The IBM ThinkPad 701, notable for its innovative expanding keyboard, appears as a typical 1995 laptop when closed but reveals an impressive design when opened. This unique laptop features 84 keys that extend to create a comfortable typing experience despite its compact size. Although considered bulky by today's standards, the ThinkPad 701 was a remarkable feat of engineering for its time, showcasing advanced technology that successfully combined form and function.
Closed, it looks pretty much like any other laptop manufactured in 1995. To be sure, it's more compact than most-making it, in the parlance of the day, a subnotebook. But it's still comically thick, standing almost as tall as four MacBook Airs stacked on each other.
Thirty-five of the laptop's keys glide out to the left in a cluster. Another 49 swivel downward and to the right. By the time you've raised the screen into place, those 84 keys have assembled themselves into a keyboard that's 11.5" wide-even though the laptop's case is only 9.7" wide.
The result is the holiest of 1990s computing holy grails: comfy, no-compromises typing on a laptop that is-again, by the standards of three decades ago-highly portable.
Most amazing tech products don't stay amazing forever. "Amazing-for its time" is generally as good as it gets. But I don't hesitate to describe the ThinkPad 701 as amazing, full stop.
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