The IBM ThinkPad Power Series (and subsequent IBM RS/6000 Model 860 Notebook) (800/820/821/822/823/850/851/860) is a laptop series from the ThinkPad line that was manufactured by IBM. It is based on the PowerPC architecture.

History

The first PowerPC notebook released by IBM was the RS/6000 Model N40, which was developed together with Tadpole Computer. It was announced in March 1994. The start of the sale was announced in October 1994.

Specifications

Most of the 800 Series laptops used the

PowerPC 603e The PowerPC 600 family was the first family of PowerPC microprocessor, processors built. They were designed at the Somerset facility in Austin, Texas, jointly funded and staffed by engineers from IBM and Motorola as a part of the AIM alliance. Somer ...

CPU, at speeds of 100 MHz, or 166 MHz in the 860 model, although the earliest 800 (Type 6020), the direct ancestor of the 850, used a 603 and was apparently only offered to developers. All units used

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, electrical, optical and logical interface ...

-2 instead of IDE hard disks, and the ID of every SCSI device on the system could be configured in the cursor driven GUI-based BIOS. Another unusual aspect of the series is their unique startup chime, reminiscent of Apple

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

computers of the time. The PowerPC ThinkPad line was considerably more expensive than the standard x86 ThinkPads — even a modestly configured 850 cost upwards of $12,000. On the other hand, the 800, 850 and 851 (and later the 860 and 861) were capable of supporting an optional web camera, one of the first commercially available webcams available on a laptop. These units could also record PAL and NTSC signals with onboard composite connectors, and the batteries contained internal processors to regulate power usage for optimized battery longevity.

Software

All of the PowerPC ThinkPads could run

Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 3.51 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the third version of Windows NT and was released on May 30, 1995, eight months following the release of Windows NT ...

and 4.0,

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4.1.x, and

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Desktop 2.5.1 PowerPC Edition. Many of these PowerPC operating systems and the corresponding compilers are very scarce and hard to find. However, it is also possible to run certain PowerPC versions of Linux on the 800 Series.

Models

RS/6000 N40

The ThinkPad line have a predecessor model (released in 1994 RS/6000 N40 with 50 MHz PowerPC 601 CPU and with design based on a

Tadpole A tadpole is the larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial. Tadpoles have some fish-like features that may not be found i ...

platform).

ThinkPad Power Series

ThinkPad 800

The ThinkPad Power Series 800 (6020) has a new case design, similar to contemporary 700 series models, but with additional rounded palmrest.

ThinkPad 820

The ThinkPad Power Series 820 has another case design (square case with small palmrest with two speakers). This model has reported to run SuSE Linux and Windows NT 4.0 and that they are incompatible with

Yaboot Yaboot (yet another boot loader) is a bootloader for PowerPC-based hardware running Linux. History In 2009, maintenance by Paul Nasrat was handed over to Tony Breeds. Hardware support Support includes the New World ROM Macintosh and IBM RS/60 ...

. The availability started at April 15, 1996.

= ThinkPad 821/822/823

= This model was just an upgrade of the 820 model.

ThinkPad 850

The ThinkPad Power Series 850 (6042-G6D) has a similar case to an 800 model. This model has a motion video capture card and optional snap-in video camera.

= ThinkPad 851

= This model was just an upgrade of the 850 model. IBM RS6000 860 laptop

RS/6000 Notebook 860

The IBM RS/6000 Notebook 860, sometimes incorrectly to referred as ThinkPad 860 can be seen as the successor of the ThinkPad 850.

Power Series 600

The Power Series 600 was a prototype of a compact desktop system; this model was never released, and only prototypes can be found.

Canon Power Notebook

Released by

Canon Computer Systems Canon Computer Systems, Inc. (CCSI), sometimes shortened to Canon Computer, was an American subsidiary of Canon Inc. formed in 1992 to develop and market the parent company's personal computers and workstations. The subsidiary also assumed the res ...

in 1995, the Canon Power Notebook featured a 603e clocked at 100 MHz with 256 KB of external cache; 32 to 48 MB of RAM; an 810 MB hard drive; a double-speed CD-ROM drive; and a 10.4" active matrix color LCD. Though not marketed by IBM, Canon licensed the use of several components from the ThinkPad 755CD including the plastic case, and externally the Power Notebook was virtually identical to the 755CD save for Canon's logos.

References

External links

IBM ThinkPad Power Series 850

* https://www.notebookcheck.net/A-look-back-at-25-years-of-ThinkPad-notebooks-Part-1-the-beginnings-with-IBM.251062.0.html * http://www.ibmfiles.com/pages/tp820.htm * http://home.icequake.net/~nemesis/linuxlaptops/ibm/thinkpad_misc/groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/ftpdir/thinkpad/old-archive/HTML/tp-1995/msg01259.html * https://books.google.nl/books?id=SzoEAAAAMBAJ * https://virtuallyfun.com/wordpress/2013/09/19/thinkpad-860-saga-part-1/ * https://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/ShowDoc.wss?docURL=/common/ssi/rep_sm/0/877/ENUS7249-860/index.html&lang=en&request_locale=en * http://www.mars.dti.ne.jp/~ayase/tp/tp850.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Power Series, ThinkPad IBM laptops ThinkPad PowerPC computers Computer-related introductions in 1994