The 10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time

Kabz found the 10 Worst PC Keyboards of all time which leads off with the Commodore 64 and takes a trip through PCjr country. Might trigger some nostalgia, or some sort of flashback wrist strain.

Comments

disagree on some points

[Tom]

I have to disagree on a number of points, that I think could've been researched better:

• The "nonstandard keys" complaint about the C64 ignores that back in 1973 when the C64 was designed, there was no standard. You can't be "nonstandard" if there isn't a standard. Even the IBM 8086 keyboards where "nonstandard" by that definition (check here and here for examples)
  
• Snide remark: The vast majority of C64 owners didn't do "real work on daddy's IBM PC" because daddy didn't own a computer at all back then. We were the first generation with computers at home, for the most part.
  
• The constant whining about the lack of backspace ignores that on many of those machines (I don't know all of them, so some might work differently) the delete key actually worked as backspace when you were at the end of a line.
  

Mostly, I don't understand why the article complains so much about old keyboards, from times when everyone, including the computer companies, was still working things out. There are perfectly crappy keyboards on the market right now. Sure, they have a "standard" layout, but after using them for 3 weeks the keys start to rub off so you can start to learn touch-typing, except that the tactile feedback is nonexistent and the keypresses unreliable. I'd consider that much worse than having key X next to key Y.

Also, can we add the article to the list of "10 worst article navigation methods"?