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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.
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?
ACK
God I hate my email button my my keyboard at work, I always seem to manage to push it at precisely the wrong moments. Handy? 10% of the time. 90% Annoying.
Indeed. Today's keyboards can be picked up for less than a fiver. Try picking one up for that price back in the "old days".
There are plenty of good keyboards out there, but because the PC market is often dictated by price, you see more of the cheap ones than you do anything else.
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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.
To each his own. I prefer the buckling spring keys so much that using a "mushier" keyboard is almost distracting. Also, one benefit of the buckling spring keyboard is that the little click corresponds exactly to a keypress. If you heard/felt the click, the computer got the data; if you didn't, it didn't. With rubber dome keyboards, on the other hand, you have to keep an eye on your text at all times. Between the uncertainty and the overall mushy feel, rubber dome keyboards have at least two strikes against them in my book.
I have heard that Logitech makes Microsoft hardware which would explain it's quality. I've been using a Microsoft Natural keyboard for ages, and just love them. Now that Logitech sells them under their own name I buy them.
What gets me is the new layout of the keys above the arrow keys, and the arrow keys. Some things shouldn't be messed with, and they are my insert and my arrow keys!
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
before they got all artsy-fartsy. Now the keyboard is the first thing I toss when I buy a new Mac.
I loved how the caps lock actually locked down at half-height on the old Apple Pro Keyboard, so you could tell by touch if the caps lock was on.
As long as you don't get the "Elite" version, I believe microsoft is still making the full-size natural (like the original one, that I still have, love, and use)
/me runs home to cuddle keyboard.
Changes to the Elite included stupid shortcut keys, regrouping the Insert Delete Home End PU PD block, and making the arrow keys into a Diamond shape group. Ew.
The original MS Natural Keyboard rules...
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Although he doesn't mention it, but how much did they cost back then? Adjusting for inflation, they probably cost more than new ones cost today. One thing it interesting to note that most of the functionality hasn't changed. Sure newer keyboards are wireless and have additional buttons, but older ones work just as well.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So get one of those keyboards with the extra configurable buttons (I've got a Compaq one in front of me). And quit being such a whiny baby.
Newer keyboards have all these keys that I don't use but I don't mind them too much as they are optional from manufacturers. The one useless key that I hate is that damn Windows key. It always gets in my way when I use CTRL and ALT. As far as I can tell it's completely useless for most everyday functions. Incidently, I've noticed it's in the exact position as the Apple key on Apple keyboards. But on the Apple it is better spaced to avoid conusion and it is used for shortcuts.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Stavr0 wrote:
For this, I nominate the ZX-81 keyboard WORST KEYBOARD EVER.
Funny, I just mentioned the ZX81 keyboard in a comment I just wrote under the same subject.
And yes, I agree. In 3rd grade at school, we had an optional course called "Basic Computer Programming", where we were tought how to program on the ZX81.
Now, when these computers were brand new, the keyboards were "fine". But since every school has its bullies, and bullies tend to use more physical force than required, these keyboards wore out after a couple of weeks. To compensate for the worn out keyboards, we had to press even harder to have our keystrokes registered...
Oh, the sore fingertips we had..
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But a fairly small number of words contain the sequence "rt" or "tr". Absolute frequency is irrelevent - what matters is how ofter you use them in combination.
If that's wht he meant, he's still wrong. It wasn't meant to slow anything down. QWERTY was meant to put the HAMMER BARS on the Sholes typewriter farther apart for common digraphs in order to reduce the likelyhood of jams. That's all.
'er' and 'ty' being pretty common...
You obviously don't know how the original Sholes typewriter worked. The 'E' and 'R' hammer bars weren't next to each other. In fact, there is another aspect of the qwerty layout that hearkens back to the Sholes typewriter, and it shows how the bars were laid out. Look at your keyboard. Notice how the rows are slightly staggered, with the 'Q' a little to the left of the 'A'? On the Sholes typewriter the letter keys were on the end of long levers and (since two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time) those levers have to be offset slightly. If you take a ruler and set it vertically next to the '1' key, then slide it to the right and note order each key crosses the edge of the ruler you get the order of the hammer bars on the original typewriter (sort of-- there was no '1' or '0' on the original). Try it. I bet you get "qa2zws3xed4crf5vtg6byh7nuj8mik9,ol0.p;". Notice how ER and TY aren't next to one another?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Back in the day (before "PC") we had REAL word processors. the MICOM P2000 came with a keyboard that had magnets in plungers, and solid-state pickups for each of the keys. A spring completed the key assembly. Very weighty keys, slowed down the typing nicely. Since switches, etc. were not involved, dishwashers were routinely employed to clean them. And these keyboards were servicable. And they weighed in at 15lbs (7 kilos). Which made them a VERY formidable weapon.
Before that I used an ASR-33. WHACK WHACK WHACK. Very satisfying. Built up my finger strength. Problem is, now I punch holes THROUGH these new "girly-man" keyboards. Such posers.
Seriously, the IBM BS keyboards are my favorites. A bit noisy, but the tactile feedback is worth it. My current keyboard (some "no-name" thing) has the nasty habit of "vibrating" at the bottom end of each keystroke. Feels nasty.
Ratboy.
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
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!
Are you being serious? I hardly find the focus is on what I want to right click on! And usually it's much easier to use the mouse to give the thing the focus than to wrangle the arrow keys and what not...
Seriously, could you name a few examples of when you're saved from having to reach for the mouse, or when there's not another, more convenient keycombo to get the job done?
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The big example is macros. Much harder to script mouse movement.