Reviving a Vintage ThinkPad Tablet

What is your must-have vintage computing system? Maybe something common like the Commodore 64? Or perhaps you have a taste for unobtainium like the Apple-1? If you are a vintage computing enthusiast, chances are you have a long list of wants. And that list likely has more than a few rare machines that you might never come across in real life.

YouTuber and retro computer restorer polymatt recently came across a system he had wanted for a long time at the Vintage Computer Festival Southwest — a 1993 IBM ThinkPad Tablet. This early tablet was in many ways ahead of its time with a 486 CPU, up to 8 MB of RAM, a VGA LCD display, and pen-based input. But the particular machine polymatt came across was showing some serious wear and tear. A previous drop had completely killed the display, and the case had taken quite a beating over the years as well.

Knowing that he may not come across another ThinkPad Tablet for a good long time, polymatt purchased the device all the same with the goal of restoring it. The first order of business was to fix the broken display. Unfortunately, the original LCDs went out of production decades ago. polymatt was able to score a new old stock Sharp display with very similar specifications, however.

The LCD was removed from the new display, then the old display was torn down. A new 3D-printed enclosure was made to fit the slightly different design of the new LCD, then the digitizer (used for tracking pen inputs), backlight, and new LCD were inserted into it. The original glass, which was heavily damaged, was replaced with a sheet of Lexan to finish off the display restoration.

This new LCD had a somewhat different pinout from the original LCD, so some wires were swapped before plugging them back into the mainboard. Once the tablet was powered up with the new screen, it seemed to be working, but the image was very faint. polymatt spent a lot of time debugging and recapping the display to no avail. In the end, it turned out that there actually was no problem — the contrast dial simply needed to be turned up. Oops!

Next up, the mainboard got a closer look. Aside from needing new CMOS and sleep batteries — and a bit of cleaning — everything looked pretty good. So after that minor work, attention was given to the tablet’s casing, which had certainly seen better days. A new bezel was 3D-printed, sanded, and painted, then recreations of the original decals were affixed to it. The remainder of the case was cleaned up and repainted as well to give it a refresh.

This only left the battery packs — which were completely dead — to be dealt with. After taking a look inside the originals, brand new compatible parts were purchased and installed inside 3D-printed cases. Once installed, the ThinkPad was once again running on its own power, like it was 1993 all over again.

Absolutely no corners were cut in polymatt’s restoration. The video is a master class in how to revitalize retro computers the right way, so it is definitely worth a watch. Oh, and if you were wondering — yes, it can play Doom!