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Affordable, Compact Keyboards?
green pizza asks: "I'm in charge of building a lab of internet kiosk-style PCs for my local library. We have already settled on locally built Mini-PCs and will be netbooting the machines into a simplified Linux environment based heavily on JWZ's experiences in this area. We're cramped for space and luckily have been donated plenty of 15" LCDs. The only remaining issue has been keyboards. A supply of generic $5 keyboards would almost work, but we're already short on table space. I would really like to use low profile keyboards, as we have no need for a numeric keypad, F-keys, or media/shortcut keys. The Happy Hacking Keyboard series is almost perfect, but its build quality is overkill and the price is way beyond the $25 or so we'd like to spend. Anyone know of a bargain Google/Froogle is overlooking?"
I have a collection of SIIG Minitouch Plus low-profile keyboards. They are slightly more than $25 but are the perfect form-factor. They have a full-sized CAPSLOCK key suitable for use as a CTRL key.
Kris
Kriston
Go here, then search for all keyboards with "notebook" layout. I'd link to the search directly, but deep linking like that doesn't work on newegg.
I administered a setup like this for a library in the New york area, and our initial keyboards, IBM notebook keyboard/touchpads broke within one month of their first use. We replaced them with IBM Clickity-Clickity Model M keyboards, and they have lasted ever since (about 4 years).
I used a Logitech keyboard for the Playstation at work for a while. The keys feel pretty nice, but the layout is kind of wonky. It's not expensive, IIRC.
Here's an inexpensive one.
These are little and fifteen. mini keyboard.
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I bought this notbook-style USB keyboard a few weeks ago and have been very happy with it.
This thing is so tiny and thin that cute girls were actually looking at me when I whipped it out of my bag.
The keyboard is pretty good and what I'd expect from a 12" Dell laptop (it's actually substantially better than the keyboard on my Dell Inspiron 2100, a 12" laptop). That said, the keys are small and the backspace key is tiny (read: sucks), but the keyboard still might suit your needs.
"Brevity is the soul of wit." -Polonius, Hamlet.
http://www.btc.com.tw/english/2-7-06keyboard.htm#
http://www.btc.com.tw/english/2-7-07keyboard.htm#
I got one of these (the 9118) bundled with my Gigabyte TA-1 and it suits it perfectly, fitting nicely with the form-factor of the machine. I think all these models are very similar, with perhaps the 5100c suiting you best; they've got a reasonable action for the price and are available in both USB (with an upstream port built-in -- handy if you wish to allow pendrive access) and straight PS/2.
If you're buying a few of them you might want to fire an e-mail to BTC's US distributor (or ring them) and see what they can do for you -- many resellers put a high markup on these purely 'cause they're small (~USD30), but with a bit of hunting you can probably get them for closer to USD5.almost any machine you buy nowadays comes with a keyboard that is between shitty and complete shit. If you want to have good keyboards you will have to pay a good amount of money for them, or score some old dirty ones and clean them. as mentioned before the IBM model M's are great, and you can get other buckling spring keyboards from Unicomp I would recommend either the Customizer 140 which goes for $60 or the Endura Pro which goes for $100 and has a laptop style "nipple" pointer. if you want to spend $150 you can get the on-The-Ball which has a trackball in the upper right corner, make sure if you get that one that you select the buckling spring model not the quiet touch model.
Disclaimer, I in no way work for Unicomp or PCKeyboards.com
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