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‘Butterfly’ keyboard design of the iconic IBM ThinkPad 701C is inspired by a toy
Team Udayavani, Jun 14, 2021, 11:41 AM IST
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Source: Lenovo
In order to create a new category of business laptops that’s easier to carry and use, the ThinkPad 700 series concept was introduced by International Business Machines Corporation (Lenovo acquired IBM’s PC business and the iconic ThinkPad brand in 2005).
Fitting a full-sized keyboard alongside a 10.4-inch LCD colour display into the next ThinkPad 701C portable laptop was a challenge and to overcome this hurdle, Dr John Karidis, an IBM distinguished engineer went on to develop the “Butterfly” keyboard.
The idea of butterfly keyboard struck when Karidis saw his three-year-old daughter who was building shapes out of her toy blocks.
Karidis thought of cutting the board across the number 4, T, H and M keys. That way the board was broken into two distinctive movable parts and that was how the “Butterfly” keyboard came about.
The design of the 700 series started in 1993 and the product came out in early 1995.
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