It’s Time For a Netbook With a Butterfly Keyboard
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?
I agree, that looks pretty neat.
Or how about one that folds around the screen like a Z
It’s time for a netbook with a FrogPad. A one handed keyboard, which replaces a full sized QWERTY keyboard, needs less than 50% of the space, you can touch type on it with speeds >70WPM and it has an ergonomic keyboard layout.
Together with a touch stick, and you’re done.
The FrogPad is unfamiliar to most people making people wary of it.
How about a number pad with t9?
–people are familiar with it from their cell phones
Speaking of cellphones, possibly a keyboard layout just like the BlackBerry Pearl would provide more comfortable keys
I’ve had a frogpad for about 3-4 years already and I still haven’t achieved anywhere near 70wpm. Honestly I’ve only gotten around 20wpm LOL. It’s not ergonomic at all IMO. Whenever I try to hit backspace or some other 2 key combination, it spits out a letter rather than the syntax I want.
I think its a good concept, but I think it needs work.
strange that the use of it is so different. I reached 20WPM just after less than a week of trainig, and type now EVERYTHING. But you have to learn and use it, else you won’t be able to type with it, like you can with a QWERTY keyboard.
Maybe there are better alternatives out there. I just don’t know them, and, in my opinion, the FrogPad is a much better input device than a QWERTY keyboard at the moment. I just haven’t found anything better that simple yet (in my opinion it’s simple to use :p)
I’m open to any new invention, it’s just sad to see how those huge QWERTY keyboards are still get used, even in tiny little devices, with no room for such a huge keyboard.
One would guess that either
A) IBM kept the patent or
B) gave it to Lenovo or
C) kept the patent and gave a license to Lenovo for it or
D) none of the above…
I had 2 of the 701’s also known as “The ButterFly” To this day I dod not know why it was only a one model release. It worked very well and to the best of my knowledge was trouble free. I have quite often wondered EXACTLY what James was wondring. I even thought of looking for one once, and then rembered that the best version, I think, was a 486dx4/75.
Ah the days when being slow was still very cool!!
@Ron P: Think the issue was cost?…thought I heard that it was relatively expensive keyboard…
@Ron P:
At the time that box came out, I worked at Microsoft. I had one (hope you are sitting down) running WindowsNT (ver 3.1!). I met with the Thinkpad team back then as we (Microsoft) loved this box. The problem was, at the time, the were being built by hand, had a really tough set of engineering problems with bringing some things together and in general, never really got the mainstream love the device needed.
I still have it downstairs in a box. It was an amazing device.
Rick
Great minds, James. I was just talking about these wonderful keyboards with someone a few days ago. The only thing I’ve ever seen come close is the Stowaway fold-up.
I think the perfect form factor for me for a netbook tablet is as follows (my XT is the workhorse for the foreseeable future, but I have a tc1100 as the secondary more portable one. The form factor I describe would be to replace the tc1100.)
A 9″ slate tablet in the same form factor as the tc1100 would be preferred. If the detachable keyboard was a ‘butterfly’ type like this, that’d be even better, because my Mini 9’s keyboard is atrocious. It’d of course have to have an active digitizer as well. (I realize Wacom doesn’t make 9″ active digitizers but still).
As for specs, I’d want the lower cost 1.6GHz Atom, (aka running on the GMA950), 2GB RAM, and a 16-32GB SSD. Something a little higher resolution than 1024×600 would be preferred as well, and a fingerprint reader for logging into Windows (I know it’s possible to use the onscreen keyboard, but that’s a pain). I know I’d definitely pay $500-600 or so for that.
It was geek heaven, typing on the butterfly. But today I am typing on a Samsung N120 netbook with what they call a full-size keyboard, and it works just fine. The case is just slightly wider than the smaller keyboard models, but it weighs just the same and the slight extra width allows for really good speakers on either side of the screen.
We had alot of these where I work and I agree with James! It’s time to figure this thing out again! The 701 was the best laptop I used back in that time period.
Yes, once you make the connection it is obviously a great idea. Too bad it has patent issues. And don’t bet that Lenovo owns the patent. It wasn’t in use at the time the of the sale by IBM, and they could well still own it. If they do, they could well sell licences to it to every netbook maker that asks nicely
Another good improvement would be to have a similar foldable screen. Then we could have a wide screen as well (and a high width resolution) and still have a small package when the netbook is closed. The only technology I know of that could do that is epaper, that is still a few years in the future.
These improvements could well be very useful for netbook manufacturers. The added convenience would justify an increased price, something manufacturesrs have been trying to do ever since the netbook explosion but with very limited success.
What should be created is a jacket size netbook/umpc that is about 7″ to 7.5″ long by about 4″ to 4.3″ wide that uses that butterfly keyboard. That way the millions of business users whom value mobility could have a laptop in their pocket that when opened up provided a great touch type keyboard experience.
Netbooks already have an adequate keyboard what is missing is a modern handheld using UMPC technology so that it has full Windows and a great keyboard like the butterfly design.
Does anyone remember the treo 600 oem keyboard? in terms of foldability, its even better than the butterfly keyboard. this is literally the perfect size for a netbook. it could fit in the footprint of the viliv s5 and has a full keyboard. I have one here and I so wish i could figure out how to get it working for something other than the treo.
My thoughts exactly!