Thinkpads Forum

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b5tmreye0uajf2j/P2150530.JPG

I just recently got this one. In pretty good shape for it's age. I just thought it was strange about the non-red trackpoint. I was going to change it out for a "real" red one until I read about the purple being original.

edit- 560x not 560e

Is it real? Or is it off another laptop, like a Dell or something?

Not sure if it's original, but one of my 600E laptops came with a blue TrackPoint nib (looks like yours -- is yours blue-ish?). It has the old style with no textured surface -- just a smooth nib. It's like the ones that came with the 700 series, only blue. At least with the Dell laptops I have, they use different pointing stick nibs than the IBM/Lenovos, and they don't fit on properly. IIRC, this is also the case with HP's Compaq business line of notebooks.

I don't know about older HP/Compaq systems, but my new elitebook 8440p uses the same keybord connector for the trackpoint, so I use a thinkpad nub instead of the HP one.

I once came across a 701C with a green trackpoint. It had a textured surface with small spikes like one which my SL400 came with. However I thought it uncomfortable and had it changed to a red one

Green trackpoints were used by Toshiba in the 90s for their Satellite, Portégé and Libretto models
I noticed blue ones first on Compaq notebooks (white models, maybe LTE-5000 something similar)
than HP began to use them
as for the purple/-ish, often the original Thinkpad 700C trackpoints turned so with age

There is a seller on eBay offering green and raspberry trackpoint caps. I bought some green ones from them a few years back. I think they had black at that time too. It didn't work out because I'm a soft rimmer, not a cat's tonguer. I wish I could find a soft rim in another color, but haven't been able to so far.