Blank Keyboard

Raynach writes "A friend of mine recently sent me a link for Das Keyboard, the keyboard for UberGeeks. This keyboard is unique in that it has no inscriptions on the keys, which the maker touts will make you type 100% faster in a few weeks since it will keep you from looking at the keyboard. This keyboard also features individually weighted keyswitches, "The keys are divided into groups and their feedback springs are weighted differently; from 35 grams to 80 grams, which correspond to the strength of the finger that touches the keys." But is this "UberGeek" keyboard really worth the high price tag?"

Comments

a tip

[professorhojo]

here's a tip that can save you around 80 bucks:

BUY PRIMER -- take off cap -- spray.

Re:a tip

[justforaday]

Great! Now all my keys are sticky and have fingerprints on them and my fingers are covered with gunk...Got any other bright ideas, professor?

Re:a tip

[utexaspunk]

...you might want to point the can at your keyboard. alternatively, you could huff it, which might make it impossible to see what's on the keys as well (or anything else for that matter, but hey- think of what you'll save on monitors!)

Re:a tip

[tomhudson]

Great! Now all my keys are sticky and have fingerprints on them and my fingers are covered with gunk

... and how is this different from any true geek's keyboard?

Re:a tip

[jellomizer]

I think the real reason for the extra cash is the different weights on the keys. Where some keys are harder to press then others. Thus giving you a better feel of where you are in the keyboard. and also prevention from pressing enter when you really wanted \ or ; or SHIFT or other keys that sometimes cause problems.

Re:a tip

[jargoone]

Here's a tip that will save you three bucks worth of primer:

Grab moderately sharp object -- stab eyes out.

This thing is just a dumb idea, plain and simple.

Re:a tip

[JWW]

Yes, but do the click like the old IBM keyboards, now THAT would be worth the extra money.

Re:a tip

[pogle]

Yes!! I had an old Gateway keyboard from my first PC that I used up until it finally and truly died 2 years ago. That thing could wake the dead (or at least my roommate) when I started coding. And I miss it. It was a good tactile response to my keypresses, and the audible portion is ingrained in my mind as what a keyboard should sound like.

Also, after over a decade, none of the key labels had worn off. My laptop is suffering after barely a year. They don't make them like they used to. I doubt this 'extra sensitive' keyboard will be any better, especially since my typing isn't 100% adherent to the traditional touch typing methods; that would render those differed key weights completely useless for me.

Re:a tip

[wireloose]

Looks to me like classic Sam Clemens (Mark Twain). Take a $15 keyboard, add whitewash (remove letters), add propaganda (ubergeekness) and they'll flock.

Re:a tip

[Tassach]

Almost, but not quite. QWERTY was designed to minimize jamming in manual typewriters. That much is true. It wasn't really designed to slow people down so much as it was designed so that letters which are frequently adjacent in words are widely spaced on the keyboard, and so that both hands are used roughly equally.

Since mechanical typewriters are museum pieces now, the first justification of QWERTY is now irrelevant. Whether DVORAK does a better job of using both hands equally, and putting the most frequently used keys in the home position is a matter for debate (if not holy wars).

I've tried DVORAK and wasn't impressed enough with it to bother switching from QWERTY. What I want is a keyboard that lets me write code without having to hit the shift key. Imagine being able to type something like this without hitting the shift key once:

for (i = 1; i < n; i++){ x[i] += ((x[i] > y[i]) ? i | *z : i ^ *z); y[i+1] = x[i]; }

With a QUERTY keyboard, I had to hit the shift key 14 seperate times to type that (silly) line of code. I don't think DVORAK is going to be much better. My pinkies ache after a long hacking run.

Re:a tip

[Parity]

You mean frequently adjacent letters like in 'tion' and 'er' and 'ing', very common endings?

Lessee, tion is left-right-right-right... er is left-left, ing is left-left-right... hmmm.

No.

Of the unsubstantiated qwerty origin stories, the only one I believe is that having all the letters in the word 'TYPEWRITER' be in the top row. To make sales demos easier. That's the kind of design constraint we all know...

Dvorak is no faster for coding than qwerty. It's really not -faster- for typing generally. It is, however, designed to use the home row for the most frequently hit keys, and for the 'reach' keys, to have the easiest reaches be for common letters. The rarer the letter (or symbol) the harder the
reach. It was designed for typing English words,
though, not C code. It has no real advantages in typing code itself (it does have advantages in typing comments... and variable names that look like dissertations...) Anyway. I use dvorak to reduce my carpal tunnel risks, not for speed.

Re:a tip

[lav-chan]

I don't really do any coding, but i have remapped a lot of my keys. Like i put ( and ) where [ and ] are (and vice versa). Easier to reach them that way. And i switched / and ' around, so the / is on the home row. And i switched ~ and ` (since i use ~ all the time and i never use `).

If you use Windows, Microsoft has a fancy little program that lets you create keyboard lay-outs. It's called, ingeniously enough, Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator. You can download it from their site. The benefit is that they're regular software keyboard lay-outs, so you don't have to worry about screwing with the Registry or anything that takes a bunch of work to undo. You just create a new lay-out and double-click the file it makes and select it in Regional Settings.

Obligatory

[mukund]

Does it have the `any' key?

Re:Obligatory

[Zwets]

Or, more importantly, how do you find out where they've decided to put the backslash this time?

Re:Obligatory

[XiQ]

Press the black one.

Re:Obligatory

[aslate]

The annoying thing is that the Keyboard image doesn't line up with the key map that they provide.

Re:Obligatory

[Tony Hoyle]

Overkill. One key suffices. 1 and 0 can be distinguished according to the length of the key press. This also will teach you fast typing because if you type too slowly you'll get only zeros (assuming that zero is the longer keypress).

GENIUS!

We can use something similar to send messages between computers.. much less chance of corruption.

Gotta think of a good name for the patent.

Umm..

I know!

Morse Code!

Re:Obligatory

[CreatureComfort]

Once again Apple leads the world in innovation! They did this decades ago... not only that, but they added a position sensor to the bottom of this "one-key keyboard" to allow fast positioning of the cursor on the screen. WOW, now that is impressive.

Calculator key?

[Anonymous Conrad]

Nowadays keyboards come with an extra row of buttons along the top: email, internet, volume and so forth. The mute key is pretty useful but the real piece of genius is the calculator key.

I don't care how funky your keyboard is: if you don't have a calculator key I'm not buying it. I'm used to it and I've come to expect it. Five years ago, sure, but get with the program. I'm not willing to remap and lose a regular key.

Re:Calculator key?

[BungoMan85]

Couldn't agree more. I got the MS wireless desktop elite keyboard and mouse ($99.99 at Fry's). It is by far the best keyboard I've ever used. What makes it so is mostly the extra buttons up top. I use the calculator one at least 10 times a day. And the volume control/play control/mute button for WMP (I use it, shut up, it works for me) up top is probably going to wear out soon I use it so much. Not to mention the customizable quicklaunch buttons. I got mine set to open the command prompt, Ultra Edit, the registry editor, notepad, and MSVC++. And it has buttons to open a slew of other things too. And lest we forget the browser forward/backward buttons with a scroll wheel beneath them? And that's just the keyboard, the mouse is even cooler.

Re:Calculator key?

[lxs]

Real geeks use a sliderule.

Re:Calculator key?

[AKAImBatman]

Personally, I would never buy a keyboard that has an "email key", that's what keybindings are for. I would question the build and design quality of a keyboard that relies on extra keys to get me to hand over the cash.

I never like the dumb (and utterly uselss) "email" buttons, but I am a fan of the Sun Keyboard designs. The "cut", "Copy", "paste", "stop" and other keys on the left can be very handy. It's too bad that Unix software is moving away from using such wonderful keys. :-(

The only thing that tends to throw users new to Unix keyboards is the location of the Control key. On Unix keyboards, the Control and Caps Lock are swapped. I actually find it a bit more comfortable, but many people are used to the PC keyboard design.

Re:Calculator key?

[Dun Malg]

d'uh it's not about mapping keys. if you knew how Dashboard works you'd know you wouldn't lose another key, just gain more options from that key.

Technically, that's still mapping keys. It's mapping an unused key or combination of keys to another use. He wants a single keypress to pop up his calculator. Even OSX can't do that without using an extant key, because even 10.4 is missing the ability to grow new keys on the keyboard.

Re:Calculator key?

[AKAImBatman]

The Sun keyboards are PS/2 (old) and USB (new), but are a bit odd. The PS/2 mouse is actually chained through the PS/2 keyboard, resulting in only on PS/2 port on Sun Machines. This method means that you never need to tug on your mouse cord, because it never gets caught on anything. There's always plenty of slack, and the wire is facing the direction of the mouse. Supporting this sort of design on a PC can be a bit problematic, though. Fortunately, methods do exist for attaching a Sun keyboard to a PC. Does that answer your question?

Re:Calculator key?

[dajak]

Nowadays keyboards come with an extra row of buttons along the top: email, internet, volume and so forth. ... and shutdown/standby. My cat loves that key.

Re:Calculator key?

[ArsonSmith]

you obviously have no idea how dashboard works. There is NO MAPPING. No loseing keys. Using special monior frequinces and motion detection it can project a new key onto your keyboard that when tapped it will do what ever you wanted it to do at that time.

(Actually I have no idea how Dashboard works. I just thought it was funny how the original poster was trying to say you had no idea.)

Re:Calculator key?

[nsushkin]

Ubergeeks have a slide rule button on their keyboards.

reason for, reason not for

[yagu]

I like the looks of this keyboard. But, for those looking and drawing any conclusions (I've been burned by this before), read the specs! The web site clearly represents pictorially the keyboard as wireless (I consider this deceptive -- even the "click to zoom" pictures fail to show a cable!). It is not wireless! This may not concern some, but for my uses these days I consider only wireless keyboards... not a commentary on what technology and keyboards should be, just my personal preference.

So, look before you buy.

On a related note, if you're looking for an excuse to improve your typing speed this keyboard may give you that (albeit a bit pricey). I finally was shamed into learning touch-typing when a frustrated on-looker (a friend) wrested my keyboard from my hands to finish typing something he was dictating. That incident prompted me to spend the next week refusing to look at the keyboard to type instead learning the keys by touch. Everyone around me went crazy for a week since my immediate result was essentially less than 10 words/minute with about zero percent accuracy. Within only one week I was typing 30 words/minute with about 80 percent accuracy. Today I easily go 60 wpm... that one incident/response dramatically changed my life professionally and personally.

benefits from learning the keyboard:

• dramatic increase in productivity
• better relationships (really!)... ever get snippy with someone because they couldn't "get it out" of their fingers while trying to type? (no jokes please).
• expansion of your task universe... you'll take on things you'd never have considered before. I once converted a paper "tutorial" system for my company to an on-line ISPF set of tutorial. The main task included writing lots of code -- that was easy and I quickly dispatched that..., but had I not been able to touch type I wouldn't have been able to consider the task, there were ten's of pages to type, I wouldn't have tried to do it in my "pre-touch" days. (BTW, I got a nice company bonus for that little effort (did it on my own time)).
• better communications... you'll be able to sit down and spin off almost at the speed of stream of consciousness letters, memos, "what if's", etc.
• better karma... it's just much more satisfying and less stressful in general to create without having to establish a relationship with the keyboard.

Re:reason for, reason not for

[Robotech_Master]

I'm just thankful that I learned typing the right way--in a high school class under a martinet of a teacher on IBM selectric typewriters where I was not allowed to look at the keyboard. Now I type 100 wpm without having to think about where to put my fingers.

Every so often I marvel at the adaptivity of the human nervous system, the way that I can just think a word and it appears on the screen without my having to pay attention to where my individual fingers go. It's the next best thing to mental telepathy.

Re:reason for, reason not for

[yagu]

Every so often I marvel at the adaptivity of the human nervous system, the way that I can just think a word and it appears on the screen without my having to pay attention to where my individual fingers go. It's the next best thing to mental telepathy.

I absolutely agree here! It is almost nothing short of amazing. Wonder if you've ever had the experience where you are typing something, you think one word, and another perfectly spelled "other" word appears on the screen/paper? That one totally freaks me out. It's pretty clear that the adaptation by the body has just created another channel of language.... While I've never learned sign, I'm guessing it's a similar deal.

(By the way, it'd be nice if typing classes came back... I never took any classes because at the time, it was only for "secretarial" training, and computers as we know them today didn't exist.... like I stated before it was only because of a crisis in tension I even addressed the issue of learning the keyboard. Are there typing classes anymore?)

Re:reason for, reason not for

[nCnt]

Wonder if you've ever had the experience where you are typing something, you think one word, and another perfectly spelled "other" word appears on the screen/paper?

Every now and boobs but it usually happens when my mind hasn't quiet finish another thought.

Keytronic Ergoforce

[Zarhan]

I thought that the differing force between various keys has been standard in all keyboards for a very long time. Keytronic has called it Ergoforce.

Re:Keytronic Ergoforce

[Alowishus]

I'm a big fan and longtime user of Keytronic's keyboards, and I'd say it's more likely that Das Keyboard is simply reselling the Keytronic with new keycaps (and a 4x markup). Perhaps Keytronic is even doing the manufacturing for them.

Das Keyboard looks EXACTLY like Keytronic's standard black USB model.

I'd also venture to say that this "article" submission was done by someone who would benefit from more sales of Das Keyboard. :)

Only 80g?

[Anonymous Coward]

The keys are divided into groups and their feedback springs are weighted differently; from 35 grams to 80 grams, which correspond to the strength of the finger that touches the keys.

Why not 500 grams? Sure, it'd hurt for a few weeks but then the jocks'd have to welcome their new muscle-nerd overlords! Muahahaha!

i have such a keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

it worjs perfevtky wekk anf i'n revommenfing it to everuone#

Business skill at work

[moz25]

Now that is what differentiates the true entrepreneur from the ordinary folk: market the feature on which you're actually saving money and sell the item for 3-4 times comparable items.

Next step

[__aaveti3199]

Blank monitor screens to stop us constantly checking our work. Then we'll be flying.

So What?

[TuataraShoes]

I've been using a mouse like that for years.

Already invented...

[Teechur007]

If you are a TRUE uber-geek, your keyboard will already be missing most of the markings from using it so much...and the ultimate uber-geek will usually be missing the markings from only one side... ;)

Too many keyboard layouts

[sphealey]

> which the maker touts will make you type 100%
> faster in a few weeks since it will keep you from
> looking at the keyboard.

10-15 years ago I might have agreed with this, but today there are so many keyboard layouts that it is impossible not to look. The ~ and | symbols are in a different place on every one of the 10 keyboards I use daily, for example.

sPh

What would be really handy...

[XxtraLarGe]

I don't usually look at the keyboard, except for some keys I don't use very often. It would be cool to get a Braile keyboard without the keys printed on it, so I could subconsciously learn Braile while I'm typing. You never know when or if you're going to go blind.

Re:What would be really handy...

[Idarubicin]

You never know when or if you're going to go blind.

I think it may be a consequence of one-handed typing, actually....

Better ones are out there

[turbofisk]

I'm never going back to an old-style keyboard... Using Logitechs Ultraflat keyboard... I type faster, with less strain, and am more comfortable while doing it. Did I mention it costs 30 bucks and is the same type of keyboard you find on laptops?

Why stop there?

[Nothing Special]

I am selling a premium 20" monitor that will not turn on.

For $799.99 you can have the ultimate in distraction free typing. after a few weeks you will intuitively know where on the screen the cursor is and your speed will increase at least 100%. Plus, without those distracting Graphics, you will be able to focus on kicking ass when gaming.

Order today, and I will throw in a Dolby 7.1 certified speakers that have no jack!

I had a better suggestion

[ksw2]

[email to daskeyboard...]

Hi,

Can I get a version that has the letters on all the wrong keys, so I'm
punished if I get weak and look at the keyboard?

----
[reply...]

That's a great idea. I will let you know when we can send you your punishment.

Thanks
Birgit

A disaster for Europeans!

[christophe]

Friends of mine live in France at borders, work in Germany or Switzerland, occasionnaly fly to the US or China. These people are used to mentally swith keyboard mappings. (*)
Imagine blank keyboard everywhere: impossible to know wich language it uses!!

[(*) As many people of my generation used to games which thought American keyboards were the only ones: in France convert A to Q, W to Z, comma and M, and do not use Shift for numbers...]

On the other side, these keyboards would be the first real international keyboards: just configure the OS, and you don't have to learn a new keyboard mapping each time you visit a new country.
(Yes, we can already do that, but it seems humans need a reason to be lazy and force the computer to adapt to them instead of adapting to it).

A true geek kbd has only 2 keys

[PaneerParantha]

A true geek kbd has only 2 keys anyway - 1 and 0. No matter how you place them, you'll be able to memorize their position in a few seconds.

Re:QWERTY Touch Typing

[Shanoyu]

You mean to tell me that other people have keyboards where the letters stay on?

I for one am baffled. This is like buying jeans with holes already ripped in them!

Re:Spray Paint...

[youlikemonkeytennis]

you need to live in the uk - we hand out glass tubes filled with petrol and green dye to our eighteen year olds so that they can play starwars properly.

Keytronic E03600 Black

[mr.bri]

This keyboard is simply a Keytronic E03600 Black USB with the caps replaced. They didn't even change their wording for most of the description.

See the link for the Keytronic E03600, notice the pictures, key placement/arrangement, are exactly the same.

They didn't even bother to update the layout image for the different key weights (they simply resized it and put a note that "...the letters are visible on this diagram for information purposes only." See Keytronic's version and Das Keyboard's Version. Though for some reason, Das Keyboard's image is better.

And you can buy Keytronic's for $21.50 directly from the manufacturer, or even less elsewhere. It's currently out of stock from Keytronic; maybe these people bought them all thinking they had a gold mine at 400% profit! :-b

Marketing! Marketing! Marketing!

How to remove the lettering?

[MythoBeast]

Does anyone happen to know what is used to put lettering on keyboards these days and, more importantly, what it would take to remove it? Turpentine? Acetone? Xylene? Preferably something that doesn't also dissolve the keys....