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  • long live the nub (Thinkpad)

    From Retrograde@3:633/280.2 to All on Sunday, August 03, 2025 13:02:40
    From the ®gentle circles¯ department:
    Title: Long live the nub: ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it
    Author: Avram Piltch
    Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2025 11:32:05 +0000
    Link: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/08/02/thinkpad_david_hill_interview/

    We almost got more butterfly keyboards and foldable workstations

    Interviewÿ Launched in 1992, the boxy black ThinkPad with its little red nub remains the quintessential business productivity notebook. Unlike commercial offerings from competitors such as Dell and HP, Lenovo's laptop has a following of people who collect old models and celebrate each new innovation.…

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  • From Computer Nerd Kev@3:633/280.2 to All on Friday, August 22, 2025 08:37:28
    Retrograde <fungus@amongus.com.invalid> wrote:
    From the <<gentle circles>> department:
    Title: Long live the nub: ThinkPad designer David Hill spills secrets, designs that never made it
    Author: Avram Piltch
    Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2025 11:32:05 +0000
    Link: https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2025/08/02/thinkpad_david_hill_interview/

    On the nub, this got to a sore (Track)point for me:

    "Hill said that he also changed the height of the TrackPoint over
    the years, making it shorter as the laptops themselves got thinner"

    Ah, so there was a reason for that. I assumed it was just for
    aesthetics, but I've never liked the short TrackPoints. It's
    uncomfortable pushing against a nearly flat surface. They seemed
    to turn the sensitivity way up to compensate, so you don't have
    to push as hard, but it still doesn't work for me. Instead it's one
    of many reasons I'm still using a 25 year old Thinkpad most of the
    time, resorting to a newer model only when I need to browse
    horrible modern websites with it.

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