HP’s Drip-Dry Touchy-Feely PCs

H

HardOCP News

[H] News
Joined
Dec 31, 1969
Messages
0
Laugh all you want, I think this drain hole under the keyboard is a phenomenal idea. It is such a simple idea that it makes you wonder why no one thought of that before, doesn’t it?

It means users can spill a cup of coffee, or glass of beer or whatever their spilling drink of choice is over the keyboard, and the liquid will be channelled towards a drainhole in the centre and out from the bottom of the laptop, saving it from any permanent damage and enduring stickiness.
Click to expand...
 
I've lost many of keyboard to beer spillage. I've actually bought 2 extra keyboards that sit on a shelf for that reason.

/drunk slob ftw
 
Steve said:
Laugh all you want, I think this drain hole under the keyboard is a phenomenal idea. It is such a simple idea that it makes you wonder why no one thought of that before, doesn’t it?
Click to expand...
Umm, IBM thought of it eons ago with the ThinkPad line, prior to Lenovo.

I also know of a number of Dell Latitude ads from years gone by where Dell touts spilling an entire cup of coffee with cream on their keyboards as a design test prior to model approval.
 
So it drains out the bottom and on to your desk and then on to your lap. Great idea.
 
Yeah my ancient IBM clickety PS2 keyboards have this feature. Great for my Windows98 box and some of those old school game sessions (Mech 2 + good drink = win)

However nothing is fool prof. A large enough spill will inflow faster than it can drain and could well up into the keys. I had to clean out a Saitek once... but it works fine.
 
Yeah, IBM (and probably a few other manufacturers) has had this for some time..

Actually, just yesterday, my co-worker spilled coffee on his Thinkpad X61.. Drained out the bottom through the drain holes. They're marked with symbols - a keyboard and a teardrop to symbolize liquid..

Keeping the X61 horizontal, we took out the keyboard, drained it and wiped up a few drips that got around it. Put it back together and still working!!

Riley
 
Linkie no workie
Wednesday October 14, 2009Internet Hoaxes, Scams and Why We Believe Them
TestFreaks has posted a pretty good list of internet hoaxes and the reasons we believed them. My favorite had to be the recent Bigfoot discovery…the press just ate that one up.



Bigfoot’s Body Found in Georgia – in 2008 one of the biggest stories was that of a couple of guys who claimed to be Bigfoot trackers – Matthew Whitton, a police officer with the Clayton County, Georgia Police Department and Ricky Dyer, a used car salesman (and a former security guard), announced they found the dead body of Bigfoot. No doubt they were trying to draw attention to their phony expedition business. The two went so far as to call a press conference in California.
Click to expand...
 
Keiichi said:
Linkie no workie
Click to expand...

The link on the frontpage is working , which is diff from the one on the OP.

As others have pointed out, this is nothing new. IBM had this for years. Haven't tested it out on my Thinkpad and don't intend to. And it doesn't mean one can pour a cupful of coffee onto the keyboard and have it all drained out - those drainage holes will overflow if that were the case. What it will help is prevent minor spillage from damaging the notebook.
 
Exactly this was on the Model M keyboards from IBM etc... not a new idea at all. It was just replaced with the fad of $5 keyboards, no need to over engineer them anymore.
 
How many of us actually owned a IBM and even knew about this feature except for the 3 people above that posted that IBM had this feature years ago. Back then I owned Apple's.

So this feature seems new to me even though it evidently isn't.
 
a quick google search find patents for this from over ten years ago. Of course, this might be an improvement of those ideas, who know?
 
from the article that was linked...

"The technology has been around since 2007, but is being introduced for the first time in the ProBook b-series"

Based on the article the "tech" it is talking about is the drain hole under the keyboard...

Is that really a technology? /shrug Isnt it more like a design?
 
TechLarry said:
NOTHING survives orange juice.
Click to expand...

I have a saitek eclipse 2; ive spilt over a litre of orange juice and coffe on it on multiple occasions (huge mug I use, not the most intelligent design. . . funny since I got it from first year engineering orientation). Although it doesnt have any spill holes, its managed to survive both. I basically put it under a showerhead for a couple minutes with the OJ, took it apart and washed everything, left it out to dry and put it back together. Worked fine, the coffee spill had me a bit more worried because it wasnt working right away. Ended up being a tiny amount of water between the contacts for the keys, dried it out and it worked fine. If the whole design wasnt so "spill friendly" with everything being either plastic or rubber with no important electronics in dangerous areas im sure it would have turned out quite different.
 
BettiePage said:
from the article that was linked...

"The technology has been around since 2007, but is being introduced for the first time in the ProBook b-series"

Based on the article the "tech" it is talking about is the drain hole under the keyboard...

Is that really a technology? /shrug Isnt it more like a design?
Click to expand...
If it was introduced in 2007, why does my Thinkpad T60P from 2006 have two of them?
 
it wouldnt be terribly hard to make a waterproof pc. it would be low power of course, totally passive cooling but things like netbooks should all be weatherproof. would be fun to take them in the pool.
 
The real question is does it drain the beer into another container so that it doesn't waste the beer.
 
I'm quite certain ruggedized notebooks have had the drain hole for quite a few years now.
 
Seems like a good idea. Both of my Logitech keyboards have drains.
 
I remember spilling orange soda on the numberpad of my keyboard. Thankfully the keyboard survived but if I use the numpad, it would hold down the key for a few seconds after pressing it due to stickiness.

Also have a 360 wireless controller surviving a coke spill. Buttons were sticky at first but after pressing them enough times, the stickiness eventually wore off.

Looking at the Logitech G11 Im currently using, I see a couple of holes under the keyboard which looks like drain holes but Im not sure if they are. Would be great if it is but Im not going to purposely spill drink into it just to check.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top