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Super Durable Keyboards?
Pappy VanSlashdot asks: "Slashdot readers have had some great recommendations for durable mice, even industrial strenght mice. How about keyboards? I need to put about a dozen PCs on a factory floor where the main problem will be sand and other dust. I don't think run of the mill keyboards would last very long. I'm well within the budget for this project (thanks to using a lot of free software) so I can spend just about anything to get something that works."
What about 1 handed keyboards.
IT depends on who you have use the chords,
but 1 hour spend teaching someone to use it would make it still worthwhile.
And it would be smaller, so less area to pick crap up in.
I can see you haven't worked with guys from the shop floor ever. Each person needing to use the machine woud have to be tought chording. That's not praticle. Most of the shop floor people won't even know how to touch type, let alown be very familiar with computers. You need to keep the learning curve as low as possible. This isn't to say they are dumb, but it's yet another skill they must learn to use the machine. Another thing. Shop floors are dirty, any hole to let dirt in will collect it. It dosen't matter how few you have. You don't want any. They recommend computers that go onto shop floors be fully sealed and air tight. Yes this makes cooling a P-III a bit difficult, but it can be done.
1100 series from Storm.
OK,
It doesn't answer the original question (Factory floor keyboard, unless it's LIGHT industry), but If you follow the IBM Keyboard saga, IBM spun off their keyboards to Lexmark, who eventually decided to leave the keyboard business, so they spun off a company called Unicomp, who still makes IBM style keyboards, plus 'Others". Their web address is
http://www.pckeyboard.com
EVERY one of my PCs (Including the one at work that my boss owns) has a Unicomp keyboard
The classic 101 key buckling spring IBM Branded keyboard costs $49. If you WANT the windows keys (and a IBM stick type pointer), it's $59
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Get rid of the PCs on the floor.
Go with dumb terminals (serial) - the dumber the better. My favorite? The VT100 - green on black monochrome, oh so nice on the eyes, readable in nearly any situation (even a smoke filled room!).
I have seen these things in conditions that would make you blanch. Most of the time, the keyboards are bare, and are covered with such grime you wonder how these guys who can't touch type can hunt-n-peck, because you can't see the letters on the keys anymore (perhaps they really do touch type now, they just don't know it?). The really paranoid places put a keyboard condom on the keyboards, a guess to make 'em last another 15 years or so.
If you can do this in your situation, it would probably be best. The terminals are relatively cheap, and they last forever.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Lexmark (not IBM) still makes them. Want a brand new Model M, it'll run you like $75..
And they hold up to anything. I've seen them fresh off a six year lease with (insert major automobile company) where they were used at dealerships as parts locater terminals in the service department. One had apparently spent much of its life in a pool of gear oil from the amount of sludge in the panel, and it was still typing 100% before cleaning. One of Emerson Electric's divisions used to use them directly on the manufacturing floor, and once again, after nearly six years they worked, just needed a bath in soapy water to get the grime out and return them to factory condition.
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Damn, man.. Those fuckers are built like rocks. I didn't know it until I hit that link, but I've seen a few of those on industrial sampling/analysis equipment. Didn't know they were PS/2, the equipment had a fully sealed panel, but I don't think there are two companies making keyboards exactly like that..
Those probably will beat the shit out of IBMs, regardless of my prior recomendation of (and my affinity for) them.
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...right here.
What's 19.5 inches long, bright yellow, flexible, and rubber? Wait, don't answer that. To be be more precise, let me rephrase: what's 19.5 inches long, bright yellow, flexible, rubber, and equipped with a 7-foot PS/2 cable?