Exploring the beauty of retro electronics (Gallery)

[Garth Wilson]

I find beauty in most airplanes made during my 58-year lifetime, and in the very attractive HP-35s calculator above. The Casio calc above is not too bad lookin' either. I dislike the rest of what has been shown so far, especially the jelly-bean car. I make a ton of mistakes trying to type on thin, flat, short-travel keys on laptop computers. My main PC is a desktop and the keyboard has full-travel, cupped keys. I type well on this at 50+ wpm, while my secondary PC for the last six years has been a laptop and my typing on that thing is hopeless. I have not been able to get used to it and quit making so many mistakes. The track pad is a very poor substitute for a real mouse too. It does not work well at all. I want a laptop that's thick enough to have a real keyboard.

It's one thing if a product is unattractive because they didn't put much stying effort into it. It's quite another when it's ugly because they tried too hard and went overboard with the 3D CAD, as is too often the case today. Such styling definitely keeps me from buying a product.