ThinkPad Budget

So I'm currently.. -$133 in the hole in my mission to obtaining the perfect retro ThinkPad on a $0 budget, which is insane, I shouldn't be this far off target, but before you judge me, let me explain how I got here and how I'm going to get out of it.

The ThinkPad journey I began in August is far from finished, and there have been some interesting updates.

For those of you who didn't read my first entry in this journey, I bought 3 ThinkPads in August for $40, not knowing a lick about them, just hoping to flip them for a quick profit. Two of them happened to be the (unbeknownst to be) highly regarded X201 and X220. They weren't in great condition, they weren't the highest specc'd options, but they weren't in terrible condition either and seemed to be working rather well. I ended up doing some mild refurbishing, learning a lot about them, and gained a strong appreciation for these older ThinkPads. Nevertheless, I still ended up selling the X220 for $100 and the X201 for $40, while keeping the third laptop. Now this probably sounds like a great deal, but the third laptop (an x120e with a broken keyboard) is practically useless, and after eBay fees, the materials for refurbishing (missing pieces, a bottle of rubbing alcohol to remove sticker residue, magic eraser to bring the lids to a shine,) plus shipping and the gas to cover a bit of driving around, I calculated that after all that effort I "profited" a measily $27 (+ some cleaning supplies).

Anyway, $27 profit, and you're probably thinking, great, after all that effort, you earned $27. What a waste of time. Well, the $27 isn't the point, people. I flip for fun and sometimes that involves taking risks and losing. Anyway, the point is that I kind of developed a strong fondness for these older ThinkPads with the classic style keyboard, and just how vibrant of a modding scene once surrounded these devices. When I sold the X220 in September, I actually began to miss, but I was satisfied with my "free" X201, which I began using here and there as a toy. While using it, I began thinking, hmm, maybe I could fix this up, fix the old ThinkLight, maybe replace some keys, until one fateful day in November when I got an email telling me I had SOLD IT. I had completely forgotten that I had it listed on eBay months ago for $40, and so I sadly packed it up and shipped it out.

That couple months of experience sold me: I wanted an old ThinkPad. Inside me was stirred a longing for ye olde ThinkPads which grew stronger with distance (the heart grows fonder or whatever,) and THIS, my friends, is the root of PROJECT SUMZERO: I now had a goal of obtaining my IDEAL THINKPAD on a $0 balanced budget, with the rule that I had to balance it to $0 buying and selling ThinkPad stuff.

Tangent here, but also how I bought 3 ThinkPads for $40 and resold them for $140 and only profited $27 was a nice reminder that I don't know how money works very well. Now let's continue.

I had a goal now: I wanted the ideal ThinkPad for $0, and the rule was that I could only balance the budget by buying and selling ThinkPad related things. Beginning this new mission with a budget of $27, up from my -$40 dropped into the first batch, I began prowling eBay daily for an X230. I figured the X230 was my best option, seeing as it had the newest processor and hardware, but could still be retrofitted with a classic style keyboard. After looking at eBay listings every day, I sniped a buy-it-now listing on eBay for a Thinkpad X230 Tablet with an i7-3520M processor in WONDERFUL condition, for $40 ($42 after taxes). HUGE WIN. Absolutely massive. However, this put my budget into the red at -$13.

Once arrived, I also wanted to upgrade this to 8gb instead of the measily 4gb it arrived with, so I paid a lady on marketplace $5, and I also had to order a ThinkPad charger for $7.95 on eBay, since it didn't arrive with one. I'm now -$26 in the hole. No big deal, I could just sell the cheap old x120e somehow to cover it. And besides, thankfully, part of that -$26 resulted in extra magic erasers and rubbing alcohol to clean up this X230 and any future ThinkPads (which will become relevant soon.)

Now part of the reason I fell for these specific ThinkPads is the level of modabilty they're capable of enduring, and one of the mods involved physically flashing the motherboard's SOIC8 chips with a custom BIOS that neutralizes Intel ME via a Raspberry PI and an SOIC8 clip. These two pieces cost me $19.48, so now I'm -$46 in the hole. Not looking good, but, you know, unexpected expenditures are to be expected when you can't expect yourself to handle finances very well. Anyway, after spending all day and successfully flashing my X230's motherboard with the latest LibreBoot bios, I felt like I had now been given the green light to continue forward with this device. After all, I wasn't just going to start the X230's modding adventure with repasting the CPU and adding the classic keyboard only to end up bricking the device by accident with a failed BIOS flashing.

This successful BIOS venture occurred two days ago. Yesterday I woke up, the sun was out, and having spent a stressful 12 hours the night before trying to flash the bios having only the slightest clue of what I was doing and finally succeeding somehow, I woke up feeling like a freer man with a brighter future. I figured I would just go ahead and return the Raspberry Pi Pico and the SOIC8 clip now to reclaim my $19.48. However, Facebook Marketplace had other plans. I mistakenly typed into the search bar, "ThinkPad", and there I saw an interesting device... A ThinkPad 760XL running Windows 98. Not at all what I was looking for, but it kept calling out to me with its sweet siren call and attractive aspect ratio, drawing my curiosity back to it over and over again. It was $60... and after checking eBay auction histories, it appears broken versions of this go for $50 online. Working copies with less RAM have sold for $300 and this thing was fully specced out. It was from 1997. It was Windows 98. I felt myself getting suckered in, dopamine excreting into my veins (that's probably not how it works but that's how I imagine it working) compelling me to take a chance on this device. I grabbed $60 and picked it up. I was now $109 in the hole (throw $5 in there for gas and wear and tear on my car). What the heck just happened? Also, was I falling in love with this device? The more I used it, with its beautiful spinning hard drive, the less magical my X230 felt. It also had the most gorgeous, 3.5mm traveling, rubber domed key cap keyboard I had ever used on a laptop. It felt like clouds beneath me fingies. I don't know. I couldn't distract myself now, I was on a mission, and this beautiful, wonderful, exceptional machine that could totally fulfill the roll of a writer's deck.. had to be sold. Nonetheless, I still ended up ordering a CF card, a PMCMIA+CF adapter, and a USB-CF card reader, so I can download a bunch of games (Rollercoaster Tycoon, SimCity 3000, etc.) on my main pc and install them on this old PC. The rationale was that I could include games on here and pitch the device during resale to the retro gaming market, but lowkey I think I just want to relive my childhood for a hot second. This... cost me $24. I'm now -$133 in the hole. My wallet is flashing before my eyes.

So... that's where I'm at. I bought two thinkpads for $40 in August intending to flip them, and now I have two different thinkpads that have costed me $133 instead. The newest (oldest) ThinkPad, the one with Windows 98 on it, has sticker residue because it came with My Little Pony stickers on it (this is part of what prompted me to purchase it, because I felt like I had to save it.) With the magic eraser and the rubbing alcohol I purchased for the first ThinkPads, I should be able to clean these up.

So here's the plan... I'm going to try to sell this newest ThinkPad (if I don't fall in love with it) for $300. After eBay sales fees, that'll be like $270. Then I'll return the Raspberry Pi and the SOIC clip for $20. $290. Then I'll return the CF card and adapter to get $24 back. $314. $314 - the $65 to purchase and pick up the laptop = $249. $249 - the $26 I was in the hole for with the X230 and its charger + ram = $220. I WILL HAVE $220 IN MY THINKPAD BUDGET. $220 to spend on modifications, of course.

If all goes according to plan and I successfully sell this latest (oldest) Windows 98 laptop for $300 without falling in love with it and keeping it instead, I plan on modding the crap out of my X230 Tablet, including replacing the keyboard with the classic version, maybe replacing the thinkpad pen for the touch screen, updating the WIFI network card, swapping out bluetooth card with internal USB port, which I'll use to connect an ESP32 inside of the device with GPS and LORA, adding an antenna to the side that will connect to the ESP32 so I can communicate with the MESH and use MAPS on the X230 offline. SO WISH ME LUCK.

Let me know if you guys want more photos of either of these. I've been lazy, but if anyone even reads this and requests photos, I'll do it.

-Onio