ThinkPad 800 series

The 800 series was developed as mobile PowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) machine line, which was meant to be a direct successor of the older RISC System/6000 Model 7007-N40 notebook. While they resembled RISC System/6000 machines, they are actually not RISC System/6000 machines, and are Power Personal Systems. This had an advantage of allowing them to boot other PowerPC-based operating systems with the help of Dakota (Power Personal System Firmware codename), and not just AIX.

As every model featured in the 800 series were PReP-compliant machines, they were capable of running PowerPC-only operating systems and its related applications. The operating systems were: Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0, IBM OS/2 Warp (PowerPC Edition), IBM AIX 4.1.x and 4.2.x, Sun Solaris 2.5.1, and Linux (PowerPC-based kernels). Unfortunately, they were not able to run Apple System 7 or Mac OS 8, as they were not Common Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP) compliant.

This series did not last long, however, as the amount of programs which were made for the PowerPC architecture was very low. Furthermore, the pricing range for most of the models were very outrageously expensive, going as high as $18,000 (inflation not factored in). With resulting poor sales, the 800 series was discontinued and was never to be brought back with a successor.