halfgeek asks:
"I was just considering how keyboard-centric I've managed to make my setup, even under the mouse-hungry Windows GUI (no shouting; I regularly SSH to my Linux routing box for experiments, bring up VMWare when I need some X, and can't live without Cygwin). Almost everything I would want to do can be done without moving a hand to the mouse. I can open up an SSH to my server with Win+Shift+V, bring up a calculator with Win+C, run a one-shot console command with Win+0, open up the MW dictionary website to a highlighted word by hitting Ctrl+C (to copy) and then Win+Enter (to look up the contents of the clipboard). (Much of this is implemented with Perl programs and WinKey.) I also make frequent use of the volume knob and mute button built into my Logitech keyboard. If there is any good route to finding the keyboard I want with all the features I'm thinking of at a justifiable price, whether prefabricated or a wicked mod, I would just love to know about it." There are quite a few options the submitter is looking for, but it basically boils down to is this: the more keys, the better. What keyboards have you found, in your browsing travels, that have been stuffed full of useful features?
"I'm aggravated over having the mouse still so separate from the keyboard, and I've been looking through the available options along the lines of keyboards with built-in touchpads. The closest I've found to what I want seems to be the Adesso WKB-120, but this is by no means the ideal choice. It does have three basic properties I want: One, it doesn't have the ergo-split form I so despise. Two, its touchpad is situated in the right place, just below the space bar. Three, it's all one piece, so I can keep the board off the desk and on my knees, where it belongs, eh. But it also appears to have those three intensely undesirable and horribly misplaced power management keys, and lacks the volume knob, mute button, and media controls. An illuminated keyboard would also be cool, but I'd take standard beige; it's just that my current black keyboard is hard to see in the dark."
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I love when I hear about people trying to get rid of the mouse. I like it, but I feel much more handy using the keyboard and shortcuts. Hurray to you, sir!
Then lets see whose mouse will run rings around you.
I love my trackpoint (nipple) pointer that juts up in the middle of my keyboards - while it's not as accurate as a mouse or even trackpad, it's good enough to click on links or select the words/fields I need, with an absolute minimum of movement - I hate having to move my thumb down to a trackpad on a laptop, and then having to move it ALL the way across its surface a few times to get what I want.
I lament how trackpoints are disappearing off laptop keyboards these days.
Nice standard wide space bar, without the never-used Windows keys
Backslash above a regular-height enter key (no double-high enter key with the backslash in any of 5 other locations).
Standard layout, not the "think before you hit every key" (un)natural keyboard.
The superior tactile click of the IBM keyboard from the PC-AT era. I don't think these are around any more, and nothing still even comes close.
If there is one thing that should be standard, it is a keyboard layout. Extras are fine, as long as they are outside of the regular key area, which should be left alone. It is pretty unreasonable to have to learn different touch typing for different keyboards: the basics should stay the same. Nothing more frustrating than trying to hit the blackslash and then realizing it is one of those perverse Logitech or E-One keyboards that has "more enter key" where the backslash is.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
PCKeyboard, who own the rights to the venerable IBM high-tactile keyboards (aka "the wing of death").
They also have myriad options and some extremely programmable/configurable keyboards.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
"I lament how trackpoints are disappearing off laptop keyboards these days"
I recall seeing the first "touchpads" appearing after being used to all kinds of Toshiba's and Thinkpad's with little rubber eraser trackpoints.
I was told that Toshiba owned the trackpoint technology, and charged a lot for it, so it was cheaper to put touchpads in laptops.
Touchpads would not be so bad if not for the "missfire glitch" where bumping the pad with your thumb acts like a mouse click. I've lost many lines of text due to this problem. In most, you can turn this off. I can't imagine why anyone would want a stray finger movement to fire off mouseclicks like this. IMHO, you should click something when you want to click a mouse button.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
I use a keyboard from Focus Electronic called the FK-8200
I sincerly regret not waiting for the FK-9200 to become available, since it has a trackball in the center of the keyboard.
This keyboard is great.. it has a built in calculator, a clock with batteries for when the machine is off, and 12 macro keys that can be mapped to just about anything..
Buttsex.
"get a Mac. OS X has an option for touchpad clicking"
I think it is more a situation of the hardware driver for the pad itself than the actual OS. In any case, no need to go Mac just to avoid the problem: most Wintel/LinAMD/whatever laptops and notebooks allow you to turn it off these days.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
There is only one keyboard, the Model M. All others are false pretenders.
Repeat after me: Model M - the one true keyboard. All hail Model M.
Model M
If you turn over your keyboard and find that it does not say Model M on the bottom, you are not a true human being.
It's not hard to find your own. Ebay lists them all the time. I pulled 12 of them out of an insurance company dumpster last year.
Model M!
I like the ideas---I, too, have a Logitech keyboard (specifically, the Cordless Elite Duo) with volume, mute, etc. keys built in, and several shortcuts set up in (at least) a similar way.
Other than the volume and mute, and the wheel on the left side, though, I find the many additional buttons along the top almost as distracting as a mouse. Right now, they're essentially all mapped to different websites, and I still have to look at them and pick out the right one before hitting it.
Maybe it's because of too much Emacs, but I don't even think about my ctrl- or alt- keystrokes.
Don't get me wrong, I love your ideas; out of curiosity, have you tried using all the "miscellaneous" buttons and specifically liked those better?
Christian Jones
Medicine. Mathematics. Mediocrity.
Here's a couple to start with:
The first Macintosh. I think Apple was so awestruck with the new idea of the GUI that it looks like the keyboard was a mere afterthought with the the first Mac. What they ended up including was designed to encourage mouse-usage; with its heavy-force keystroke requirements and its almost rudimentary nature.
the Atari 400
Anyone remember saving $400 over the price of the full-keyboard Atari 800 by getting one of these things? It spawned a cottage industry of replacement keyboards.
TRS-80 Color Computer. The keyboard on the "ColorTRaSh" was eventually improved, but the earlier models had Fisher-Price written all over.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Are you insane? I don't care for Windows, but it is the most advanced mouseless UI there is. You can do everything without even having a mouse plugged in at all. The same cannot be said for gnome/kde or X in general. Granted, Windows is decidedly not a CLI, like your ssh sessions, but it's still the best there is if you don't like to use a mouse.
I recall reading something about how some beta of windows 95 or NT 3.x failed a DOD acceptance test because a lot of it depended on the mouse, so Microsoft spent considerable time making it work fine in case of mouse failure.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
I know what you mean. When I'm not getting my arms bloody up to the elbows gutting innocent homeless people, I attend the opera and donate 0.5% of my income to the church, so I'm ok.
a good roundup of fancy keyboards here
Good lord, man! Listen to all your complicated specifications! I especially like the last one, whinging about how your current keyboard is black and that makes it hard to see in the dark. Want a super-1337 keyboard but can't touch type, eh? What are you doing that could possibly justify a ultra-custom keyboard? Oh, never mind, it appears you are adjusting the volume of your PC sound system, even muting it! Wow, it is pretty important to be able to do that quickly and efficiently, as it directly affects your productivity writing Perl scripts to automate tasks that each take 1/100,000th of the time it takes to produce the script. Clearly, you are planning for a future of repetitive, yet complex computing tasks that require more than a mere conventional keyboard and mouse interface. I advise that you begin working as hard as you can, nights and weekends, on the construction of a complete super keyboard system. Ultimately, it should be scriptable enough that you will just write a master script that performs all your daily work for you by invoking other scripts. And how will this master script be triggered? With a single button, my friend, a single button.
Actually, I'll write the master script for you, it shouldn't be all that complex.
ExtremeTech has a story Keyboard Craziness and Mouse Madness has a few interesting keyboards and mice beyond the ordinary.
New is also this article about a keyboard without a keyboard.
Didn't you hear - I come in Six Packs
Slightly off-topic....
:)
I have a USB keyboard (an ACER 6511-uv) with some extra buttons along the top, but I don't have software to use them. I also have Compaq laptop with some extra buttons, that has awful software. Does anyone know of a program that will allow me to assign my own programs to those extra (non-standard) buttons?
Both windows and linux solutions accepted...
Thanks...
I'd just like to mention I can do all of what you've said without a fancy keyboard or magic software, save one plugin for winamp.
For my SSH / Command / Calculator I use any of the following,
Win, R, Enter, Then one of the following
putty -ssh
calc
command
I can even start up winamp using a shortcut placed in the windows dir pointing to the exe, named winamp. Also for putty, I just copied the exe to the win dir as well.
For mousing I use the built in Mouse key's, converting the num-pad to mouse directions. 2k and XP have this naturally.
For volume I use Winamp Shortcutter. It adds functionality to use Ctrl-Shift for the standard winamp functions. I don't use WMP, or Winamp v3.
Now, admittedly my keyboard is fancy, it has three buttons between the numbad and the other keys. Below the del/ins/etc buttons, above the arrow keys. One for browser, One for email client, and one for searchign (i.e. F3, useless)
So, one doesn't really need a mystical creature of a keyboard for added functionality.
Computational Madness in a round package.
don't seem to be trackballs on laptops either these days.
perhaps a nice spinnable optical one on the left or right swappable would be nice
A blog I run for the wealth
I have used many keyboards of my time, the PCjr chicklet keyboard, the mushy non springed Atari 1040STFM Keyboard, the IBM PS/2 keyboard (which I love the tactile feeling) and the keyboard I am tying on, a el-cheapo fujitsu... I figure why spend a fortune on a keyboard, as long as it feels good (which this keyboard I like the feel) .. sure it has lame windows keys, but in the end if you gum it up or spill your pop on it its only a throw away. I laff at people that still want to buy keyboard condoms when the price of the keyboard is cheaper than the condom. Has anyone seen what the condoms look like after a long life?? considering we use condoms once people try to make that piece of molded plastic work forever, I think they'd be better off buying a new keyboard a year rather than investing in the condom. As to all these stupid shortcut keys, they are gay, we have enuf shortcuts, let alone keys to do things... Its bad enuf that my laptop has these keys, and that my girlfriend insisted that I migrate her microsoft keyboard so she can hit the 'calculator' button when she wants the calculator up --- barf.. one key email --- barf.. I mean maybe if they produced something functional like a 'hold your hand feature (cause if you need the shortcut keys you might aswell have that feature aswell) ' then I might buy one with shortcut keys... Maybe the only features I consider useful is usb hubs, and cordless ones.
Does anybody know how to get all those extra keys (volume, forward, back, search, my computer, calculator, etc) to do something useful under linux?
PI Engineering make a range of rather nifty "keyboard extenders" for all those keyboard macros. I've got my eyes on an X-Keys "Stick" or two, but want the USB version which has been "coming soon" for a few months now, so should be imminent. The only drawback is that the management software utility is Windows only, although you can still program the keys directly or use a Windows PC and then tranfer the keyboard to a Mac/*NIX box. Since you have Windows anyway that shouldn't be a major problem in your case though. They seem open to developing custom solutions though, so *might* be prepared to provide the info necessary to develop a *NIX version of the programming tool. In my experiences with programmable keyboards however that's only really of use to people who need to either bulk program the things or flip between application specific macro sets.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
"And so far, I haven't found a decent file manager which clones Windows Explorer."
I don't find Windows Explorer to be that decent; I avoid using it except when I have to. Typically, I can start a DOS session, cd, run or copy the file, and exit out of the session int he time it takes just to start Windows Explorer and start the maddening hunt-and-squint to find the files to work with.
there's lineak however the year old verion i use (0.3.2) stops working not long after being loaded. 0.5 probably works a lot better.
The later versions of the Pet had standard keyboards - it made the Pet into a good, usable computer.
Logitech. Logitech makes the highest quality mouses and keyboards. This discounts special purpose mouses and keyboards like digitizers and those keyboards that can withstand being tossed in the crack of doom. I reccomend you get whatever the current ultra elite super cordless mouse-keyboard wireless combo is. I believe the current one has a mouse that sits in a cradle a recharges when you aren't using it. That's a good thing if you don't use it often.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I miss the old laptops with trackballs, man, those were great. You had speed, precision, and all of it came in one tiny package. I mean, take an MS ergo keyboard, put a trackball in the middle, three buttons below it, and you'd have one SWEET keyboard, especially if it's the new M$ Wireless ergo keyboard.
'nuf said.
I repeatedly drool over Touchstream keyboards. I can't justify the expense, but the entire keyboard is a touch-sensitive surface (like those laptop glide pads), and has an absurd number of macro functions (including ones for emacs).
I find these a joy to use, and although they don't have a built-in trackpad, they have a load more function keys down the left-hand side which you could program to perform whatever functions you like. These work fine under Linux, and I'm assuming they can be made to work with Windows too :)
Also, they have Super/Hyper/Meta modifier keys, so you'll have a load more keys you can use for your bindings that way too (no windows keys though, but I'm sure you could use one of the extra modifier keys as such if you so wished).
cygwin now has a usable X server for windows, so VMware is a little excessive. Just ssh into your other machine and export X to your windows machine. (Putty has X forwarding that works if your ssh client doesn't provide support for it)
There's a few nuance/quirks, but far less than VMware
I just want a keyboard without a caps lock. I break it off my PCs, Suns, and Xterminal so I don't hit it when I aim for the shift key. Really ruins a Unix CLI.
With an Apple II, the keyboard had all the features of, well, an Apple II.
Hallelujah, Brother!!!!
I have read the Model M postings with great interest, having used nothing else for over 5 years now. I used to go through keyboards like toilet paper - coffee spills, drops, and just plain cheap quality would insure it! No more - I found 3 Model M keyboards (including 2 half size models without the numeric keypad - Excellent!) in thrift stores, and I have NEVER looked back. These things were made in an era when QUALITY, DURABILITY, and RELIABILITY actually meant something - not just words on an advertising brochure. Coffee spills? Drops? Dust and Dirt? Pr0n induced spoojing? Don't make me laugh! These keyboards laugh off abuse that would obliterate mere mortal boards. During a recent move, one of my precious Model M's went flying out the back of my pickup truck - bounced 3 times on the street (scattering keycaps) and came to a sliding asphalt stop. Retrieving it, I gathered the keycaps and re-assembled it. It still works great!
All hail the ruler - the undisputed champion of the keyboard gladiatorial arena! Model M! Model M! Model M!
P.S. The half size version carries IBM part number 1391472, if anyone is interested. Truly an excellent keyboard - and takes up less deskspace!
Government is the monopoly on the legal (socially accepted) use of coersive force. Think about this next time you vote.
I bought a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard a couple years ago. I can touch type and I actually find that my touchtyping speed improves with ergonomic.
Anyways....
On the upper rt corner is a key marked 'sleep'.
Should have been marked 'Blue Screen of Death' cause that is what it caused.
At the time I had an awful computer desk and the only way I could really get things done was with the keyboard on my lap. I can not tell you how many times the upper right corner would find it's way underneath the desk and then.... BLAM BSOD time.
You would think I could turn that feature off somewhere, in the bios, inside windows, in the keyboard drivers. But I never found anything.
Finally one day I had had all I could take and I could take no more.
I pulled out a phillips head and an exacto knife.
Someone was getting surgery.
I opened up the keyboard and examined the button and the circuit pads. I decided my best bet was to physicaly cut the rubber button out of the rubber pad.
That sleep button? Not a problem no'mo.
I can not for the life of me remember its name.
It was in a pawn shop. I guess the original musician that owned it must have realised its faster to write things down by hand than use computers for writing music, if you are musicaly literate. Maybe he got wise to how much better Mac was for music notation back in the late 1980s.
Anyway that was the funkiest keyboard setup I have ever seen. Maybe the best thing possible would be an interface that alows the mouse to remap the keyboard on demand for program functions. You know a picture of the keyboard layout on the screen while a program runs, with function call tracking and remapping. It would be hard to impliment for proprietary ware binary fixed macros.
I am sure the Windows programmers at Microsofts Old Spaghetti Factory in Redmond could create one for us for the right dollars.
There is limited keyboard remapping in XP, guess thats why it runs like a dog on 128 of ram after you customise it!
At least if you do not like the macro choices in Open Software you can easily find and change them, then recompile the source. Then if it breaks the flow you can db the glitch, if your good at that sort of thing.
If you are really good then you can pipe in new macros to functions etc.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
The controls are in the Power control panel. Under "When I press the sleep button". Also, the BSoD problem is probably your OS and not the keyboard itself.
I guess this should take care of both kinds of keyboards... OpenSynth eKo
Made with massively parallel wetware.
Sorry, as nice as the 'M' is, there is no comparison to a Northgate Omnikey, especially the Ultra .
I still have one. It weighs over 10 pounds, so it doesn't move. The feel of the keys is heavenly - perfect amount of force to depress, and a wonderful click when you do. All the keys are where they should be, including a superior diamond pattern for the cursor keys.
If you haven't used one, you don't know what you're missing. Northgates are still the golden standard for anyone who knows.
jonathan
All hail Thinkgeek, they have some crazy keyboards, built in gesturing, zero force w/ gestures, even ones with customizable sections. They seem a bit pricey however, and theres a bit of a learning curve for zero force and gestures, but they may be what your looking for.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
anyone know of a split "ergonomic" style keyboard with ibm style clicky keys?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I love your biting sarcasm, SMARTEY MAN.
You make it sound as if this is a productivity issue. It really isn't. It might be someday, when I'm out of college and unemployed with my useless CS degree, frantically tweaking resumes. It's really more of a combination between the "I like inventing shiny toys" problem and the "I don't feel like leaning forward to mess with my speakers" problem. I can touch type, but some of my less frequently used Winkey shortcuts haven't exactly been committed to muscle memory. In any case, my eyes provide a much more "efficient" realignment to home than do the ridges on F and J, LOLOLO ROFFLE, and my observation about the blackness of the keyboard is simply an acknowledgement of a previous buying mistake. Actually, buying the cordless set was probably a mistake... I'm constantly replacing batteries but seldom exploit the cordlessness. The volume knob and mute button are in fact the only media keys on my board I ever really use. I might use play, pause, et cetera, but they invariably open the wrong application. And I write the scripts because I am a frequently bored programmer who enjoys an intellectual challenge more than a mundane physical motion. I actually started programming today to figure out the Win32 mixer API (the volume and mute parts) so I could write my own controls program, maybe controllable with some momentary-close switches rigged into ripped-open Gravis pad, or some more shortcut combinations. To some degree, it's hack for the sake of hack.
Read my post again. Do I really sound whiny? If so, it's only because it doesn't quite make sense to me that almost every special keyboard out there only has one extra feature, and hardly any have two. And I don't mean to whine about it, because it's not killing me to make all the mouse motions (most of which are only necessary because of bad programming by people who don't bother to program key sequences). I just like to have the power to do something about it, you know?
By the way, if you still insist that this is a productivity issue, I want you to know that writing this stuff in Perl is ridiculously easy and my MW script saves me a whole ten impatient seconds every time the thought crosses my mind to look up a word I haven't seen in a while or to clarify a meaning or pronunciation. Trust me, it happens ridiculously often.
Man, this FK-9200 looks like exactly, exactly what I want. If it isn't the last one I try, it'll at least be the first. Thanks a zillion for the tip!
While someone else is asking about keyboards. I may as well throw out what I've been searching for also (almost the complete opposite): Optional items are marked with an *. 1) 100% silent SOFT TOUCH -- almost a breeze could set it off, but NOT touchless or gesture (they drive me insane). 2) NO EXTRA KEYS. I want the normal keyset without any of those crappy windows add-on keys. *3) Wireless (preferably with a beeper on its stand so I can hit the button and the keyboard BEEPS at me to tell me where it's at. I have a bad habbit of losing wireless keyboards) 4) NO always-on LIGHTS! And definitely no lights that are ever always on except when capslock/numlock/scroll lock is actually on. 5) Split Key/Ergonomic 6) Full Sized 7) DURABLE!!! It had better last me more than 1 year, or have a really good warranty with a reliable company. (I type way too much) *8) Dvorak/Qwerty Swappable (hardware, not software, so yes, one extra button or key combo on the keyboard for swapping between dvorak and qwerty layouts) I had my dream keyboard once, but it died after 4 years. It was basically the filaments inside a normal keyboard, rollable, and had a slight bubble for all the keys and the home row was in braille. It was also swappable between Dvorak and QWERTY. It was extremely light touch, if I blew on it it'd type (once in a while a problem, but rarely). I loved it, but the company had gone out of business since the time I'd purchased it (I believe they went out of business in 98 or so). The really nice thing about the keyboard was that it was really thin, but came with a gel-pad that you could mold to any shape you want and put underneath it, it slowly conformed to a shape that matched your typing patterns over time and essentially became ergonomic just for you. Ok, I'll go back to dreaming for a keyboard I love now. I'm tired of loud clicky keyboards and have no idea why anyone would ever want one with a "nice solid keystroke" -- sorry, but that's not for me (I love silent laptop keyboards, but they tend to be too cramped). Anyway, soft touch makes a huge difference w/ my carpal tunnel *groan*.
I've been reading Slashdot for a while (and only relatively recently registered a username), and I've made a futile effort to be a voice of reason in multiple Perl vs. Python vs. Everything Else flame wars. This is also a technical challenge for my own amusement...
Paranoia makes it easy to take offense to something not truly intended to be offensive. Every day I stay in my room I lose a little more touch with reality. Man, I gotta get some friends.
But, yes, life is good, PYFGCRL typist. Pretty awfully good. Ciao.
These were great back when they were still being made. I'm sure they were sold under other names, but this is the only one I still remember. Everything fully programmable, including macros, 8way arrow pad with space in the center, and double set of function keys, both across the top and down the left side. Since you could assign any key to any value you wanted or a macro, you could make them do whatever you want. I used to reprogram them to dvorak before I gave up on it. Sometimes you run into these in the used parts bins for $10 at computer shows.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
I think a dab of epoxy would've been a heck of a lot simpler and just as effective.
I had an older keyboard (10 years ago) that put a larger trackball on the right of the number pad and the 3 "mouse keys" on the bottom left of the keyboard. It was by far the best layout I've ever run across. Very natural to use and was great for playing Doom.
It's key was the split of the trackball and the mouse buttons. The right hand pointed the cursor and the left hand did the clicking. If someone would introduce one of those again with an Ergo keyboard, I'd pay $500 easily.
Illuminated Keyboard Check out www.eluminx.com
Come on, everyone knows that guitars get the chicks :D