Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

The "BIOS setup" of some ancient IBM ThinkPads wasn't the ordinary PC BIOS blue character-based UI, but actually a pixel-based GUI, including an animated flappy-bird mouse pointer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfUkI-n4jpo&t=23s

I'd guess most corporate fleet ThinkPad end users never saw the bird flapping its wings to fly as you moved it around the screen with your Trackpoint, but kudos to IBM (known for wearing suits at the time) for letting this bit of whimsy slip through to customers.

Maybe it was indicative of corporate flexibility that helped the ThinkPad introduce so many innovations and general technical excellence, and made it such a respected and beloved brand.

Ah that Thinkpad 560E reminds me of my first laptop -- the perfectly chunky Thinkpad 380XD.

I adored that laptop. I loved how it felt, how it looked, how it sounded. I loved the beeps, I miss computers beeping and chattering to confirm that they are indeed powering on.

I loved the fan periodically revving every 30 minutes or so, reminding me that it was still alive but also putting into perspective that it had been utterly silent until that moment.

I still remember how the keyboard felt. Granted I wasn't doing much on it besides trawling through newsgroups and homework, but I haven't really come across a keyboard I've enjoyed typing on more.

The Filco keyboard I'm composing this comment on now isn't bad by any means, and I'm fairly happy with my Macbook's keyboard given its other strengths... but if I had the time, I'd find a way to get the 560E's keyboard on a laptop with a Chromebook Pixel's 2560x1600 screen and an M2 under the hood.

I had a 380XD too, wish I never got rid of it based on how much they sell for now I will probably never see one again. Way outdated for the time, but I managed to get XP running on it and also got HL1 running too.

I also regretted giving mine away in favour of something that represented a considerable hardware upgrade, but was nowhere near as pleasant to use.

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