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My dad had a laptop in the mid-90s that had a floppy drive, and I think a parallel port, too. The Butterfly was meant to be used with a docking station, but I

by krylon 4y ago

My dad had a laptop in the mid-90s that had a floppy drive, and I think a parallel port, too. The Butterfly was meant to be used with a docking station, but I never managed to get my hands on one. I just enjoy looking at it and thinking what a great laptop it was in its day. I'd like very much to have one with a fold-out keyboard today.

lproven 4y ago
I apologise for being ambiguous. « My dad had a laptop in the mid-90s that had a floppy drive, and I think a parallel port, too. » When I said "none of them did" I meant that no IBM Butterfly had these things, not that no 1990s laptop did. The 701C is a subnotebook and IBM left out everything it could. I do have a floppy drive, and it worked fine. For the rest, when I needed it, I used PCMCIA devices. « The Butterfly was meant to be used with a docking station, but I never managed to get my hands on one. I just enjoy looking at it and thinking what a great laptop it was in its day. I'd like very much to have one with a fold-out keyboard today. » Oh really? I've never seen a docking station for one. For the rest, yes, I totally agree. :-) An interesting take is the Sony Vaio P, which attacked the problem from another angle. It is basically the shape of the keyboard. So it's very shallow front-to-back but had an almost letter-box shaped screen. I have one. Sadly it's very underpowered, and has a terrible keyboard, poor pointing device, and the VGA-cum-Ethernet dongle I bought separately doesn't work. The form-factor has immense potential, but this is not a good version of it.
- krylon 4y ago
  My bad then. No hard feelings. :) Well, I naively assumed there were docking stations, most of the ThinkPads (most laptops by any vendor, really) I've seen in corporate settings were attached to docking stations. But I only got into IT years later, the Butterfly was a collector's item that the time. I do like a laptop to be slightly deeper, so I can rest my palms in the front while typing. But it sounds like an interesting design.
  - lproven 4y ago
    :-) There might be one! There is, or rather was, a port replicator. This thing: https://www.amazon.com/IBM-MultiPort-Replicator-ThinkPad-Notebook/dp/B00BL1ZLGA https://www.amazon.com/IBM-MultiPort-Replicator-ThinkPad-Not... I have one of those, too. I had totally forgotten about it -- my apologies! The Vaio P sounds interesting? It totally is. That's why I bought one a couple of years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series It's so slim that typing on it is fine... but the keyboard is an early chiclet one, with next to no feel, and even the US/UK keyboard layouts have a Japanese key placement, which is weird and constantly confuses me.

by krylon 4y ago

lproven 4y ago

I apologise for being ambiguous. « My dad had a laptop in the mid-90s that had a floppy drive, and I think a parallel port, too. » When I said "none of them did" I meant that no IBM Butterfly had these things, not that no 1990s laptop did. The 701C is a subnotebook and IBM left out everything it could. I do have a floppy drive, and it worked fine. For the rest, when I needed it, I used PCMCIA devices. « The Butterfly was meant to be used with a docking station, but I never managed to get my hands on one. I just enjoy looking at it and thinking what a great laptop it was in its day. I'd like very much to have one with a fold-out keyboard today. » Oh really? I've never seen a docking station for one. For the rest, yes, I totally agree. :-) An interesting take is the Sony Vaio P, which attacked the problem from another angle. It is basically the shape of the keyboard. So it's very shallow front-to-back but had an almost letter-box shaped screen. I have one. Sadly it's very underpowered, and has a terrible keyboard, poor pointing device, and the VGA-cum-Ethernet dongle I bought separately doesn't work. The form-factor has immense potential, but this is not a good version of it.

krylon 4y ago
My bad then. No hard feelings. :) Well, I naively assumed there were docking stations, most of the ThinkPads (most laptops by any vendor, really) I've seen in corporate settings were attached to docking stations. But I only got into IT years later, the Butterfly was a collector's item that the time. I do like a laptop to be slightly deeper, so I can rest my palms in the front while typing. But it sounds like an interesting design.
- lproven 4y ago
  :-) There might be one! There is, or rather was, a port replicator. This thing: https://www.amazon.com/IBM-MultiPort-Replicator-ThinkPad-Notebook/dp/B00BL1ZLGA https://www.amazon.com/IBM-MultiPort-Replicator-ThinkPad-Not... I have one of those, too. I had totally forgotten about it -- my apologies! The Vaio P sounds interesting? It totally is. That's why I bought one a couple of years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Vaio_P_series It's so slim that typing on it is fine... but the keyboard is an early chiclet one, with next to no feel, and even the US/UK keyboard layouts have a Japanese key placement, which is weird and constantly confuses me.