Slashdot Mirror
A Selective History Of The Keyboard
Anonymous Gimp writes "Today's keyboards aren't what they used to be, no sir! Back in my day, we had our BS technology; our keyboards had chassis which allowed 'em to be thrown off a 3-story building and still work - barely dented. Yes those were the days. Now we've got these newfangled Wireless Ergonomic E-Mail button membrane keyboards. To heck with them, I say!"
While I don't like the gummy feeling of a lot of keyboards that are apparently trying to be 'soft', I am not exactly a fan of the loud clicky types either.
The keyboard that I've found works best and feels best to me is the original Microsoft Natural keyboard. It is ergonomically designed with no extra frills like app buttons across the top. It's also larger and a little sturdier than the Natural Light keyboards Microsoft is pushing these days with their freaky arrow keys and misaligned Insert/Delete/Home/End/PageUp/PageDown key block.
Microsoft! Do something good for the users! Bring back the original Natural keyboard!
I have been pwned because my
Yessir, back in my day we had these incredible keyboards. I have a VIC-20 keyboard and and Commodore 64 keyboard. Some people claimed they were kind of big, but for keyboards, they were sure packed with features! Like computers! :)
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
You know, the ones with the steel plates inside? I have 5 of them, 4 in storage, hopefully enough to last the rest of my life. The one I am typing this on is from my IBM AT that I got in 1992. Still going strong..... You can occasionally find them at garage sales(!) and swap meets and such. If you see one, grab it. It is really the best keyboard.
Well, its slashdotted, so you're excused.
But BS = Buckling Spring.
Up until recently, I have been using trusty 'ol IBM PS/2 keyboard. Its trusty mechanical feedback was great, not to mention nearly error-free when working properly. Also, when my high school chucked out its old computers, I was able to salvage about 15 to 20 of these beauties. Nearly all worked perfectly, and those that didn't were not to hard to fix with a solder iron and spare parts.
But recently, my wrists have begun to bother me (probably CTS setting in; and I'm nary 20 years old) and the old keyboards refused to work on my new rig (I probably could have modified one of them to work, but college really cuts out the free time). So I went to Wally Mart Computer Center and picked up this Logitech Navigator keyboard. This is by far one of the best keyboards I have used. Sure, those Mikeysoft Naturals are comfy, but they take up too much space and it is quite difficult to play Unreal Tournament with. The tactile sensation, while softer and not nearly as loud as the PS/2's, has a reassuring, yet subtle "crunch" to it. Not to mention, it has a scroll wheel built in (I use mine to switch apps, it is quite handy), and numerous other handy buttons. All the Ctrl functions are silkscreened on the front side of the keys for handy reference. And it was only $30.
The most unique feature, however, is the zero-tilt design. All of the keys are perfectly flat; normal keyboards "curve up" as you approach the number row, but all the keys on this keyboard are on the same plane, parallel to the desk. I have to say that it takes some getting used to, but in the end it is far more comfortable than a regular "tilted" keyboard. Now if only I can figure out how to get some of these extra buttons and stuff working in Linux.... damn semi-n00b skillz.
While I miss my PS/2's (they are still attached to my other boxes), I would have to say that I am quite impressed with the Navigator. Hopefully this thing will be as durable as the old PS/2's.
--- At my sig, unleash hell.
Dvorak superiority is probably a myth.
Grr... the article perpetuates the urban legend that qwerty is designed to "slow down the typist".
That's not true at all! What he found was that when typing quickly on old typewriters, hitting two keys that were right next to each other would jam. So instead of moving keys around to "slow you down" he moved keys around to speed you up! By moving commonly used keys to opposite sides of the keyboard, the typist was able to type quickly without jamming the typewriter.
It's been shown that dvorak actually makes RSI worse because commonly used keys are hit by the same finger. Where qwerty spreads things out so that all fingers are used frequently, dvorak causes you to use half your fingers far more frequently than the others.
Also qwerty relies a lot on alternating hands.. this is shown to be much faster than using a single hand to type a word.
Listen kids, back in MY days, we used teletypes. Those keyboards were not for the weak. You had to hammer down the keys. And when one key was down, the other were mechanically locked and could not be pressed. You would hurt your fingers if you tried to hammer two keys at once.
The wonder of the teletype! No electronics. It was all mechanics. Imagine that! And they also had a paper tape reader/puncher which was handy to save your programs if your 100K disk allowance was used up.
)9TSS
The Happy Hacking Keyboard is about the best new keyboard I've found. Good feel, no extra keys, remarkably small, but keys as big as an old IBM.
From their site:
- NO CAPS LOCK KEY
- NO WINDOWS KEY
- CTRL Key is in Right Position
- Full Size Key Pitch
They don't have any of those cutesy 'Shop on the Web' buttons that link you to long-dead dotcoms or even seperate number pad or arrow keys - this is a keyboard perfect for serious text editing. (Dare I say it? A real man's keyboard!)
If you've ever used one, you probably know what I'm talking about...
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
Small enter, big pipes
I think there's a lubricant you can get that will help with that...
(sorry.)
Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo
-- My Weblog.
How often does anyone, aside from people writing Nigerian mail scams, use the caps lock?
My friend, you've obviously never spent anytime on the AOL posting forums.
Not that that is a bad thing.
The thing with qwerty that bothers me the most is that it requires my fingers to dance over the keyboard all spidery, while dvorak only forces me to move my fingers once or twice per word. I worked as a translator one summer, typing all day long. After a while, my finger began aching. That's when I seriously began thinking of switching.
Look: some economic students want to badmouth dvorak and promote qwerty for some rather silly reasons having to do with economic theory. I don't care about that.
I've used qwerty for twelve years before I switched to dvorak. Now I use both (nothing but dvorak on my own computer, though). The switch wasn't that easy, but it was worth it. It took me a few days to learn it properly. (One of my friends learned it in one evening, though - she wrote freakishly fast almost right away.)
More and more people are hearing of dvorak from the internet or their friends, and some of them switch. I know several people IRL (living in my town) who uses dvorak. In the typewriter age, switching to dvorak is a difficult and expensive task. In the computer age, switching is a manner of typing "setxkbmap dvorak" in the nearest xterm. (Have an image of the new keyboard layout on your screen, and look at it instead of at the keys. Keep the fingers on the home row. If you like it (it takes about a month to be good, though), you can mod your keyboard or get a special one.)
Dvorak isn't the be-all and end-all of keyboards, but I think it's an improvement on qwerty, just as qwerty was an improvement on the abcde-style layouts before it.
Dvorak won't miraculously cure your RSI (although it did help against my finger-aches) or make you become the fastest typist in the world (although the fastest typist in the world did use dvorak).