Source: Hack a Day
Even among ThinkPads, which are nearly universally loved by hardware hackers and Linux tinkerers alike, the 701c is a particularly rare and desirable machine. Best known for it’s “butterfly” slide out keyboard, the IBM-designed subnotebook from the mid-1990s has gained a following all its own, with active efforts to repair and restore any surviving specimens still out in the wild.
[polymatt] has already taken on a number of 701c restoration projects, but the recent release of a 3D printable case for the vintage laptop is arguably the most impressive to date. After spending an untold number of hours with an original case and a pair of calipers, the final design has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license — in other words, you’re free to print one to spruce up your 701c, but don’t run off a stack of them and start trying to move them on Etsy.
Originally, [polymatt] just wanted to 3D print a replacement for the laptop’s display bezel. But as often happens with these sort of projects, things just sort of started rolling and pretty soon the whole case was modeled. As you might imagine, the printed case has some slight differences between the original. For example, the printed version is designed to use heat set inserts. There’s also certain components, such as the hinges, which need to be sourced from an original case.
The most obvious use of these files is to perform repairs — if a piece of your 701c case has broken, you might be able to use one of these files to create a replacement. But it also offers some fascinating possibilities for future modifications. If you were planning on replacing the internals of the 701c with something more modern, these files would make an excellent starting point to create a customized case to better fit more modern components.
Whatever you end up doing with these files, don’t be shy — let us know.
