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There are simple, off the shelf answers out there, you just need to look at the point-of-sale market. This means you may end up with an unnecessary credit card reader attached to your keyboard, but otherwise there is no real issue. (Besides, wouldn't being able to swipe a card, even a magstripe, be a nice second factor for login?)

As I posted to Deskthority just yesterday:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...
http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

And the one that I have chosen (for now) to serve in a similar role, that of having alternate language characters and mathematical symbols within easy reach, would be this:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

I chose the non-trackpad version.

You can play with the Cherry programming software to see the limitations of the hardware without actually buying anything, but I can tell you that doing things like typing {} followed by a left arrow would be quite trivial, as would double characters like == and !=. Emulating Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V is also pretty trivial.

There are simple, off the shelf answers out there, you just need to look at the point-of-sale market. This means you may end up with an unnecessary credit card reader attached to your keyboard, but otherwise there is no real issue. (Besides, wouldn't being able to swipe a card, even a magstripe, be a nice second factor for login?)

As I posted to Deskthority just yesterday:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...
http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

And the one that I have chosen (for now) to serve in a similar role, that of having alternate language characters and mathematical symbols within easy reach, would be this:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

I chose the non-trackpad version.

You can play with the Cherry programming software to see the limitations of the hardware without actually buying anything, but I can tell you that doing things like typing {} followed by a left arrow would be quite trivial, as would double characters like == and !=. Emulating Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V is also pretty trivial.

There are simple, off the shelf answers out there, you just need to look at the point-of-sale market. This means you may end up with an unnecessary credit card reader attached to your keyboard, but otherwise there is no real issue. (Besides, wouldn't being able to swipe a card, even a magstripe, be a nice second factor for login?)

As I posted to Deskthority just yesterday:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...
http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

And the one that I have chosen (for now) to serve in a similar role, that of having alternate language characters and mathematical symbols within easy reach, would be this:

http://cherrycorp.com/product/...

I chose the non-trackpad version.

You can play with the Cherry programming software to see the limitations of the hardware without actually buying anything, but I can tell you that doing things like typing {} followed by a left arrow would be quite trivial, as would double characters like == and !=. Emulating Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V is also pretty trivial.

I think they forgot to choose one. My recommendation: Cherry 4400 series (with trackball). Compact, feels solid, can take a beating. Any better (affordable) suggestions?

Intel allowed the government to have a no-fee license to produce a radiation hardened Pentium chip. The article has some details on radiation hardening.
http://www.sandia.gov/media/rhp.htm

I've built replacement keyboard assemblies for one of the systems on that. Not sure which. It was a rf and fluid gasketed oversized heavy aluminum box. The actual keyboard was made by Cherry. I was so disappointed. It's like finding a Yugo engine in a Corvette. http://www.cherrycorp.com/

I used to use a Deck keyboard; they've got a good heft, and though the keys aren't sitting on mechanical switches, they still have a nice solid action and a good sound...

Just a correction - Deck boards do use mechanical switches, that's one of their major selling points (other than the backlighting). What the deck switches don't have is the clicky tactile feedback, they use linear Cherry MX switches (which do make some noise). I've got one, and you can definitely hear when someone types on it.

The switch information on the deck switches:

What kind of key switches are used in Deck keyboards?

Forum discussion on tactile mod to a deck

Cherry MX switch

The keyboard, on the other hand, is incredible. The key travel is impressive for the limited space, and the action is akin to the old IBM Model M--there is no uncertainty when a key has been pressed. The only drawback is that I can no longer tolerate standard keyboards--anything other than the flat, responsive MacBook keyboard, and I feel like I'm typing on a bowl of jello... coated with molasses... (with the one exception of my mini Cherry keyboard).

Just my thoughts. I have no reason to get a new iMac, but the keyboard is a must!

I agree with all your picks. I will add some of my bargain experiences:

I have had 2 Samsung monitors and they so far have served me well. I also like Cherry keyboards, they are pretty plain but sturdy, never had one break on me and I type pretty hard. I currently use a Logitech mouse after having trouble with a Microsoft Intellimouse which cost twice as much and got broken after the warranty expired.

I also prefer Western Digital as you do, none of my Western Digital disks have failed and they are usually pretty fast. I have had a Seagate hard disk which failed on me. One thing about Seagate though: they swapped my broken hard disk for a new one and did not bat an eyelid. Top points for Seagate customer service from me.

I do not buy sound or network cards anymore. The onboard versions are fine if you get a decent motherboard and chipset.

I own a G81-3000 myself (great keyboard, by the way). Although the shape and proportions are very similar, the leds panel is different, and the F and J keys are regular ones.

A link with photo: http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/classic-line/key board-standard-g81-3000.htm

It looks awfully like a recoloured Cherry G80-3000. The LED design gives it away.

Oh mamma! http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/cymotion-line/po pup_layout_cymotion_master_linux.htm

I wanted for a long time to get a compact keyboard, and was hoping to find somewhere a happy hacking lite keyboard. Not much chance to get one in Germany, but I've found out that cherry released a line of compact and slim keyboard. I'm using a G84-4100 since 2/3 years, and they are great (you can even wash them in the dishwasher):
http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/compact/slim-lin e_g84-4100.htm

I've noticed that they've released some compact wireless version a couple of weeks ago and Im wondering if I should try one for the other computer ...
http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/wireless/cymotio n-line_cymotion_pro_wireless_desktop.htm

Cheers,
        Guillaume

I wanted for a long time to get a compact keyboard, and was hoping to find somewhere a happy hacking lite keyboard. Not much chance to get one in Germany, but I've found out that cherry released a line of compact and slim keyboard. I'm using a G84-4100 since 2/3 years, and they are great (you can even wash them in the dishwasher):
http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/compact/slim-lin e_g84-4100.htm

I've noticed that they've released some compact wireless version a couple of weeks ago and Im wondering if I should try one for the other computer ...
http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/wireless/cymotio n-line_cymotion_pro_wireless_desktop.htm

Cheers,
        Guillaume

And just for the record, there are several other places to get that unmistakable buckling-spring feel:

http://www.cvtinc.com/products/keyboards/menu.htm CVT's Avant models (I'm typing this on an Avant Prime and it feels just like the Model M I use at home)

http://www.pckeyboard.com/customizer.html PC Keyboard, already mentioned in parent of this

http://www.mck142.com/ The Ortek MCK-142 monster with programmable function keys

http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/classic-line/key board-standard-g80-3000.htm Cherry G80, mechnical, but I'm not sure how close to the Model M feel it has...

http://www.ergocanada.com/products/keyboards/dsi_s mk85_compact.html A compact model using ALPS keyswitches. Similar to the Model M style switches.

http://www.ergo-2000.com/ergo2000/showdetl.cfm?&DI D=6&Product_ID=624&CATID=36 Northgate Omnikey models are largely discontinued, but here's an ergo one still being sold using Alps keyswitches. You can also try ebay http://search-desc.ebay.com/omnikey_W0QQftsZ2 for used or remaindered Omnikeys.

Finally, just for learning about the buckling spring/clicky keyboards, here are some great sites for details:
http://www.clickykeyboards.com/
http://www.dansdata.com/ibmkeyboard.htm
http://thesiliconunderground.editthispage.com/2001 /02/08

And for those of you wondering why several of us are going on and on about decades-old keyboards from IBM, you owe it to yourself to at least try one of these and see what you think. Yes, they are noisier than those squishy membrane ones, but the feedback from them is amazing and you get to the point of blazing over them and often catching many typos by sound alone...

I agree with your point about 'clicky' keyboards (assuming you mean the type personified by the IBM PS/2's 'Model M'). Some people seem to love them; I found the midway pressure point of the microswitch very unnatural and offputting. I suspect that people who used them a lot will love them a lot; and those who aren't used to them won't.

I mention this because I wanted a new mechanical keyboard, but one with "linear" action that goes "tap" when it hits the bottom; the 'quality' feel that a good mechanical keyboard has. I had to import the **** thing (a Cherry G80-3000) from Germany with German labelling; UK stockists only had the 'clicky' version. Fortunately I can touch-type, and to some extent I'm used to "wrong labels" because I use a US layout despite living in the UK; but it did still cause some initial frustration.

Was it worth it? Probably; it's miles better than the cheapest membrane keyboards, although the springs on the keys provide a bit more resistance than I'd have liked, given the choice. But I'm being picky here.

And actually, some membrane keyboards really aren't that bad; my last Mitsumi was pretty nice for a UKP 10.00 thing; compared to other membrane-jobs (including, ironically, an older Mitsumi I have) it's very usable. More importantly, I had my old 8-bit Atari machines with "real" keyboards out a few nights back....

My God, they were *horrible* to type on... and from what I remember, the C64's keyboard was even worse. I'd rather use all but the very worst modern membrane keyboards than that. "Good" old keyboards are still pretty good, but never fall into the trap of believing "mechanical good, membrane bad".

I also suspect that the reason some dislike membrane keyboards is simply that they're used to the action of a mechanical keyboard. I found myself asking whether the 'deep' travel that most real keyboards have is necessary; my Compaq Armada laptop's keyboard has (by necessity) far less travel, and a distinctly different feel to most desktop keyboards, but it's really quite nice to type on for what it is. I actually find myself able to type faster, if anything, on that than I can on my expensive mechanical keyboard.

And frankly, for the kind of person that takes a couple of seconds to hunt and peck, and uses their computer for five minutes a day, pretty much any keyboard should keep them happy.

The CRT was okay, but most of the keys got stuck solid after only a couple of hours.

I took the (German built) keyboard apart and rinced the yogurt off with warm water and soap.

Okay, I could just lie and say everything was fine afterwards. It wasn't. One of the tracks was broken in two places (I was extremely careful washing the yogurt off, so maybe a short-circuit ate the track). Normally, with the right tools, this is easily fixable, especially if you know exactly where the break is. Problem was, I didn't have any conductive silver paste so I just penciled over the breaks (it worked with the athlon, right?). Hey, the fix worked (on and off) for a couple of days. In the end, I just bought a new keyboard (a cheap one ;) because it was cheaper than buying the paste.

Lessons here:

Don't eat in front of the computer (and if you do, wear long sleaves)

Avoid roach infested countries, them bastards only cause endless grief

Right on; same Cherry.

In addition to making lots of cool POS keyboards and bump bars, you may recall the Cherry CyMotion Master Linux keyboard (scoffing emphasis mine).

I love their POS stuff, but that Linux keyboard was a little schmaltzy.

Yeah, no kidding. Smells like another Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox to me. For instance:

saddino writes "Steven Levy at Newsweek is reporting that Slashdot seems to favor certain stories for dupes. Is Slashdot receiving kickbacks to promote certain companies? Slashdot denies it, of course, and Levy had the good sense to ask a mathematician and a cryptographer who explained it's probably just humans finding patterns where there are none."

I don't know about replacing just one key, but here's a link to a keyboard with the keys built in... CLICKY

• LikSang Smart Joy Frag
• Cherry Compact Keyboard
• An optical mouse
• Wrist rest & mouse mat

Then I chose one product randomly (this one) clicked on download software got a working popup (both browsers block unrequested pop-ups but sometimes mess up when deciding what's unrequested) chose language and OS -again from *working* pulldown menus- clicked next and had working download links. I can offer some screens if you don't believe me

You should really look into getting a new Mozilla build, yours seems to be seriously broken

Cherry Keyboards is IE specific. I wanted to check if their keyboard software is available for download. The menu fails in Mozilla 1.7.2.

Also, the download link is dead.

Several other things indicate to me that these people seem to have NO technical knowledge whatsoever.

I have the original version of this keyboard; the caps lock key on it is stiffer than the other keys and has a sloped right hand side so it's harder to hit by accident. It sounds good on paper, but in reality it's actually a bit too firm; you're certainly not going to be engaging it with a light tap.

As for the rest of the keyboard, well, it's exactly what it looks like; there's a load of keys either side of the usual ones, so for the first few days with it every time you aim for Ctrl you'll probably hit the Copy key. On the plus side, you can configure said Copy key to be Ctrl, but then the action on the outer keys is so bad even that will annoy you. I've learnt to just ignore them.

Action on the main keys is reasonable, if a bit loud for my tastes; I prefer it to most cheapo ones I've used, but I dare say you can do better.

Cherry's G80 series of keyboards is considered by many (including me) to provide the best tactile expierience since the old IBM-keyboards with click, but without the weight and noise.

Amen!

About 7-8 years ago, my wrists began to build up pain after too much typing. When it started, it was only after marathon days, but after some months it got worse and already started after 2-3 hours of programming. I managed by taking regular typing breaks and doing some exercises (stretching helped a lot).

Then there was a week where I only worked from home, where I still used an Amiga 3000[1], when I noticed after 2-3 days that the pain didn't build up the same. At the end of the week I felt only mildly unconfortable after 8 hours.

That was when I realized what a big difference a decent keyboard can make, and I saw to it, that I switched keyboards at work (don't know anymore, but I think it was an to IBM one... I simply tested all that were lying around). After 2-3 month the pain was gone completely.[2]

Then, when a coworker also mentioned problems, I started to lobby for using decent keyboards overall at work. After quite some looking, the best I found was the "soft contact" variant (LQMUS for USA) of the G80-3000, which was happily accepted around here. Yes, it costs several times of what a 08-15 keyboard (or even the G81 or G83 of Cherry) costs: around EUR 60,-- here. But IMHO it's worth every cent. The only problem is that it sometimes can be a PITA to get hold of the exact model you want. I finally found a shop which orders it, specially for us, if we take a pack of 10 at once. It's easy to get the "linear action" variant, but that didn't help my hands at all.

Also, we never had one brake in those 7 years, even with all the usual stuff people tend to do to their equipment (like dropping from the desk, spilling a drinks, and so on).

Note that we have several people here who say they don't notice a difference for their hands and don't care which keyboard they use (but then, neither have they any complaint about the G80), but for the people being more sensitive to stress from typing it really makes quite a difference.

I tend to build my home PC from low priced parts, but I leared not to save on the parts I interact with all day - the monitor and keyboard.

[1] Why buy an PC when the Amiga worked for most things and for those for which I really needed a PC, I could use my computer at work. I am not sure about the later builds, but the early series had quite a decent keyboard (which works fine even today, after almost 20 years).

[2] More precisely: It didn't build up anymore. Before, the pain was also gone after the weekend, but during the week I noticed building it up again - more slowly due to the exercises - but increasing nevertheless. Funny thing is, today, I still notice my hands get stressed somewhat, because I learned to notice it at the times when the pain was real and I tried to manage somehow, but now it never goes to the stage of actually hurting anymore.

Cherry's G80 series of keyboards is considered by many (including me) to provide the best tactile expierience since the old IBM-keyboards with click, but without the weight and noise.

Amen!

About 7-8 years ago, my wrists began to build up pain after too much typing. When it started, it was only after marathon days, but after some months it got worse and already started after 2-3 hours of programming. I managed by taking regular typing breaks and doing some exercises (stretching helped a lot).

Then there was a week where I only worked from home, where I still used an Amiga 3000[1], when I noticed after 2-3 days that the pain didn't build up the same. At the end of the week I felt only mildly unconfortable after 8 hours.

That was when I realized what a big difference a decent keyboard can make, and I saw to it, that I switched keyboards at work (don't know anymore, but I think it was an to IBM one... I simply tested all that were lying around). After 2-3 month the pain was gone completely.[2]

Then, when a coworker also mentioned problems, I started to lobby for using decent keyboards overall at work. After quite some looking, the best I found was the "soft contact" variant (LQMUS for USA) of the G80-3000, which was happily accepted around here. Yes, it costs several times of what a 08-15 keyboard (or even the G81 or G83 of Cherry) costs: around EUR 60,-- here. But IMHO it's worth every cent. The only problem is that it sometimes can be a PITA to get hold of the exact model you want. I finally found a shop which orders it, specially for us, if we take a pack of 10 at once. It's easy to get the "linear action" variant, but that didn't help my hands at all.

Also, we never had one brake in those 7 years, even with all the usual stuff people tend to do to their equipment (like dropping from the desk, spilling a drinks, and so on).

Note that we have several people here who say they don't notice a difference for their hands and don't care which keyboard they use (but then, neither have they any complaint about the G80), but for the people being more sensitive to stress from typing it really makes quite a difference.

I tend to build my home PC from low priced parts, but I leared not to save on the parts I interact with all day - the monitor and keyboard.

[1] Why buy an PC when the Amiga worked for most things and for those for which I really needed a PC, I could use my computer at work. I am not sure about the later builds, but the early series had quite a decent keyboard (which works fine even today, after almost 20 years).

[2] More precisely: It didn't build up anymore. Before, the pain was also gone after the weekend, but during the week I noticed building it up again - more slowly due to the exercises - but increasing nevertheless. Funny thing is, today, I still notice my hands get stressed somewhat, because I learned to notice it at the times when the pain was real and I tried to manage somehow, but now it never goes to the stage of actually hurting anymore.

My Cherry keyboard has a stiffer caps lock key than other keys, so it's harder to hit without being quite deliberate. The right hand side of it's also sloped so it's harder to hit it when missing 'A'. To be honest, while the sloping bit is cool, making it stiffer just means it's even more useless than usual; I don't want a key that's *that* hard to hit :/

LWindows is harder to hit by mistake, too; if you're going to spack in that direction aiming for Ctrl, you're more likely to hit the "KeyMan" key, which just acts as a metakey for the squillions of extra buttons.

And yes, that crazy '@' can be mapped back to RWindows.

Cherry makes keyboards for all major layouts and can refer you to companies that ship internationally. They also have (or had) a pack available with all of the five or six major layouts in one bundle -- this is commonly purchased by test labs who need to make sure Windows apps will work on each.

. . .

Happy Hacker keyboards, or something so dang close I didn't notice (I was assured they were the same by the store) are now made by Cherry. Model number G84-4100

Drifting slightly off topic, but geeks like their keyboards to do stuff instead of resorting to rodents, right? Cherry do some pretty cool keyboards for geeks, but the one I've linked to is the one I intend to replace my Gateway 124 with.

Anyway, here are some links:

Genovation, Inc. numeric keypads
A long list from CNet (as low as $9!)
One of the most compact I've seen
and finally,
Ultra-Cheap numeric keypad from PCConcepts