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by bjblazkowicz
4077 days ago
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This is the sole reason why thinkpads are far superior compared to any laptop. And the funny thing about TrackPoint is that people that never used it doesent understand how good it is compared to touchpad. The new "applefied" laptops are a disgrace for humanity. |
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It pissed Ted off that other cheap knockoff laptops aped his trackpoint design without getting it right, which gave it a bad reputation: they were missing the crucial patented pressure => speed transfer function, which had a plateau at fine predictable positioning speed, a smooth slope to another faster plateau within eye tracking speed, and then a high quick movement peak.
At the time, IBM was making CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform) PowerPC Thinkpads, which nobody could think of anything to do with because all they did was run OS/2, when everybody actually wanted them to run MacOS (but IBM refused to admit that was a good idea). That would have been the best of both worlds, back when Apple and IBM were in bed together (i.e. Kaleida, Taligent).
I finally got the irony of this old joke after working a few years at Kaleida, a joint venture of Apple and IBM. It was like having dysfunctional parents who were forever fighting with each other, but staying together for the sake of the children.
Q: What do you get when you cross Apple and IBM?
A: IBM.
At Kaleida, I gave a ScriptX demo to Lou Gerstner that involved throwing a bouncing eyeball around the screen for navigating and controlling the application, but he wasn't very impressed by the practical applications. After the demo, I realized I must have used the wrong eyeball.
What good is it having a right brain and a left brain, if they don't talk to each other?
http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/WWDCScriptXDemo.mov
http://donhopkins.com/home/movies/DreamScapeDemo.mov