One of the most limiting factors on netbooks is the keyboard. The smaller the netbook, the worse the keyboard, as the width of the device is just not enough to provide a good typing experience. This weekend I was giving a lot of thought to this problem and it hit me: Why not revive the Butterfly Keyboard?
IBM produced the ThinkPad 701, otherwise known as the TrackWrite, in 1995 and it was certainly ahead of its time. The primary feature of the 701 was the Butterfly Keyboard and I once had an opportunity to type on one and it was great. The 701 had a 10-inch screen and due to the narrow width of the device, IBM developed a keyboard that literally opened up and spread out to full size. This allowed IBM to produce the smallest ThinkPad they could without sacrificing the excellent keyboard experience the ThinkPad was famous for.
The Butterfly Keyboard worked amazingly well and it would be the perfect fit on today’s netbooks. Netbooks with 8.9-inch screens could even accommodate a full-sized keyboard with a Butterfly-arrangement like the 701 had. I wonder who holds the patent for this keyboard now that Lenovo owns the ThinkPad?
{"source":"https:\/\/gigaom.com\/2009\/04\/27\/its-time-for-a-netbook-with-a-butterfly-keyboard\/wijax\/49e8740702c6da9341d50357217fb629","varname":"wijax_2a24fd3925515a330293eace7ca9f290","title_element":"header","title_class":"widget-title","title_before":"%3Cheader%20class%3D%22widget-title%22%3E","title_after":"%3C%2Fheader%3E"}