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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.
Thing I never understood about modern computer keyboards is the staggered layout of the rows -- presumably a throwback from old typewriter days, but I think they'd be far more efficient if the keys were arranged in a proper grid (ie the H directly beneath the Y, and not slightly to the right).
I will probably get totally flamed for this but I think the best keyboards I have owned have all been made by Microsoft. Right now I am using the Office Keyboard and I love it. The action is great and the extra keys actually serve my purpose (I work in Excel and Word all day).
I know M$'s OS is crap, but their keyboards and mice have always been built to a very high quality.
Expensive, but well worth the money!!!
I picked up 3 or 4 of them at GoodWill last year for $1.50 each.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
This only reflects the movement of the computing model, and the seperation of what is regarded as essential to what is regarded as an accessory.
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
That's simply wrong. QWERTY was designed to speed typing up by spacing out the most used keys to different sides of the keyboard.
QWERTY was designed as he states to reduce jamming of the hammers, not to slow typists down. Even without hammers QWERTY was still faster due to the use of both hands for common letters.
The QWERTY keyboard was not designed to "slow typing down", buy rather to reduce the number of jams in a much more elegant way. It avoids having frequent adjacent letter pairs activating levers that are close to each other on the typewriters mechanism. This means that jams (which occur between adjacent levers) occur less frequently when typing FAST!
I believe what you're looking for is the replacement for the Northgate Omnikey. Lueck Data Systems makes a replacement and still has a few of the old ones available. Function keys on the left, where god intended them. Or function keys on both the left and top, for those unsure about life. A heavy metal chassis. Clicks rather than mush. http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/en-us/hardware/key boards/
Get your self a nice Space Cadet Keyboard. Nice action, plus you never know when you will need triangle, meta, super, or hyper!
Actually this is something I have been trying to hunt down for a couple years, quite a nice piece of equipment.
I am writing this with a OmniKey 101 from my first computer which has long since died. I take this keyboard from job to job and it's really funny to see the look of the "kids" that look at for the first time.
Weighin' in at over three pounds, tactile, removable keys (not that it's ever been cleaned...) and it sounds like an M-60 in full auto when I'm furiously typing.
I love this thing.
By the way, does anyone know of a old-style keyboard connector to USB changer? I have a feeling that my PS/2 connector is about to out moded...
Chris
So Buddha walks into a pizza parlor and says: "Hey, make me one with everything."
My favourite keyboards were the one for the PCjr (not the chicklet one) and the one for the Atari PC1. They both had a very light, non-rubbery feel to them.
I've just spent an exhaustive search for a replacement desktop keyboard and was absolutely dismayed by the garbage keyboards out there. What I really wanted was one that had key switches similar to my old IBM T23 laptop, the best keyboard ever IMHO. I eventually found one, and it is close, but not quite as good as the IBM.
For those interested, you can see it at Precision Squared. Look for the PSK-5000 model. For touch typists, I highly recommend this keyboard. Mac users can find its equivalent with the MacAlly IceKey which appears to be a re-branded PSK-5000.
www.brownsauce.org
But, some how, the membrane keyboard was just about right. Keys had feedback, because the rubber mat was just about perfect. The keys were just where I needed them.
Sinclair released a cheaper version for his flagship Spectrum system a little later, which had virtually no feedback and which was so poorly built that if you turned many of the machines upside down, all the keys would fall out...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
To the lazy people, lemme reproduce the link:
What I find funny, besides the comment that what causes limb disorders is the stress of deadlines and not the keyboard (citing gamers who supposedly don't have any problems, hah!), is the author's choice of pictures. I guess I can understand lara croft, but what's with the cat? And look at the caption on that picture...I don't know, I have a weird sense of humor, maybe it's just funny to me.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
An email button? That's nothing. My keyboard has a "shopping" button. (I think I have it set to open up freshmeat, but even so, I never use that feature.) Plus it has a scroll wheel, fast forward, rewind, play, and stop controls. It's not quite as rococo as those new Microsoft "Office" keyboards, but every time I sit down at my desk, I feel like I'm really using one of these Vroom, Vroom !
Though they only worked with terminals, the *real* manly keyboard in a world of manly keyboards was the IBM 3270/5250 terminal keyboard. Twenty-four function keys across the top, ten special purpose function keys on the left side, arrow keys actually laid out in a diamond shape instead of the common upside-down T, a numeric keypad, and a keyboard cable so thick it could be used to support bridges.
Add to the fact that it had a metal casing similar to the original IBM keyboard whereas the later model keyboards, and all the PS/2 keyboards are plastic. Tough plastic to be sure, but I still was able to chip and crack one.
With all that you had a keyboard that weighed two pounds!
I rescued one from a dumpster, but couldn't figure out the pin configuration to make any kind of whatever-to-ps2 adapter.
Even stranger were the IBM 3278 terminal keyboards..they had a weird form of tactile feedback that has to be used to be believed. They were more conventional in terms of layout, but were packaged into a case that, while detached from the terminal itself, was a massive block of metal that weighed in at 2+ pounds.
The strangest keyboard I think IBM ever made was a keyboard for the Chinese; it was big (I think it was about two feet square) and was laid out like a giant tablet; the left side was a massive set of overlays and "mushy" buttons" with individual characters, and the right side had conventional keys a la the 3270/5250 keyboard. I wish I had some pictures of it...it was in IBM's computer exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for years and years, but that exhibit has long since disappeared and with it the keyboard.
You gotta hand it to IBM...they built their (mainframe) equipment to last. I fully expect to be sitting at the Social Security office when I'm 70+, complaining about my measly $2.53 check with a person sitting in front of an IBM terminal with one of those massive metal keyboards. Fun!
Here's my antique keyboard it punches morse code tapes.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I used to have problems with my hands hurting after coding all night (for my own fun) with keyboards of the normal type including the IBM model M (I have 3 anyone want one). My outfingers joints would ache, and my hands hurt from twisting my hand into contortions attempting to press all of the special keys which get used quite often while programming.
I went through several keyboards looking for one which would make it less painful to do something which I really enjoyed. I never wanted to admit to buying anything of an ergonimic keyboard especially one from Microsoft. However, after working on a friends all night, I didn't notice the pain from using it. I ended up ordering a simple Microsoft Elite with the parts for a new computer.
Since using the this keyboard I find my fingers have rarely hurt unless I'm typing really fast for extended periods of time. Other benefits of this keyboard is that it is reasonably quiet (I don't wake up the house with my typing now) and it feels really good. I don't plan on getting another keyboard anytime soon. The only company that I can say comes close to Microsofts keyboards and mice (I've tried several also) is Logitech (whose mice I usually prefer)
Reserved Word.
In a similar vein...does ANYONE find that "context menu" key useful, the one to the right of the righthand windows key?
And now that I think about it, how insiduous is it that like every damn PC keyboard made these days gets its own dose of Microsoft branding? That's pretty creepy when I stop to think about it. (I remember my first PC w/ Win95 didn't have that key, so sometimes "ctrl-esc" still comes in useful, like on this one laptop that weirdly moves that key to the top right of the keyboard.)
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
I have 2 keyboards from Leading Edge 286s. These keyboards are a joy to use. Everytime I see one at a garage sale, or Goodwill I snap it up. I have given them to friends and family, to spread the joy of "real" keyboards.
I rip the caps-lock key off my keyboards as soon as I get them out of the box.. it annoys me greatly and I never use it.
Hey folks,
since we're talking about keyboards. I am surprised nobody mentioned programmable keyboards yet. Does anyone use/can recommend any good programmable keyboards these days?
The one I've used is Gateway's model... I think it's called AnyKey kb. Had four extra buttons in the top right, Program Macro(sticking a series of keystrokes into one key press), Remap(remapping a single key), and an extra column of function keys on the left hand side.
In any case, in my programming duties, I often find myself needing to do things like reformat 50 lines in an identical fashion. Like take out first four chars on a line, indent, put AAA there, go to next line.
So with this kb, you didn't have to use software, you just record a macro, use it 50 times, and you're done! Life saver for the fingers/wrists/carpal tunnel.
Any info appreciated!
"If you could only see what I've seen with your eyes..." - Roy Batty
Er, what do you mean the Window key is useless? There are several shortcuts associated with it (a Short List), and its useful to map to other apps as well. For example, Win+Z|X|C|V|B is set up on my MS Windows machine to control winamp, regardless of whatever app is focused at the time.
Its possible to use the windows key in a similiar fashion under XFree86, hotkeying combos to certain actions.
Which is BS, by the way. It wasn't to avoid jamming the keys by slowing the typist down, but by making sure the commonly-used key levers weren't close enough to each other to jam. And I think that the dvorak layout was designed to put the most commonly-used keys right under the fingertips, not just within reach of the "strongest fingers." Geez, like you need really STRONG fingers to type faster.
I have no problem with talking all you like about the differences between keyboards and why you prefer one over the other. Reminiscing is fun sometimes. But don't tout it as a "condensed history of the keyboard." Just call it "One guy's ideas about keyboards."
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Dvorak users consistently report less effort in typing and that it just "feels" better, but they must be wrong since QWERTY is better. QED. Even though the fastest typer uses dvorak and other dvorak typers cleaned house in competitions, these results are all faked or "suspect". Even though all reason points to markets acheiving local maxima, just like theory says they should, Liebo insists that if one just defines the value of technology based on what the market has chosen then it proves that the market always right.
And oh yeah, therefore Microsoft never had an OS monopoly.
But maybe that's just me.
The Present is the point at which time touches eternity. - C.S. Lewis
I don't miss mine, I'm using the same keyboard since 1985 (18 years), every now and then I remove all the keycaps and clean one by one with detergent. The only modification I made is to replace the original upper side of the keyboard with one from a ps/2 with the status leds.
:-)
If I ever need a 'rug' most of my hair is in between the keys...
NEOCA - Custom LED Flashlights