Rather than put a smaller keyboard on this “compact” notebook computer, IBM decided to develop a special keyboard where the two halves would slide out and lock into place.
Video by SMCH on YouTube, licensed CC BY.
Rather than put a smaller keyboard on this “compact” notebook computer, IBM decided to develop a special keyboard where the two halves would slide out and lock into place.
Video by SMCH on YouTube, licensed CC BY.
I vaguely remember having one of these, or some similar IBM laptop.
It was great not to have to deal with undersized keyboards that were found on other laptops.
That is until the plastic mechanism wore out, thin delicate keyboard edges got caught on something and broken, etc.
And the little red mouse knob got painful to use after a while.
There’s a reason why touchpads dominate on laptops these days.
my index fingers still ache from several years of playing Freeciv using that knob.
Yeah, considering how dusty and hard-to-clean normal laptops are, this thing looks like hell. If you need a decent keyboard for extended typing, it’s not so hard to carry a USB / Bluetooth one, this just looks like the worst of all worlds.