I'm new to iPXE in general - How to get started with a Thinkpad T61?

[serapath]

Hello :-)

I'm a javascript developer who knows nodejs too and I never ventured into PXE or anything similar yet.

The only time I wish I'd get in touch with the topic is aprox. once a year, when I get a new laptop or I want to install everything from scratch on my current laptop for various reasons, because to install an operating system and set everything up the way I want, including:
OS installation guided by the usual wizard, deinstall some pre-installed programs, install other programs that i need, copy over configuration files, adapt some configuration manually, and finally copy over my data. This process usually takes me a weekend to tweak everything so that it suite me.

I'd love to automate the procedure completely.

After a long time of research I figured, that iPXE could help me to automate all of this.
I read a Thinkpad T61 doesnt support PXE Boot, but I also read it's not needed for iPXE.

MY QUESTIONS:

• What should I read?
• Are there some good text or video tutorials?
• Do I need a FOG Server?
• Can I write my own server? (I found nodejs packages that help with creating chcp/tftp/etc.. servers)
• What are the websites "netboot.xyz" and "networkboot.org" about?
• Do I need to buy and create a special USB Stick that I can stick into my Thinkpad T61 to be able to iPXE boot it? (and if so, what would be a good one to buy and where - link appreciated)