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A Glance At 24 Keyboards & Mice
robyn217 writes "Hey, KBs and mice aren't the most glamorous hardware in your system but there's no reason for them to be dull. I spent the last month testing out a new keyboard and mouse every day; covering everything from strange one-handed KBs to cool gesture-sensing pads to tacky ball-based mice. Check it out if you're thinking about trading up." Strictly one-paragraph blurbs here (I wish she'd talked about each keyboard's tactile feedback, and long-term comfort on the oddball designs), but if you need to do a visual scan of current offerings (many wireless), you can work toward a new mouse by clicking your way through. Update: 01/21 21:58 GMT by T : Errr, Robyn's a He, not a She -- many apologies. That hasn't happened in years!
Any one handed keyboards, like the twiddler? They use these for the MIThril wearable project. Some modification required. Location-Based Wi-Fi
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that the best keyboard ever made was the IBM Model M PS/2 keyboard. It's got individual springs for each of the keys, the keys give satisfying clicks, the keycaps are removable, and it's even got a nifty drainage hole on the bottom. It'll even double as a baseball bat in a pinch (steel baseplate). I'm here at work typing on a Dell laptop keyboard which, frankly, is a steaming pile of crap.
All these newfangled keyboards with their plastic membranes and mushy keys. I'll take my Model M any day.
~The log of the limit is equal to the limit of the log.
I've been using a Cherry keyboard for 5 years. Sturdy keys, high-quality plastic, excellent springs. While I did pay more thant 70$ for that keyboard 5 years ago, the new ones are much much cheaper. I got a new one on order.
Better reviews of keyboards and mice can be found here:
Keyboard reviews
Mouse reviews
-JemI found out the bluetooth that comes with the less expensive Logitech set and the Microsoft set can hardly be called bluetooth.
The adapters only work with the keyboards and mice, so forget using them with your Palm T3 pda or your Ericsson T68i cellphone or your HP printer. They also don't work with your own existing bluetooth adapter.
Also, the Microsoft set has a host of problems that will have you throwing it against the wall within the first week of ownership. Google on the model name and you'll find the details.
I can't speak on the expensive Logitech set because I haven't tried it.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
There's a great reason for USB mice: higher throughput and therefore higher resolution (dpi). The mouse is more sensitive to small movements and the corresponding movements on the screen are less jerky. This does make a difference when working on a 3200x2400 screen (I don't do this very often, mind!).
Also, newer USB keyboards support trendy features like hubs where you can plug in your mouse, digicam, PDA cradle, even digital speakers. If you're lucky enough to have a monitor with a USB hub built in, your entire I/O subsystem only needs one DVI cable and one USB cable connecting them to the PC. This is how one of my newer machines is configured at the moment. It certainly cuts down on the mess.
I've experienced in my previous company users and secretaries using older Logitech wireless keyboards, seeing other people's text being inserted in their word processing... The persons where even on different floors with about 10 meters distances.
This site has more information from the other side of the fence:
http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html
"studies in the ergonomics literature find no significant advantage for Dvorak that can be deemed scientifically reliable"
In short, there is a considerably large amount of doubt and argument over whether Dvorak is or is not superior to qwerty.
GPL'd web-based tradewars themed space game
I dont think he is a woman :)
I have a Kinesis Advantange USB keyboard, replacing an older Advantage PS/2 keyboard hooked up to my mac via an unreliable PS/2->USB adapter.
It's wondrous. I think switching four years ago to Kinesis has saved my hands. I was developing chronic, persistent wrist pain from using my old IBM bucking-spring steel job -- still the best of the flat keyboards -- and was at my wit's end, when the ergo woman at my workplace brought a Kinesis by for me to try.
Heaven! Keeping the wrists straight, even with my monster hands, has taken enormous strain off of them, and as a result, no more pain.
In addition, I use a Kensington Expert Mouse Pro trackball (the USB one with four buttons and a scroll wheel), and switch it from left to right every couple of weeks. When I'm out with the powerbook, I use the Apple Pro mono-button mouse, which I dearly, dearly love as well.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
I wrote a full review of the TouchStream ST (a full keyboard from FingerWorks, the brainy company that makes the iGesture NumPad). I really liked it, actually. As a full keyboard, it can replace just about anything out there--and I found the gesture-sensing ability of the kb to work very well, and save me a ton of time with simple actions like cut, copy, paste.
The NumPad is a little too small and too limited to be useful--plus it's too expensive. -robyn
My Logitech Cordless Duo MX does *quite* well on batteries...the keyboard is still on the original 2 AA batteries that came with it 8 months ago, and the mouse lasts a full days usage, then just drop it into the cradle when you goto bed and its ready for a new day. Or just drop it in the cradle on the coffee break to ensure its good for an all nighter. That is *much* improved performance over my previous wireless keyboard (4 AAs lasted 6 months), and the cradle-recharging mouse is convenience itself.
As for losing stuff...keep it on the desk? I mean...really. Do you worry about losing your CDs or your palm pilot? No difference compared to any other device thats not wired in place; except its much easier to rearrange wireless devices into a new configuration.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Can't beat the old IBM 103key IMHO. Thats what I'm using now. I just love the clackety clack it makes and the key covers are removable/interchangeable for easy cleaning and alternate key mappings. They built keyboards like tanks back then
"There's no set architecture in Linux. All roads lead to madness" -Microsoft
USB mice have a refresh rate of only 125Hz. A ps/2 mouse can be run at 200Hz with a program called ps2 rate (was for 98 not sure if it works for xp) so your ps/2 mouse can actually run smoother than your USB. Also I recall that I had a logitech ps/2 mouse whose driver had a refresh rate setting.
A better question is: what's right about PS/2? Answer: nothing. It's not hot-swappable. The mouse/keyboard ports are physically identical, but logically distinct -- the most shit-stupid design mistake possible. What if you want more than one mouse? Keyboard?
In sum: good riddance to bad rubbish.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
First off, it's trivially easy on most machines to reconfigure the keyboard to dvorak and back.
Second, if there's no way to reconfigure, I can get back into qwerty touch typing within 15 minutes.
I'd still rather use dvorak than qwerty tho. It's much faster for me.
One poorly written anti-Dvorak article has had more press in the last several years than the Dvorak keyboard itself. Written by Stan Liebowitz and Stephen Margolis, it has been published in journals, magazines, and web sites again and again and again -- even though The Dvorak Keyboard author Randy Cassingham debunked it years ago.:
http://www.dvorak-keyboard.com/dvorak2.html
"I agree with L&M on another thing: there is a need for good-quality, unbiased studies on Dvorak. The best raw data I have access to at present is from KEYTIME, a Seattle-based company which uses keyboard instructional technologies they developed in house. In the past nine years, they have trained several hundred typists on Dvorak, and several thousand on Qwerty, using the exact same equipment and teaching methodologies. They have "repeatedly found" that after 15 hours of training and practice time, existing Qwerty hunt-and-peck typists can touch type at an average 20 WPM. After 15 hours of training and practice on Dvorak, similarly able (Qwerty) typists consistently average 25-30 WPM touch-typing on Dvorak. Further, KEYTIME reports that the Dvorak typists continue to improve at a higher rate. They have noticed a recent "a change in tide" of students wanting to learn Dvorak over Qwerty. "
I own iGesturePad which replaces the pointing device (not the whole keyboard). I used it for a couple of weeks.
.pros
.cons
My experience:
- my hand is relaxed on the pad (took a while though) - gestures are intuitive, easy to learn and give me a geeky satisfaction every time I use them (no more cut and paste using the keyboard!) - smooth, intuitive
- tense hand in the beginning
- reacts to the smallest hand movements (I can rest my hand on the mous, less so on the pad as I might do something wrong by moving my hand even slightly)
- not as precise as my optical Intellimouse Explorer esp. in Photoshop where I need pixel precision.
- the Intellimouse Explorer driver gets crippled when the pad is connected and I can't use my doubleclick etc. shortcuts. (I use the pad and mouse interchangingly)
- no tactile feedback - "did I "release" that button gesture? Not sure..."
- my fingers get sweaty and the pad gets less smooth so my fingers get "stuck" which results in jerky movements.
If you are mostly coding/writing, it may be more usable for you than it was for me using photoshop.
Right now, the mouse is back on my desk and the pad is back in the box and soon on ebay.
Regards
-- Andre
They use a different pin for data. Laptops have a single PS/2 connector which works for both mice and keyboards, and with a splitter cable they can be plugged in at the same time.
The question is, why don't all PS/2 ports have both data pins? I guess you could confuse your system with, say, two keyboards, because the system can't handle them separately. Thus I agree that USB would be a lot better.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I'll back up the other comment about this.
My logitech MX500 and Trackball are both run through PS/2 ports (home and work respectively). This is to take advantage of the higher report rates that PS/2 supports vs the 100 reports/s on USB.
Now, why would I need this? 100 report/s still looks jerky to me, and that's annoying thing to deal with when I'm working in CAD software. It's still a preference thing, but PS/2 is STILL better for a mouse in my book, but I guess a keyboard doesn't need it anymore.
So, when's lunch?
Yep, the Model M. I have two. Bought the first one for work after spilling coffee on a MS 'natural'. The Model Ms have survived coffee, beer & more. Nice positive feel & tough as nails. $10 on ebay, cheaper elsewhere as others have noted. I wouldn't go back.
On the mouse issue, I'm inclined towards the logitech opticals. No problems so far - I have two of those too. Cheap & functional; plug into USB if you're so inclined, otherwise just use a PS/2 adapter.
PC hardware tends to survive getting wet -- as long as two things are true:
1) There is no current running through it while it gets wet.
2) The mixture is not heavily filled with sugar or caramel (like Coke).
3) You let it dry out before you run current through it.
Even monitors usually survive a downpour if they have been unplugged for a day or so before you leave them in the rain.
Found this out while working for a charity thrift store. People would just throw their old junk up on the dock on the day we were closed, a good portion of that time it would rain.
So coffee (with sweet-n-low) doesn't surprise me. Coffee with sugar is more problematic. Pepsi & Coke tend to kill anything with moveable parts.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
I love my modelm too. If you want something that's not used and has 15 years worth of god-knows-what in the keyboard, get a keyboard from PCKeyboard.com - they bought the ModelM design from Lexmark (who had bought IBM's keyboard division), and still manufacture the Model M under the title "Classic 101" (there's also a 104 key version with those dumb Windows keys, but of course you wouldn't want that). They also sell an extra-badass black version. Both of those keyboards are pricey, but you definately get what you pay for.
Karma: Excellent (fuck, even in the future moderation doesn't work!)
What do you mean "almost no content"?
I saw nothing in this ad-clogged "article" that didn't look like it was ripped straight from a manufacturer's website.
No comparisons. No comments on tactile feel, travel, weight, comfort, battery lifespan (if applicable), range, responsiveness, etc.
It would have been less fraudulent to just put up a sales catalog of the products "reviewed".
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I was gonna say...
I have a wireless logitech keyboard, and it's been using the same set of duracel ultra double A's for over 1.5 years now. I use the thing every day, sometimes for games, including games like NWN, where I spend a good bit of the game holding down the "tab" key (illuminates objects you can interact with).
Short battery life is not a reason to not own one of these. I've also never noticed a difference in response time from it to a wired keyboard.
~Will
sig?
On a whim, I decided to check the signal-to-noise ratio on this site's content by taking a screenshot of the full page (165x600 pixels, reduced) and measuring the actual content area (93x100 pixels, reduced by same factor).
A little area calculation later, the signal to noise for PCMag.com is: 93:897 (ie: noise factor of 9.645 times the signal). I will never visit that site out of choice again.
--
My friend has an older Razer Boomslang, which uses a ball, but is VERY high quality. Currently Razer offers two different types of their mouse, one for RTS which is much more responsive, and one for FPS, which is supposedly slower to help you play better....doesn't make sense, so if anybody knows which would be better for a FPS (cuz i have a hard time believing that slower would be better) from experience, please post.
Also, if anybody has opinions on what a good gaming mouse is, I'm in the market for the top of the line, best of the best.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Under Linux, when I hooked my USB webcam (~300mA) up to my MS curvy-keyboard (build in 2 port unpowered hub), the device didn't enable, and I got a nice line in /var/log/messages that the cam didn't power up, because the keybaord reported that it could only supply 100mA or the like.
I belive it was that way with the USB patch to 2.2 and the early 2.4 kernels.
It was very helpful.
Linux has supported it for as long as i can remember. Try the xmms-itouch plugin for XMMS. Otherwise you can go into xev, press the key, see what keycode registers and use .Xmodmap to map those keys to F13, F14, etc. Then you can tell your window manager to do interesting things with those keys. Personally, I use the "eyeball" key (on my cordless freedom pro) to close windows. Sooooo convienient.
My other car is first.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
So remap the key(s). It's not difficult.
Under Unix/X11, it's a simple xmodmap twiddle. Under WinNT/2K/XP, there's a registry hack that allows you to remap keys at a very low level (down at the scancode level, which affects all applications, including ctrl-alt-delete, if you remap the caps/ctrl keys).
I found that for gaming, cordless is bad. Not only did my wife's Logitech cordless stuff interfere with mine. I also found that there were spontaneous lags even when no other set of keyboard/mouse was present. Furthermore, if my mobile happened to ring while I played, mouse and keyboard performance was near zero until the phone stopped ringing.
I now use a Boomslang Razor for playing. It is extremely precise, but I'm not all that crazy about its very low design - it doesn't support the hand very well. On the positive side, the button design is perfect for playing (as well as for surfing the web, with 'back' and 'forward' buttons on the left and right side, respectively. A bonus is also the very flexible cord, which assures that cord tension does not affect mouse movement. A very good mouse, but is it worth the dough? Depends on your pockets, I guess.
I have a Logitech Internet Navigator corded keyboard, whish is excellent except for the hot buttons. The F-keys are toggled between "Logitech mode" and normal mode by a hotbutton, with a difficult-to-discern status indicator, and you're screwed if you need F1 fast and you accidentally hit that toggle lately. Even more screwed you are if you happen to touch some of the web-related buttons, because then helpful IE jumps up to cover your entire game. Apart from these annoying extras the keyboard is fine.
The best part about PS/2 is that it is assigned its own interrupt and does not have to share with anything else. Frequently you will end up having your USB controller shared with your video, SCSI, etc, and thus causing more latency whenever a USB event arrives. With PS/2, it's the mouse, and just the mouse, on that interrupt.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
Especially considering that some keyboards, like HP's, can transmit up to 150 meters away... through a couple of walls! Not to fear though, HP has some great advice for users of its products: "don't type anything sensitive".
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
In Windows XP:
Right click on my computer and select properties
Click Hardware
Click Device Manager
Select your PS2 Mouse
Right click and select properties
Click the Advanced Settings tab to allow you to change your refresh rate and other misc settings.
PS2 is the gamers choice.