pretty good deal!! Happy that you found one and keep that eye open for the IBM branded ones. So much fun the older you go!
I installed Wubuntu 11.4 cinnamon on my Thinkpad T61 and gave it to my ex-girlfriend.
Linux seems to make old new again.
But question is it a PPGA 478 or socket P? If it’s the latter, then you can theoretically upgrade it to SSE4.1 Core2Duos
I am not sure.. I will need to take another look and see but interesting call out! I also just subbed to your channel!! Thanks for watching and for your support :)
Very cool find especially for only 5 bucks. I like the thinkpad line but the only one ive ever owend was a Pentium 1 machine with a cd rom and was probably twice the thickness of this one.
Thanks - If you look through my other videos I did a review on the Thinkpad 380XD system very close to your description. Take a look and thanks for watching!!
@@TheRetroRecall its probably the same model. I got it for free from a person who got to keep it when their work upgraded and they gave the old one to me. I installed windows XP on it before I sold it to a collector a year or two later.
I miss PCMCIA...
So easy to work with!
I’m wondering If This machine can run a windows 10 🤔
My guess would be yes.
lgr in a alternative universe
Thanks for the compliment? :)
Any news on the parcel yet ?? And anyways I also have this laptop had it from new might have 20hrs on It, no were on anything, but my dock came with legacy on it, so yours might be newer for the 60p...
You can run up to a core 2 duo t7600 (socket M not P)
Up to 4gb of ddr2 ram but limited to 3gb due to chipset limitations
The 60 had a 14" LCD but the 60p had a 15.4
Thanks for the tips, will definitely see what I can do, and no nothing yet! I thought you gave up haha! Send me the tracking info via email :)
@@TheRetroRecall I'll see what I can do about it I know it takes a few weeks to get to ....... (Insert address here) from my area but you should of gotten it by now, it ship via CP .. and my think pad battery still kind of holds a charge and the LCD looks good to, if you look for another better specimen of a t60 let me know I'll ship it differently where it's not a 50lb box lol
Looking forward to he mystery box!!!!
You're now one of the best RUclips mystery machine, video creators, you deserve it man, hoping to see 10k subscribers this summer!
Thank you so much for these kind words! With people like you and the support,...how can I fail?? :)
Can you link the online thrift store where you bought the laptop? I'd love to get my hands on dirt cheap ThonkPads.
It was Kijiji! :)
@@TheRetroRecall Thanks
An alcohol wipes ARE the way to go!!!
Been introduced to it by Bryan,of "TechYesCity",and using it ever since.
Awesome and yes - they work so well!
He also uses solvents on motherboards that will kill them. Don't follow his advice on everything. IPA will also destroy anything made of polycarbonate, so be careful.
Definitely, appreciate the advice! I have been pretty good so far. I have also see a few option including ultrasonic cleaners? All the way to. Putting them in a dishwasher lol.
Request link to download drivers.
I was able to get the drivers from archive.org and from www.ibm.com (legacy unsupported laptops). Let me know if you a re able to get what you need.
For older laptops ThinkPads are best (my T61p is arguably the best-feeling laptop I've used) but for more modern ones (after they dropped the keyboard) I'm a little more fond of Dell. My E7470 was released in 2016 but with the "Plus" dock it gains true native (non-USB) serial and parallel ports.
For sure. I found the older systems were both in the running for Dell and IBM / Lenovo. However now, I just don't like the look and feel of the modern Dell's whereas the Thinkpad line kept almost the same design elements, except the keyboard of course. Thanks for sharing!
I noticed that the cdr/dvd drive was labeled Lenovo. Missed one😉
Haha got me!
@@TheRetroRecall I have a IBM Lenovo thinkcentre desktop that my bro gave me that was stripped with a Celeron CPU and mainboard a 500 watt PSU 2 gigs of ddr1 a ES 3.0ghz CPU and a radeon HD3850 AGP vid card and a Blue Ray/DVD burner and I have a High Performance Thinkcentre. It still has a Floppy drive too and wireless lan. I also have an older IBM laptop that needs work.
I love everything IBM / Lenovo (well mostly haha). The older stuff most of all, however having a ThinkCentre workstation would be pretty great!
can the charger use another brand of charger, sir
Hey! Can the IBM charger? Meaning go with an aftermarket? Just curious... Did they have issues?
Alright, we're 20 minutes in, power it up, already!
Ahhhh the suspense:)
where can i find one
Always keep your eyes open to the online marketplaces and thrift stores! I'm always on the hunt :)