Slashdot Mirror
Have Keyboards Gone Crazy?
Ethelthefrog asks: "My office keyboard recently failed and I am attempting to choose a replacement. Unfortunately, Logitech, who make keyboards with an action I really like, seem to have gone crazy. They have trademarked their worst features: Zero Degree Tilt(tm) means I have to reach uncomfortably far for the number keys and their horrific 'Enhanced Function Keys' means I now need to engage a shift-lock type function just to get at F1-F12. Are there any geek-friendly keyboards out there that combine decent action with just the keys I need to hack and no more?"
Despite it's naff name, the Happy Hacker keyboard is quite good. It's small as well as having the Control and Caps Lock keys in the correct place. It still doesn't beat the Sun Type 5 keyboard, but I don't know if you can connect one of them to a PC.
Chris
Sure. First thing comes to mind for me is that you can get decent generic keyboards with all the standard keys and none of the excess for anywhere from $3-15 USD. (I know $3 sounds low, but I had a local computer shop that really was selling decent keyboards and mice that cheap.)
Thats what you want.
PERFECT.
Avant Prime
I have one of these at home and one at work. I've used dozens of different keyboards, and this is the best I've ever found. I picked it after extensive research and reading of reviews.
It's by Keytronic and it's called the LT Designer (almost the same as LT Classic but w/ more of an angle to it.)
http://www.keytronic.com/home/products/specs/ltdes igner.htm
Good review here
The facts have a liberal bias. --The Daily Show
Personally, though I've put mine away and now use an IBM Trackpoint II keyboard - it's full-sized, it's black, it has the buckling spring model M mechanism, it has no windows keys, and it has a trackpoint built in (regretably only the 2-button, no z-axis trackpoint II) so I can keep my hands on the keyboard. In conjunction with a USB scroll-mouse, I've found input nerdvana.
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
First and most obvious is that everyone has them -- everyone probably has as least one PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard lying around somewhere and MoBo manufacturers don't want to potentially alienate part of their market.
Another reason is that USB Legacy Emulation (as it is sometimes called) is still not foolproof. Goes like this: To use a PS/2 KB you have to talk to the keyboard controller which is almost certainly based off the controller original IBM 8256 (or whatever it was) which in turn talks to the keyboard encoder which is also almost certainly based on the original IBM AT encoder. After all, manufacturers have had two decades to standardize.
But to talk to a USB keyboard you have to engage the USB chipset, root hub, any other intermediary hubs and then talk to the keyboard; and all of these devices potentially don't impliment the standards in the same way (because USB is young by comparison) or combinations of them screw the standard up. In this case, PS/2 is left as a fallback.
Case in point, I have a USB KVM switch to let my PC and Mac use one kayboard, mouse and monitor. If I just plug the USB keyboard directly into my PC and turn on "USB Legacy keyboard emulation" in BIOS I can then use that USB keyboard to access BIOS function. HOWEVER, the KVM switch integrates a USB hub that doesn't strictly follow the USB 1.1 standard and so when the USB keyboard is communicating with the PC through the switch Legacy Emulation doesn't work and I can't access BIOS (works fine in Windows , however).
It's not that ditching PS/2 isn't a good idea (because it is), but there is still a lot of doubt and issues that need to be worked out before then.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
They're not necessarily useless... I've got a Microsoft internet keyboard (I think that's what it's called). Not particularly nice in the way of action, but it's got 19 extra buttons (along with the usual windows keys). I've now got F1-F30, and a lot of tasks are made much nicer, just because of the shortcuts. I can touch one set of 8 buttons and instantly move to different workspaces, and can move windows between them by holding shift and hitting it. I have a number of quickload buttons - F13 is an Eterm, etcetc.. I can get at some things that are a pain to do with the mouse as well - opening up the sawfish root menu, for example, or pausing xmms. It's really quite nice to have the extra buttons, as long as they don't get in the way of the normal ones.
Now, if only the keys worked better... but they're not too bad.
I've not come across a better keyboard to type on than the current white "Apple Keyboard". While that's a completely subjective judgment that won't apply to everyone, it's a good simple and pretty minimalist keyboard. A better action than the pro keyboards, with a good feel, and just seems to have the right balance between extreme click and soft mush.
pictures of the thing are here
Sweet find - do they all work?
:) PCKeyboard.com doesn't make those kind, unfortunately.
I consider $2.50 a great deal, considering new ones from PCKeyboard.com cost $50-60 (black ones cost $10 more).
They made small ones with the same buckling-spring keys w/o a numeric keypad. Now that I know about them, I'm gonna hafta go eBaying to get one.
I like the IBM Space Saver Trackpoint Keyboard. If you don't like the Trackpoint, there is a version with a track pad, and there are several IBM keyboards without pointing devices.
I also like the feel and size of the Happy Hacking keyboards, but prefer the newer layouts of recent PC keyboards (with some remapping) and a built-in pointing device.