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A Condensed History Of The Keyboard
An anonymous reader points to this overview of old (good) keyboards versus the cheap and nasty kind which begins "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's which allowed 'em to be thrown off a 3-story building and still work - barely dented. Yes those were the days." Not a lot of new information, but some good visuals.
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's 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!
This article really entails two things: The history of the Universal or QWERTY keyboard layout and a comparison between BS and Membrane technology used today in keyboards, one of the most used interfaces to the computer at present.
QWERTY keyboards are known as Universal keyboards - they are the standard by which keyboard manufacturers produce their keyboards today. It was named this due to the q,w,e,r,t,y pattern in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard. QWERTY was originally designed by Christopher Sholes to slow typing down.
Wait a second why would we be using a keyboard layout made to slow us down? Let's look back before keyboards - typewriting. In 1868 Christopher Latham Sholes was awarded the operative patent for the typewriter. After receiving this patent, Sholes still had many 'bugs' to work out, and spent a good deal of time with the machine, working out the kinks. One of the kinks in the machine was key jamming, which was prone to happen often and could hurt the machine. If a typist typed two letters one after the other too quickly, the hammers would hit each other; the typist then had to dislodge the hammers and that could get a bit messy. So, Sholes came up with a keyboard layout that would place letters which would be most likely struck closely in succession on opposite sides of the layout.
Eventually, due to the ability to touch type with QWERTY efficiently [first demonstrated when in a typing contest a QWERTY typist managed to type quicker than someone on a stenograph-styled machine] it became the standard.
In 1936, August Dvorak patented his Simplified Keyboard - DSK. It was designed to balance the load of typing more evenly - those letters, which would be stricken most, would be under the strongest fingers. The credibility of the claims that the Dvorak is faster is outside the scope of this article. If one is truly interested, I recommend reading an informative article at: http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html. However I do believe that Dvorak perhaps is the better layout - although due to my experience with QWERTY I still stick with it. For those of you who think Dvorak is a legacy item no longer used, you will all be pleased to know that all windows versions greater than 3.11 are Dvorak compliant, and a simple setting can change the layout setting.
On to the Keyboards!
To this day I still use the IBM Model M keyboard. This keyboard was released with the original IBM PS/2 computer. It is known for it's weight, feedback, and distinctive keystroke sound. There are some Model M's which are branded by Lexmark on the back - Lexmark bought the design from IBM in the late 1980s.
Model M's are 101 key keyboards, and still comply with all ps/2 requirements [read on for Pentium 4 possible incompatibilities and fixes.] What makes this keyboard so special?
The first aspect that is most obvious upon actually typing is the sound and feel of the keyboard. There is a noticeable and quite prominent 'click' which is not as high pitched as some Chiconey keyboards (which are quite nice too,) the sound is not soft and mushy. The Model M's keys also have a bit of resistance to them - not so that it's hard to push them down, but just a tad bit more pressure is needed to fully depress a key. Now, for those of you up late at night, or up in the wee hours of the morning, perhaps this is a disadvantage for you. Also, many people prefer not to hear the keystroke - companies like Dell, IBM, and hundreds of others have manufactured (or sub-contracted other companies) to make quiet keyboards. Let's take a look at why these keyboards are quiet, and w
Why do I h8 apple?
Mirror here for the PS/2 modification for operation with some p4 motherboards
-dk
I don't know about the rest of you, but I enjoy the quiet touch of my laptop's keyboard while I'm coding... its so much easier to fly across the keys without having to slam each one home... just my opinion
Go to ebay type in IBM Model M in the search. buy keyboard. or search your local goodwill/Salvation army stores. I've got two, both from goodwill. like a rock.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
WRONG!...it was designed to reduce the jamming of hammers BY slowing the typists down.
Just another day in Paradise
Check out www.pckeyboard.com - they have it all! I bought a lexmark mini-clikey-key keyboard a few years ago and I'll probably buy another pretty soon.
________________________________________
I loved mine and I am still looking for one of those old clickity clackity huge heavy monsters with their wonderous tactile feedback feel.
Anyone else in the same boat?
At least I still have my Logitech 3 button mouse.
What is your favorite keyboard type?
moo
...was made by Wyse, attached to a Wyse 286 PC I used at work many years ago. It had neither an XT nor a PS/2 connector; instead, it attached via a modular phone (RJ-11) style connector. It had a very light touch and a nice sound. I wish I could get one for my G4.
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
Google cache of the article how to modify an old IBM keyboard to work on a new P4 computer.
I had no such problems though. Maybe it's because I have an Athlon...
When the windows key was invented.
What a coincidence -- I actually had to take my work KB (a new IBM mush-model similar to the one in the article) apart to fix it Monday because the 'p' key was getting less and less reliable, and my typing was steadily getting worse.
When I popped the 'p' key off and looked underneath, the rubber contact mat was off center, like it had been stretched underneath so the contact didn't line up under the key. I pulled a few screws, blew out the dust and the rubber spring mat that lies on the contacts was misaligned by, like, 1/4 inch in areas. I pulled it off and tried to re-align it properly when I realized that the plastic/mylar/whatever contact sheet on the bottom wasn't flat either - like a rug that wasn't quite cut the correct shape for a room, there was a hump in it. I loosened the screws around the contacts to the PCB and I was able to then flatten the contact sheet and retighten, then realign the rubber springmat and reassemble.
Voila! Perfect. I want to point out three things.
1) It's still not a model M. If you find an old one GET IT, even if it's missing a few keys. Your neighbors' neighbors will hate all the clicking, but your fingers will be very, very happy. I personally have one of these as well as an original Northgate Omnikey Ultra purchased by me from Northgate Inc. in 1990 which was in use until March of this year. I replaced it because I bought a new PC and wanted a wireless KB. Every collector's shelf should have a Northgate on it, too.
2) This new IBM has way more contacts inside than keys. I realize this is so they can produce one electronic assembly to support 15 languages, but I wonder what the other contacts would do if I hit them. Maybe I'll get bored later today.
3) IBM's subassembly quality control has really hit the can. I realize this is a $5 keyboard, which by its design expects a certain number of defects, but if you could see how badly aligned the springmat was in this thing... SHEESH!
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
I've got one of the keyboards mentioned in the article--specifically, the 101-key Customizer, from www.pckeyboard.com. It weighs about five pounds, and feels like it could be used to bash in an intruder's head if necessary. Plus, it doesn't have Windows keys, which is a boon when I'm gaming--no more accidentally dumping me out to the desktop during heated Battlefield 1942 matches!
It's buckling-spring and loud as hell, though it doesn't sound quite the same as a Model M. Still key response is crisp and exactly matches what I want out of a keyboard. It is easily the best computer-related purchase I have ever made. After all, what part of your computer do you physically interact with every time you sit down?
Logitech makes a pretty good keyboard, too. I picked one up after deciding that the split ergonomic keyboard I'd been using 1) sucked and 2) was making my wrists and hands hurt more. I'm on a logitech flat keyboard now and am loving it. It's nice and clicky, stands up to abuse and I can type about a third faster on it.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A few weeks ago I killed my Ortek keyboard. It wasn't a great keyboard; it had the "silent" mushy-keys and plenty of useless "internet" and "media" chiclet buttons. The Enter key broke and I'd fastend it with a small screw (which surprisingly didn't interfere with typing). It died in the most cliched way possible: direct coffee spillage.
The same day I drove down to Office Max to get an emergency keyboard. Everything was pretty much worthless, even compared to my old keyboard. I finally settled on a Logitech media keyboard solely on the feel of it.
I used it for about a day, then heard someone commenting on IBM Model M and Northgate keyboards. I remembered the little worthless 486 test server I had sitting in my closet, and remembered the keyboard attached to it was a Northgate. I walked over and pressed the keys...click click. Smiled, grabbed AT-to-PS/2 adapter, and replaced the new Logitech.
I'll never go back. In fact, I surprised I used anything else, because that old keyboard used to be my main keyboard back in the day. When it dies, I'll get an Avant Stellar, which is a remake of the original Northgate using the original design documents and manufacturing processes.
Every key has a perfectly balanced snap action. It provides just the right amount of force before the key clicks in, and once you hear the click you know the key has been pressed. It might sound like someone with a clicky keyboard is really pounding on it, but ideally it allows you to flit over the keyboard without having to mash every key down to the bottom to ensure it was pressed. You learn to hear each keypress, and can often catch an accidental extra letter by ear.
And now you know why all the old laptops had a "key-click" noisemaking feature, sometimes in the BIOS.
...
A year ago, I got myself a Kinesis Contoured keyboard. It took me two weeks and a couple of hours of TuxTyping to get used to it, but since then it's great. I've never had any real RSI, but the Kinesis makes you sit more comfortable. You sit with straight arms; horizontally as well as in a straight angle.
It's quite expensive, though. :-/
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
"What we need are the _[]x window buttons on the keyboard so that we can minimize, maxamize and close windows with 1 push of a keyboard button."
In Windows:
Alt-Space N
Alt-Space X
Alt-F4
I recently bought a Model-M for work. It's brand new (but was built in 1999, as can be seen from the sticker on the back).
www.pckeyboard.com sells them. If they are out of IBM model-Ms you can buy buckling spring keyboards made by unicomp. For an extra 5$ you can get "cap and stem" which is removable keycaps.
When I bought from unicomp it was a pleasure. They keyboard arrived very quickly.
There\'s no place like ~
I've used many keyboards since of course, and whilst I seem to have settled on Microsoft keyboards these days I still haven't found anything nicer than the ancient Apple. Co-incidently (or not, as the case may be...) the keyboard on the 12" Powerbook is also extremely nice.
Cheers,
Ian
Check out the Logitech Elite there at the top. Best keyboard made.
Alternatively, if you just need something simple for office use, or to purchase in volume, the Mitsumi KFK-EA4XT is a solid no-frills keyboard. I use it on all my secondary systems.
The unofficial
Have a look at http://www.pckeyboard.com/.
.au but euh... I wasn't happy with the price. I've asked them again, maybe the price has dropped a little bit.
Asked them one time how much it costs to get one shipped to
bash$
I'm utterly amazed that in the 14 replies thus far, nobody's given you the right answer.
If you want a true, original IBM PC keyboard then go here. They make the originals, complete with massive weight and key klacking, plus modified versions that have the Windows key, integrated mouse, college mascot/color inspired ones, quiet versions, etc... yes, they're pricy by modern day keyboard standards, but if you want a keyboard that will live somewhat longer than all of your descendants there's no other option.
I actually have two original IBM PS/2 keyboards, bought from used computer stores nearby... but the noise annoyed the hell out of my wife and I recently switched to a Memorex multimedia keyboard. It's really not all that bad, and every once in a great while I even remember to use some of the extra keys on it.
Apparently you can find them for sale, albeit in limited quantities, here (as well as on eBay, natch).
There's a site all about the thing at www.modelm.org, but I can't get to the server right now, so here's a Google cache instead.
You obviously never had to type on a grid keyboard. If you're built like the average human, when the fingers of both hands on the keyboard, the arms are at an angel (45 to 60 degree) relative to the keyboard.
Staggering the keys allows you to reach the keys on the other rows by simply extending or moving back the finger. No rotation is necessary for most letters. With perfect grid layouts, the finger movement is far more complex and the chance of hitting the correct is greatly reduced.
So called ergonomic keyboards try to solve the problem by splitting the keyboard and rotating the halves.
Except for very crude typing requirements, nobody in his right mind uses a grid layout.
They have it in black now, too. Unfortunately, they still don't have a USB version.
I've got a Microsoft (yeah, yeah, yeah) keyboard that does that.
The function keys have an extra modifier that is turned on by default. F6 is close and I've reconfigured F5 to minimize. Haven't thought about doing maximize. (Most programs remember the state of the last window you opened, and typically for me that was maximized, so this is not an issue)
These keyboards are actually pretty nice, with buttons for Windows Media Player on top, and a bunch of other gay little buttons I never use because I forget about them. But it is nice to have the 20 or so totally customizable buttons available when I need them. And for the other users on my computer, hitting the 'my documents' button is easier than finding their files any other way.
Of course, I always forget about the calculator button and that would actually be the one to save me the most time.
Keyboards are like a lot of other technology out there- you would be amazed at what exists, if you are willing to try it out.
As for quality- I've got no problems with this at all, in fact it has a good feel (in my opinion) it's also wireless, which was my number one requirement. I've got too many damn cords behind my computer!
The only complaint I have, is there is no caps-locks indicator. Maybe they were trying to save battery life or something, but it is nice to have the little light- at least when you are typing in passwords...
No reason to lie.
"In a similar vein...does ANYONE find that "context menu" key useful, the one to the right of the righthand windows key?"
The context menu button is, IMO, the best thing to happen to keyboards in a long while. For Christ's sake...it's effectively a "right click" mouse button! However, it's on your keyboard - so it's one less reason to take your hands off the keyboard. Brilliant!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
But the only way to get your code in reliably was to use a 029 card-punch. When I wasn't trying not to get eaten by dinosaurs, that is :-)
Well, seeing as we've plenty of nationalities where I work, I had to insist on a US keboard. (Which is the same as my 'native' Australian keyboard).
/\$@ and a few others if I don't work with a US keyboard. I'm fine whether I use VNC, SSH or Terminal Services. Users of other keyboards sometimes find that there are remapping problems, which are either from the application or the OS itself.
Mostly around here we've Swiss German/French, French and a few Belgian keyboards. Everyone seems to prefer they one they grew up with. Personally, alphabetic characters never bothered me, but I occasionally miss the positions of
Of course, company std dictates that "US English" be the standard install for NT/2K, at least on a server level. VNC doesn't work so well for a non-US keyboard.
Drives the French guys nuts trying to hunt and seek for an obscure character combination that I've used in a service password. (Driving the French mad is of course, like 'wiping your arse with silk').
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
It's funny that I never see the Avant Stellar (http://www.cvtinc.com/) mentioned in these discussions about keyboards. It has a significant flaw (see below) but it's still my favorite. Great "clicky" feel, very firm, 100% programmable, macros, two sets of function keys (so you can reprogram the ones you don't normally use)... Lots of good stuff!
The problem is that their programming software doesn't work on NT/2000/XP, just 95/98/ME. It's not a problem for me because I use a KVM switch to connect six systems to the same keyboard/monitor/mouse, and one of my systems is Windows 98, so I just run the software on that system and switch to it when I need to change something.
I have it programmed so that some of the unused function keys have macros that tell the KVM to switch to different systems. Single-key switching from Windows 2000 to Linux...
"... all windows versions greater than 3.11 are Dvorak compliant, and a simple setting can change the layout setting."
As a user that normally runs dvorak and occasionly windows I can assure you this isn't quite true.
I've used a dvorak mapping in windows 98, 2000 and XP and all have buggy implementations, though they are getting slightly better. The catch is that the remappable keys seems to have been a tacked on feature, some programs will work, some programs will work for a while and some seem to use direct keyboard access, ignoring any mapping.
For example I recall I was working with a notepad session and a command prompt. After a while the command prompt decided it would start running qwerty, so everytime I switched between the windows I had to pause to remind myself which keyboard mapping I was using. Games are also really bad, Half-life for example uses the dvorak mapping in the menu but uses stardard qwerty layout in the game. This makes key binding from the menu a wonderful activity.
I've been running dvorak for about 8 months now and its not about speed, its all in the name of comfort.
was the Northgate Computer Systems Omnikey.
For those of us who learned to program before the
advent of the IBM PC, they have the "correct" layout
(the layout for which and with which vi was developed)
with the control key just to the left of the 'a', As God Intended)*
Buckling spring, Alps switches, removable keycaps, steel base,
fully programmable key assignments, DIP switches for common
configuration options. Indispensible and indestructible.
I have two, and they continue to work perfectly after
lo these many years, and there's a brisk market for them
on ebay (lots of old hackers treasure them).
But they're no longer made.
Fortunately, CTI makes a close copy. The Avant Stellar
is by all accounts superb, and bears the Tibor Polgar seal of approval.
Buy a couple while they're still made, and you're set for life.
The Customizer seems to be similar, but I have no experience with this keyboard.
* and if you're one of those people like me who has spent the
last twenty years cursing IBM for screwing up the layout of
ASCII keyboards for all time by fiddling with the the
One True Layout (with the control key to the left of the 'a'),
then you may be happy to know about the superb small program
ctrl2cap from Systems Internals, which makes the
usless never-to-be-sufficiently-damned caps lock key
into a control key. Tiny, slick, sophisticated, open source, free.
Check it out.
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
Nope. There's no longer a full-size Microsoft Natural keyboard with the full layout. The last one with the full set of keys in the standard layout (well, standard besides the split keyboard) was the Natural Keyboard Pro that dropped off the list last year. The Natural Multimedia Keyboard is close - it does have an inverted-T cursor pad - but the 9 keys above the inverted-T cursor pad have been rearranged.
Microsoft Keyboard info is available at Microsoft's keyboard site
(and, yes, I bought a backup Natural Pro when I saw it dropped)
This is nice:
http://www.monu-cad.com/keyboard.htm
Of course, the side effect of that was sub-optimal typing speed and accuracy, but it certainly wasn't done just for that reason.
Come play at the only online poker room with a Mac-native client
In other words, these things are about as close to the original IBM keyboards as you can get. I've owned mine for three years now and I love it.
-R
I also use a nifty little utility called WinKey which allows you to assign operations to combinations with the 'windows' keys in addition to the standard, e.g. I use win-X to open Excel, win-Z to open mozilla, win-1 to win-0 open explorer windows on network pcs - it all helps me not to use the mouse any more than I have to, and makes my wrists/hands more comfortable. /. pages :-)
Many years ago I wrote an INT19h C hack to assign functions to alt key combinations in DOS - I love coding to save drudgery later. Now you can add shortcut keys to items on the start menu too, the problem is finding ones that aren't used by apps. CTRL+ the numpad keys are usually a safe bet - I use ctrl+numpad to invoke cygwin. I really am a keyboard kind of guy and hate it when I haave to use the mouse, except when I use the wheel to scroll through
I have to say if anyone is developing a USB 'natural' version of the Model M I'd be quite happy to test it for a few years...
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
I agree with your sentiment on those useless volume control-multimedia keys. What a waste of kb space.
However, when it comes to recording short macros, I prefer mine completely on the kb-side.
1) They're faster
2) OS-independent
3) Easier to record
4) Sometimes applications read keystrokes "more directly" than the macro-recorder/playback software. Can't explain it better than that, except that the software solutions don't always work in all the apps.
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty