[13:09] <MattJ> "There's a lenovo parts clear out" -> wish I'd seen this sooner. Someone gave me a German Thinkpad, and I bought a UK keyboard from a parts supplier on eBay.
[13:09] <MattJ> The keyboard works fine, but the trackpoint is broken... *if* the keyboard touches the laptop
[13:10] <MattJ> If I leave the keyboard connected and hold it in the air, the trackpoint works
[13:15] <penguin42> haha weird
[14:10] <zxmpi> intermittent bugs like that will drive you bonkers
[14:38] <MattJ> Yeah, it took me waaaay too long to diagnose it to this point :)
[14:40] <zxmpi> it starts off with 'might be a lose connector' and 6 months later you're tracking lunar movements to see if a pattern appears :-P
[14:44] <daftykins> sounds like grounding, maybe some tape/plastic has been removed from where it shouldn't be?
[14:45] <zxmpi> or has degraded in a decades old bit of hardware
[14:51] <penguin42> put a sheet of paper inbetween?
[15:09] <MattJ> penguin42, sheet of paper worked great....... until I screwed the screws in
[15:09] <MattJ> as soon as they went through and made contact with the laptop, trackpoint jumps immediately into the corner and won't come back
[15:10] <daftykins> he only means it as a test, not a permanent solution xD
[15:10] <MattJ> What's the difference? :D
[15:10] <penguin42> no, I'm quite happy to keep a horrendous hack in place
[15:10] <MattJ> I was thorougly prepared to keep a piece of paper in there, had it worked
[15:11] <penguin42> MattJ: Obviously the answer is to use nylon screws
[15:11] <MattJ> Yeeeeeah
[15:11] <daftykins> yeah the ThinkPad ones are usually the little black ones, could be a coating?
[15:12] <MattJ> Yeah, they're tiny black screws
[15:12]  * penguin42 isn't even sure how to store his collection of tiny black screws
[15:13] <MattJ> I'm thinking now I can just take all the keycaps off the dodgy keyboard and transplant them onto the working German keyboard
[15:13] <penguin42> Is it the same shape return key?
[15:13] <MattJ> Yeah
[15:14] <daftykins> i did the exact opposite swap for a friend to gift his partner a German ThinkPad a while ago xD
[15:14] <daftykins> the ebay seller even messaged me to ask if i was sure i wanted a German layout, i replied in German \o/
[15:14] <penguin42> there's probably a terribly long German word for that; KeyPlattenExchangeLangEin
[15:15] <daftykins> :D
[15:21] <zxmpi> those germans have a word for everything :')
[15:23] <daftykins> my studies have taught me the fun following facts: Flugzeug = flying thing (plane), Werkzeug = work thing (tool), Fahrzeug = driving thing (car/vehicle), Spielzeug = playing/game thing (toy)
[15:24] <zxmpi> in english we just use the word thingy :-)
[15:24] <zxmpi> or smurf if you of a certain age :-D
[15:31]  * penguin42 has never used smurf as a metasyntactic term
[15:38] <zxmpi> then you are not of a certain age, keep up :-D