I Bought the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II

I have been using the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard (old model) with a Japanese layout since I bought it in October 2013, so it's been almost 9 years. Before that, I used a Happy Hacking Keyboard.

Since my work PC became a Mac after changing jobs, I tried to align the key layout with Mac as much as possible by assigning the [Muhenkan] and [Henkan] keys to the [command] key. On Linux, I assign it to the [Super] key, and I set it up so that I could switch applications with [Muhenkan]+[Tab] on both Mac and Linux.

However, it doesn't recognize the simultaneous press of [Muhenkan]+[Tab]+[Left Shift], making it impossible to navigate backwards during application switching. This occurs on both Mac and Linux.

When I checked with evtest on Linux, no events were being sent from the keyboard, so it was likely a hardware issue.

Additionally, when I quickly pressed [O], [U], and [N] while holding [Left Shift], it would sometimes result in "OUUN". I would try to type "COUNT" but it would come out as "COUUNT", so I think the keyboard was fundamentally weak with simultaneous key presses.

The ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II newly supports 6-point Braille input, so it seemed like it would be more robust with simultaneous presses. I had been interested in it for a while, watching to see if the price would drop below 10,000 yen. I recently bought a ThinkPad T14 Gen3 and had some points left over, which allowed me to get it for just over 10,000 yen, so I decided to buy it.

I ordered it on August 6th, and it arrived on August 17th.

With the ThinkPad T14 Gen3 + Ubuntu, I couldn't connect via Bluetooth, but the 2.4 GHz wireless worked fine. I didn't have high expectations since the mouse didn't work over Bluetooth either. It was probably a Linux issue.

The ThinkPad T14 Gen3 + Ubuntu connected fine via both Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz wireless. The reason I thought Bluetooth didn't work was just that I didn't know how to connect it.

The issues with [Muhenkan]+[Tab]+[Left Shift] and [Left SHIFT]+[O]+[U]+[N] were successfully resolved 🎉

When moving the mouse cursor with the TrackPoint on Mac, it is extremely slow, but by setting it to the fastest speed in the settings, it has finally reached a usable level.

However, it is difficult to use [command]+[Tab] on Mac because it switches by application rather than by window. Even when trying to bring a single window to the front, all windows of that application come to the front, and in general, Mac's usability as a multi-window desktop environment is somewhat lackluster.

The ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II was a great piece of equipment.