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?"

Comments

You may want to rethink this.

[syukton]

No need for a numeric keypad or fkeys? Never pressed F5 to refresh eh? F2 to open a new location in a browser? heh. Sounds like you need more tables instead of crappy keyboards. Keep in mind that a lot of people are comfortable with a certain kind of keyboard, and giving them laptop-like keyboards with small keys that are hard to type on may just deter their usage and make your whole computer lab project a giant waste of money.

Is smaller really what you want?

[timothy]

You know your situation better (since I don't at all, other than what you wrote in your Ask Slashdot submission), but I wonder ... do you really want to be space-limited to small keyboards?

You're starting out with a space crunch that makes you ask the question, Yes, but the space added by full size keyboards (unless they're really huge ones! :) ) won't be that great; if there's a way you could rearrange your seating to fit full-size keyboards, then you'll be better able to fit replacements when they're necessary. (That is, you can replace full-size with either another full-size, or a compact version, but a compact version, if your whole space is built around that size, can't be replaced by a full-size one.) Given that I usually find my keyboards in thriftstores and at yardsales, I'd like the option to use either size.

Also, if your seating is so tight that full-size keyboards are hard to fit in, how's the elbow room? It sounds from here like a tight squeeze! Will people have room to swivel? (Not that any of the links google finds there are the greatest ...)

I saw all this as a bigot favoring clicky, mechanical keyboards, which colors my perception of the world ;) There *are* some compact clicky keyboards, but they're priced something out of this world, generally. I've considered buying some of the small Model M variants, but ... yow! The prices people want are pretty high, even used, even in not-great shape.

One way to save space without forcing yourself into shrunken keyboards is to go for trackballs rather than mice; trackball+mouse can be squeezed next to the next trackball+mouse pair, and probably in no more room than a small keyboard+mousing surface. My favorite trackball for years has been the Logitech MouseMan (I think that's the right model name ;)) -- it's symmetrical (good for lefties therefore), comes in USB though I have also owned PS/2 only versions, has a really fast, slick action, and has nice clicky buttons, not sluggish the way I find kensington buttons to me. Also, they're about the cheapest brand-name trackballs you'll find, about $20 at walmart or big computer retailers.

Cheers,

timothy

Don't get something that looks cool

[redhotchil]

Don't get something that looks cool because you'll develop a theft problem. I'd recommend the worst looking but toughest keyboard you can find. Anything that people thing would go for a lot at a pawn shop avoid.

Add more table space?

[dtfinch]

Compact keyboards might work, but I myself have trouble working with any keyboard that deviates even the slightest bit from "standard". Very slow, lots of mistakes and profanity. And I have a feeling I'm not the only person who dislikes small keyboards. I can't imagine giving people less space than is needed for a standard keyboard and a mouse pad anyways.