Hacker News Reader

Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

Slight topic derail, I recently handed a thinkpad to a person who had grown up using tablets and laptops with "modern" touchpad pointing devices.

It's my older thinkpad I keep around to ssh into things. They were completely and utterly surprised by the presence of the trackpoint and found it to be extremely unusual.

View on HN

At least for me, TrackPoint is one of those things that once it "clicks" is extremely hard to give up. Working on a laptop without a TrackPoint always feels clumsy and inelegant, even with all the improvements trackpads have seen. There's just something about the combination of a mechanical pointer and where it's placed relative to the keyboard that feels right.

All IBM's original patents on TrackPoint must surely have expired by now, so it always surprised me that we didn't see other OEMs start offering it as an option. There are a couple that have, but only on a few models, and by all accounts non-IBM/Lenovo TrackPoint implementations aren't quite as good for some reason. Disappointing!

I would gladly accept the job of reeling in the golden age of the TrackPoint at Dell; and I don't think it would be tremendously difficult, especially now that any patents on the greatest untapped innovations would by now have expired (sorry, inventors!).

I like track ball of the old apple MacBook more. Still opt for track ball to these days.

I might have stuck with my Kensington Slimblade, but I begun noticing the latency and the polling jitter (since, like most trackballs, it only runs at 125Hz) after switching to a 165Hz display, so I couldn't keep it.

If I had time to add 1000Hz polling to the thing, I'd probably still be using it.

> by all accounts non-IBM/Lenovo TrackPoint implementations aren't quite as good for some reason

Yeah. After many years with old X- and T-series IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads i got a Dell Latitude recently. It's pretty decent but the trackpoint (they call it "pointing stick") sucks in comparison. Also it's not red.

I thought about using at least the IBM dome on it, but they aren't compatible – IBM/Lenovo dome is higher and the square hole is bigger: https://i.vgy.me/u1SUKm.jpg

I used an IBM Thinkpad from 2003-2008 or so, but never got used to the trackpoint despite several attempts. Was always wildly inaccurate with it. The trackpad, though a god-awful rage-generation device, was still much more usable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com