The IBM ThinkPad 600 series are a series of notebook computers introduced in 1998 by IBM as the immediate predecessor to the T-series which still exists today under

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

ownership. Three models were produced, the 600, 600E, and 600X; the series was succeeded in 2000 by the ThinkPad T20 series.

Features

The 600 series was designed to be a more portable version of the

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series, featuring slimmer dimensions and a weight of around 5 pounds (2.3 kg), by using lightweight but strong carbon fiber composite plastics. The 600 series also introduced the new UltraSlimBay (not to be confused with the UltraBay Slim as found on the later T40/T60 series), as well as easily interchangeable RAM and hard drives; all 600 series machines shipped with 32 or 64 MB of RAM integrated on the motherboard from the factory. The 600 series originally shipped with either

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

, with later models shipping with

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

; all 600 models could also run

Windows 3.x Windows 3.x means either of, or all of the following versions of Microsoft Windows: * Windows 3.0 * Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windo ...

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, Windows Me, or

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

as well as various Linux distributions. None of the 600 series models included wireless adapters or Ethernet ports as an option, but these could be added through a third-party

PCMCIA The Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) was a group of computer hardware manufacturers, operating under that name from 1989 to 2009. Starting with the PCMCIA card in 1990 (the name later simplified to ''PC Card''), i ...

CardBus In computing, PC Card is a configuration for computer parallel communication peripheral interface, designed for laptop computers. Originally introduced as PCMCIA, the PC Card standard as well as its successors like CardBus were defined and develop ...

card. One common problem of the 600 series was a battery defect, where the battery would discharge rapidly or otherwise have a poor battery life; use of a third-party battery as well as a BIOS update can help alleviate this problem.The IBM ThinkPad battery problem
Raph Levien

Models

*ThinkPad 600 - First model shipped, featured either a

Pentium MMX The Pentium (also referred to as P5, its microarchitecture, or i586) is a fifth generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessor that was introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993, as the very first CPU in the Pentium brand. It was instruction set compatible ...

at 233 MHz or a

Pentium II The Pentium II brand refers to Intel's sixth-generation microarchitecture (" P6") and x86-compatible microprocessors introduced on May 7, 1997. Containing 7.5 million transistors (27.4 million in the case of the mobile Dixon with 256 KB ...

at 233, 266 or 300 MHz. This model had the option of either a 12.1" SVGA TFT display, a 13.0" XGA HPA display, or a 13.3" XGA TFT display, and shipped with an external floppy drive, a built-in CD-ROM drive, and a choice of a 3.2 GB, 4.0 GB, or a 5.1 GB hard drive. The 600 also had infrared, USB 1.0, and a modem as standard features, and shipped with either 32 MB or 64 MB of RAM (upgradeable to 288 MB/320 MB using PC66 SODIMMs) *ThinkPad 600E - Featuring a

processor at either 300 MHz, 366 MHz, or 400 MHz, all models of the 600E featured at 13.3" XGA TFT display as standard. This model shipped with an external floppy drive, built-in CD-ROM, either a 4.0 GB, 6.4 GB or 10 GB hard drive, and 32 MB or 64 MB of RAM on the motherboard (upgradeable to 288 MB/320 MB/512 MB using PC66 SODIMMs). The 600E also was the first of the 600 series to offer a DVD-ROM drive as an option, as well as a TV output port (using a special dongle that was supplied to provide composite and S-Video ports). *ThinkPad 600X - The final model of the 600 series, featuring a

Pentium III The Pentium III (marketed as Intel Pentium III Processor, informally PIII or P3) brand refers to Intel's 32-bit x86 desktop and mobile CPUs based on the sixth-generation P6 microarchitecture introduced on February 28, 1999. The brand's initial p ...

at either 450 MHz, 500 MHz, or 650 MHz (with SpeedStep technology) and a 13.3" XGA TFT display as standard. This model shipped with a 6 GB or 12 GB hard drive, a

Mini-PCI Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer and is part of the PCI Local Bus standard. The PCI bus supports the functions found on a processor bus but in a standardized format t ...

Modem, either a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and 64 MB of RAM on the motherboard (upgradeable to 512 MB using PC100 SODIMMs).

Comparison

References

{{IBM personal computers ThinkPad 600

600 __NOTOC__ 600 (Roman numerals, DC) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 600 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar ...