Here's another earlier post I wrote about Ted Selker with some links to his videos. (I'm an old friend and huge fan of Ted and his work, as you might imagine, and have posted about him frequently over the years!):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19754462

DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent | context | favorite | on: Turnover Hits Apple’s Famed Industrial Design Team

Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab to the market with the ThinkPad, including the TrackPoint (the red joy button), the butterfly keyboard, and the transparent LCD display with removable back cover that works with an overhead projector (at a time when overhead projectors were much more common that expensive video projectors).

IBM Pointing Stick #1 - 10_25_91:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6guBllqPPY&feature=youtu.be...

(Not Edwin Selker!)

Ted Selker Oral History:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpw7Bml_XvI

>He worked for short times at Atari and Xerox PARC before joining IBM in 1985. At IBM, first at T.J. Watson Labs, then at Almaden research labs, he rose to Fellow, inventing the TrackPoint cursor control device, making major contributions to the ThinkPad notebook computer, designing artificial-intelligence help and teaching systems, designing wearable computing devices, researching eye tracking systems, and designing an intelligent "living room of the future".

(Check out his red TrackPoint lapel pin!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_ThinkPad_760

>IBM ThinkPad 760CDV - Similar to the 760CD, this unique model had a removable back cover on the LCD that would permit light to shine through for use on an overhead projector.

IBM ThinkPad 701c "butterfly" keyboard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLj3aCfqzOM

Opening and closing IBM ThinkPad 701c with unique keyboard folding mechanism.

ThinkPad TrackPoints - how do they work?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3A7LDyizlc

Early TrackPoint prototypes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU

joezydeco on April 26, 2019 | next [–]

I had a 760CDV. That was an amazing machine in an era where you had to carry projector panels around. It never failed to amaze onlookers.

DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent | next [–]

It was brilliantly focused on solving such a practical real-world problem of the era. But its window of opportunity has closed. Today's laptops can't just afford the overhead or support such open transparency. ;)

Dreami on April 26, 2019 | parent | prev | next [–]

That sounds really interesting. You don't happen to have any pictures of it? I didn't find anything through Google, just that it existed.

jodrellblank on April 26, 2019 | root | parent | next [–]

there are pictures of the 755CDV doing that, if that's of any interest:

http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/3566815....

http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/755cdv.j...

http://www.lenovoblog.cz/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/thinkpad...

(from http://www.lenovoblog.cz/2016/02/historie-rodiny-notebooku-i... )

https://thinkwiki.de/755

joezydeco on April 26, 2019 | root | parent | next [–]

Yeah those pictures show it very well. The only thing you don't really see is the existential dread as you hook your expensive laptop to the projector in an inbalanced fashion using velcro straps....

baybal2 on April 26, 2019 | prev | next [–]

> Ted Selker at IBM Almaden Research had an amazingly successful streak of getting useful innovations from the lab
I always thought that ThinkPads were done by IBM Japanese RnD centre

dillonmckay on April 26, 2019 | prev [–]

He sounds like a ‘product’ guy.

DonHopkins on April 26, 2019 | parent [–]

The TrackPoint grew out of his university research, and a lot of user testing and measurement and iterative improvement went into it before IBM allowed him to ship it in a real product. (The youtube video talks about the pressure=>velocity mapping curve they developed and refined.) He collaborated with his father, a material scientist, who designed the rubbery grippy material so it felt just right.