Replaced the “soft dome” trackpoint cap with a new “classic dome” one from http://trackcap.com/ and I’m very impressed just how much better this is. (They also put an extra 2 “soft rim” ones in the letter with the 4 classic ones I ordered. Thanks!)
Small snag: the X61 apparently has a very tiny nub holding the cap; the old dome had a black plastic… adapter? that does not quite fit the classic dome, and I had to pull it out a little after making it fit, otherwise it was too low.
1/2
Pics of the new cap; old and new caps in comparison. The old (soft dome) basically lost all of its "cat tongue" surface that made it somewhat usabl-ish, and its too wide but rimless design made it stick below G and B way too often.
Change your nipple caps, people, it makes you really love the stick much more!
2/2
@mirabilos
I'm surprised by how long the original ones last TBH — I only replace mine once in a decade or so 😆
Despite having lots of spares.
Thinkpads aren't my daily drivers anymore, I have at T40 and a T43 — their specs align badly with nowaday's requirements, but even when they were, these caps didn't wear down fast.
@m0xee yeah well I got my X61 thinkpads with those awful “modern” ones, so I ordered the classic one to make the laptops even more useful. My X40 had a classic one.
@mirabilos This reminds me that a pal of mine wanted to give me his old X61 that he didn't use before he left the country to work abroad. Maybe he has left it to someone so I can still pick it up… 🤔
It's an amazing machine, Core 2 Duo is a perfectly capable CPU for some tasks — even by today's standards 😄
@m0xee it’s my main work machine
@mirabilos Most of my daily drivers are a decade or more old, but not that old 😅
I could probably live with C2D too as I bare use all that computing power — except for when building something.
@m0xee I couldn’t live with the Apple-style keyboard of newer models, or having to use a touchpad, not to mention those awful no-longer-4:3 displays with a much too high DPI.
@mirabilos PowerBook and early MacBook Pro era keyboards have been good, next to or probably even on par with those of Thinkpads', but then Apple has replaced them with keyboards similar to those in their cheaper models — who knows why. And now every laptop has something like it.
As for aspect ratio — I've thought I'll never get used to it, but I did. Wider screen might even make sense with something like dwm with main window having more or less 4:3 aspect and everything else stacked on the side
@m0xee I was referring to the shitty contemporary ones.
And widescreen doesn’t work for me, I just won’t get stuff that far out of sight, but as a programmer, and when working on sheet music, I need height.
@mirabilos Setups I use range from dual Xeon workstation with two 30" displays to tiny 10" ARM-based netbook and I somehow adapt to all of them — of course not every system is suitable for every task. For musical notation, like you said, vertical space is more important — I'd probably use an external display in vertical orientation in this case — too bad modern ones are too big and often have uneven backlighting, they used to make them rotatable on stands — those were perfect!
@m0xee that would be much too unstable for me.
I even run my X3/4/6x class thinkpads docked all the time just so it has a more stable base (and the cables go out on the back instead of the side so you can lie down on one side with them).
@m0xee I work with a laptop all the time, as my standard working position is mostly determined by our cat’s demands, so it’s usually couch, bed, etc. in the weirdest orientations, as long as she can cuddle, clean herself, sleep, or whatever. So no external hardware for me.
And I’m extremely sensitive to unusual input devices; touchpads in particular get in the way all the time whereas trackballs are only annoying if you have to actually use them, for example.
@mirabilos
Well everyone has different workflows, I can't say that this is some important skill to have, had it not been for certain life circumstances, I'd probably never get used to this myself.
Always committing your work to not only to local repo and keeping files on networked storage are nice habits to have if you've moving between computers. I'm not using any "cloud" things, but have my own git and have a couple of computers accessible from the outside via ssh so I can always scp things.
@mirabilos As for peripherals, I prefer full-sized mechanical keyboards and bigger mice — something like Razer Deathadder of MS IntelliMouse, but I'm fine with anything really, I even stopped being picky — I know I'll get used to anything eventually. Keyboard of HP laptop I use now is vastly different both from Thinkpads and MacBooks, I thought I never get used to it — but no, even that worked out 😂
@m0xee yeah well, can’t fit an extra keyboard on my legs in couch/bed with the laptop. Let alone a mouse, but I don’t use a mouse much, if at all, anyway. Most of the time I just use the IBM nipple to move the mouse cursor out of the way. Or to select text in xterm but I can do that in GNU screen as well (and do).
@m0xee ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
How do you suddenly go to workflows from there?
Who’s to say I don’t do that as well, even if I just work on the one laptop I use?
@mirabilos
Ha-ha-ha, I could have worded it better, 500 character limit makes it difficult at times 😅
Of course it's a good idea even if you only use one computer, but when you're switching them often it's inevitable — and this is how I got this habit.
@m0xee eh I lost enough data to make sure I have copies around, if I don’t commit straight to CVS anyway, and I’m old enough to cringe at spaces in filenames so I have my habits down for a long time anyway. Yet I still work from just a laptop, no external peripherals, as it’s the most practical (even before the cat adopted me).
That’s not to say I don’t occasionally switch laptops. But I still use only one then.
What 500 character limit, are you on Twitter or something? That’s ridiculous.
@mirabilos
I'm old enough to prefer underscores too, but I think even those who don't have DOS habits hate escaping spaces 😆
No, this instance has five hundred character limit. I have my own one that I sometimes use for longer replies , but it runs on an old MacMini, pretty weak hardware by today's standards and it gets overwhelmed easily, so I still use this one as primary. And I prefer not to switch mid-conversation as it confuses people.
@mirabilos This is how I got around bad keyboards in newer laptops — I've been using external peripherals, this way you can enjoy a mechanical keyboard and a good display, but you can still take the computer on the road. Too bad, they don't make laptops with docking capabilities anymore, but they have Thunderbolt now, basically gives access to PCI bus so you can connect any device with it. Now it's power and one other cable — worse than proper dock, but not too bad.