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Qiuet Keyboards with Tactile Feedback?
zerOnIne asks: "Like many geeks I know, I love good old clicky mechanical tactile-feedback keyboards. I've got an IBM Model M (101 key) on the server, and a Linux CoolKeyboard on my desktop, and I wouldn't want to part with them. The problem is, though, that my wife and I live in a studio apartment, and my desk is necessarily right next to the bed alcove. This poses a problem on nights, like tonight, when I want to get some late-night hacking in, and she needs to get some sleep: my typing can rather loud if I get going. Is there a keyboard out there that can give me the mechanical feel of an IBM-101, but without the noise? As an aside note, whatever happened to the Linux CoolKeyboards company?"
If you ever find one.. let me know if it has the ability to give more violent feedback. Lord knows I'd like to shock people behind their keyboards for the silly or bad questions I get.
"I put a floppy in the front loading cdrom drive... and I can't get it out."
*zot*
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I know that when I'm at home, my dad can hear my hacking all through the night. He says that I've occasionally woken him up, from down the hall, with the typing. He doesn't hear the soda cans, waterbottle, or sweetbread runs, or the oft curse when something goes "HAHAHA Screw you!" and dies, but that typing. It's maddening.
Then I get yelled at. (*thud*)
Hooray for stealth, yet firm keyboards!
For a while, I had one of those flexi things. Y'know, the rubber ones, with the little like upright foodpad dealies. Worst. Keyboard. Ever. Silent, albeit, but if you pressed the little pad thing that was supposed to resemble a key on a keyboard, the rubber junction just sortof toppled over rather than actually pushing the actuator on the keypad. Freaking annoying.
Informatus Technologicus
You're getting a Tablet PC!
"And like that
Specifically, the newer black ones that come with the desktop systems.
The only keyboard that I've tried in the last 4 months that doesn't stick when I'm typing like mad (and doesn't cause any double-types). Quiet, yet responsive.
Alternately, you can try this puppy.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
That advertised as silent keyboard I was referring to: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fna me=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F003%5F010%5F002%5F0 00&product%5Fid=26%2D494. Yeah, it _WAS_ silent... but you couldn't type with it worth a damn!
Informatus Technologicus
where the title is misspelled! Will slashcode v 8.9 come with spellcheck?
http://www.naildrivin5.com/davec
The Customizer
It's made by the same guys who made those lovely clicking IBM keybords, and one of their models is (apparently) designed to give you a similar tactile feel but with less noise. (IIRC from my e-mails to/from one of their sales guys a few years back, they accomplished it by putting a noise-dampening shim into the spring).
Wouldn't it be great if the spellchecker interfaced with your keyboard to produce a shock whenever you misspelled a word?
True Click without the *Clack*
seems quite difficult to give the actual feedback without the sound. moreover, wouldn't the sound be an important factor in the feedback you speak about?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My Pismo, iBook2, and TiBook all have keyboards with excellent feedback and very little noise. I can't type well on anything else anymore, but that's OK, because everything else made my wrists hurt.
However, the sound created is rather tiny. The reason it sounds so loud is that the keyboard, especially the underside, acts as a soundboard. Lucky for your marital peace, you can deaden this effect to some degree.
- Place the keyboard onto some sort of mat, so the sound doesn't travel to the table.
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Attach foam or some other sound absorbing material to the back of the keyboard.
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Place sound absorbing materials around (and above) the computer area. Couch pillows are good for this sort of thing.
All of these things will affect the feedback you get from the keyboard. What I really suggest is that you spend time getting used to a different feeling keyboard, preferably USB so you can connect both at the same time.-Adam
Makes you think.. if an old ibm keyboard's key was depressed by a machine, and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound? :)
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
The IBM KB-9910 provides nice feel, but is pretty quiet. It's the keyboard that came with Netfinities/Aptivas in '99, '00, etc.
_sig_ is away
I use an Apple Pro Keyboard USB (the clear graphite one) on my Linux machine. My BIOS detects it, so I can use it to do BIOS setup as well. It's a great keyboard, and quiet as heck. The only issue I've had is X will map the Apple keys to the Windows keys, which is where my fingers expect to find the ALT keys. I did a quick re-map on them, though so all is well.
Hope this helps!
store
less info than their main page (which is apparently down), but it still gets the point across.
One day when I feel right about spending $50-$60 on a keyboard
I used to feel the same way, then someone asked me a profound question: What parts of the computer do you interact with the most?
the answer is the keyboard, the mouse and the monitor.
I contend that someone should spend a larger percentage of the computer cost on the keyboard and monitor. I love my logitec trackman wheel, and I love my old, IBM full clicky keyboard.
If I had to do it now, I'd spend money on one of those 'happy hacker' keyboards or something similar.
Zapman
I bought two keyboards from pckeyboard.com this past summer, and both of them failed within a month. One of them has several keys that don't register at all, the other has one key that doesn't click any more but still registers if you press it hard enough.
I sent back the one with many non-registering keys, and when it came back, none of them were fixed.
Given how much it costs to keep shipping keyboards back to the company, I've given up on it. It was a great idea, but the two keyboards I got don't work, and the company didn't fix them.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
If you have ever walked into a radio shack to touch on of these things, they are NOT a suitable replacement. The keys "squash" in unpredictable directions. The travel on the keys is more than the 101's 33mm. Plus the fact that the keyboard has no natural role (the upper part of the board is vertically higher than the lower), and one of the worst things, is there is no option of stands that allow you to raise the keyboard from the back. And one more thing... every time I see one now in a store, they are broke.
I'm so disappointed to hear this. As an incurable Model M bigot (indeed, typing at one right now), I've been recommending pckeyboard.com to people without having actually purchased any from them myself.
Now I'll just tell people to do what I do... buy the original IBM-branded ones used at computer shows. There are always some for sale cheap, and since they're damn near indestructable, they're a safe buy.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.
It's a smaller-than-normal keyboard, but the key layout is actually very sensible. I find that for programming, the keys I need most (shift, ctrl, alt, home, end, insert, delete and of course, return) are in the perfect positions. I also do a lot of gaming, and despite the smaller keyboard size it works great for that too. In addition, the tactile feedback is excellent. There's no annoying clicking sound, but there's just enough of a noise to let you (and only you) know that you've successfully hit a key. The keys also have a very light keypress so you don't strain your fingers, and yet at the same time the feedback is just right. It's actually kinda similar to a laptop keyboard in many respects.
Give it a shot. It's only $30 or so, and I think you'll really like it if you can get past the silly silver design.
You want the slashdot editors to die from electrocution don't you?
:)
thats pretty mean
Second, it doesn't have to be loud to have positive feedback. My Logitech keyboard has the exact same feedback as the old IBMs - that's why I bought it - but with less resistance and less key travel. This means I don't have to bang the keys as hard to register a press, so there's less noise.
Third, when you're looking at a keyboard, wiggle the keys around from side to side. Not only does this help select the keyboards that are probably poorly built, a lot of noise can come from the keys sliding around. It's not often that your fingers come down on a key perfectly straight: almost always, you're pushing a little to one side or the other. All keyboards have some looseness, but... well, in my case it was either "a lot" or "very little," with no keyboards in the middle ground. And you'd be surprised at some of the names (and prices) that have a lot of looseness in the keys.
I'm using a usb type 6 on my pc right now. It's definitely my favorite keyboard.The only downside was having to patch XFree86 for it to understand the extra keys.
that's what I've saying for years. my stoopid assfriends never understood why it was worth it to spend another 30-50 bucks on a better monitor, or to pay 40 bucks for a nice mouse/trackball.
now those jackasses are buying wrist straps and coke bottle glasses.
You clearly have never been married.
-Peter
Shame they are not made any more ... at least I was able to a buy a couple surplus before they became unobtainium. Check out here
for the specs.
hah! let's see you find a decent apartment in downtown Boston next to a major university for a good price ;)
09
not sure exactly what to do with that one, but at my last job we had an old IBM-101 (it was even the 10-lb XT model with the detatchable cord) out on the production floor ... after 10 years of abuse and crud buildup, a couple of the keys started to stick a little ... one of the engineers ran the whole thing (no taking it apart) through the de-ionized water vat ... that keyboard came out as if it were brand new ... it even clicked like new :) ... turns out that the only real problem with it was that the crud had built up so much that it was physically hindering the downward motion of the keys ... so if you've got a de-ionized water wash someplace around, it'd probably help at least get any extra crud out :)
09
I'm looking for a keyboard, too. Specifically, one that mimics the incredible feel of the keyboard that came with the IBM PS/2 Model P70. It was a 80386 running at 20MHz and came with a gas plasma display that tilted out. It was called a portable computer, and that was being generous as it had to run on A/C and weighed about 20 pounds!
The keyboard had a very light touch but never missed a key press on me. My fingers just FLEW along that keyboard! At the end of the day, I had not even a hint of fatigue from typing, either. It was the best keyboard I've ever used in 30 years of programming, and I've worked on everything from mainframes and minis to PCs. Heck, I started with a teletype which had a built-in accoustically coupled modem that we used to dial up a DEC PDP-8!
If anyone ever made a keyboard like that which I could use with my PC today, I'd buy up several in a heartbeat!
I totally agree with you - the majority of the flexible keyboards do exhibit the odd behavior you mention.
There is, however, a small flexible keyboard - sold at CompUSA and maybe other places - black, round keys, that doesn't.
UNFORTUNATELY it has 5 keys that send a space character (all various sizes), two delete keys, one backspace key, and none of them in pleasant places or sizes. [all the deletes are normal small sized in slightly-odd locations, the return is the old style L flipped, except it's only half as wide as you'd expect]
damned thing. I bought it hoping that the keys sent different keycodes and I could tweak something out of it - no dice. Still good in a pinch - if you suddenly need a usb keyboard - which rarely is of any use in the server room without forethought.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
No,
MY spelling is so shit I can use it as a signiture.
Keep the spelling mistakes in, it should help remind you exactly what you were thinking about at the time you wrote whatever.
A document without spelling mistakes is like a document with no life in it.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I was looking around online for the Happy Hacker keyboard recently and I can't find them for sale anywhere. The links to the manufacturer that I found were all dead. Is there any place to purchase these?
Lasers Controlled Games!
I want a NOISY keyboard that has a good tactile feedback and mechanical click response as you press a key. I find that I get much better WPMs out of those types of keyboards. But they are darn hard to find nowadays, and I have to go to surplus/vintage computer stores to get them.
...is the original ADB keyboard that came with the old Power Computing Mac clones. Very lightweight, a nice snap to the keys, etc, and a rounded-bottomed space bar (very comfy).
:)
Power Computing is out of business now, but MacAlly makes USB clones of their old keyboards now for the Mac market. As mentioned previously in the thread, you can remap the keys however you like them, and they're BIOS supported.
They're very, very quiet -- very comfortable and have satisfying feedback.
You may need to test a couple of them though before buying, though. I own several and one of them (a Bondi model, FWIW) feels "soft" when typing.
I actually installed one of these on my token WinBox (eMachines: loudest keyboard EVER, but great feedback, ala old IBMs) for the same reason you mention -- becuase my girlfriend playing that word-scramble game on Shockwave.com was driving me completely batshit while I was trying to code.
MacAlly has a couple of other 'boards with additional features -- I'm eager to try the IceKey.
MacAlly stuff is generally carried in your local CompUSA in the Mac section, so you should be able to test drive one.
Don't be afraid to take it out of the box and play with one if it's not on display. CompUSA employees are generally scared of Mac people and won't say a word, if they are even brave enough to come near the section.
. . .
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