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

Power Key next to Enter Key

[nuxx]

There is also this keyboard (image) which I came across in a CompUSA sale area for $4.99 or so.

It's big feature was that it had an extra three keys for Power, Sleep, and Wake. The problem is that these were right above the inverted-T, with Power being right next to Enter.

Re:Power Key next to Enter Key

[zlogic]

Most keyboards priced over $10 have some unique feature - like F-keys in groups of three instead of four (Microsoft). Or really weird layouts of Home, End, Delete and other non-letter keys (practically every Microsoft, Genius and Logitech keyboard). And Logitech have the left Shift key split in two parts, the left is Shift and the right is "\", so you have a good chance to miss the Shift key or even press Shift and \ at once. WTF!
But I think Microsoft is the winner here: their Wireless keyboard makes F-keys do stuff like forwarding mail and Undo/Redo. There's an F-lock mode that makes them do the right thing, acting like regular F1-F12 keys, which are used in every advanced application or game. But at the same time the Print Screen key starts switches to send the Insert keystroke. So to make a screenshot, you have to
1) Press F-Lock
2) Press Print Screen or Shift+PrintScreen
3) Press F-lock again
And these keys are placed "ergonomically" (read: you have to find them every time before using).

Re:Well...

[Chordonblue]

I dunno, given that the real competitors to the C=64 was the Atari 400 and the T.I. 99/4, I think it wasn't so bad.

Believe me, having owned the Atari 400 (my first computer), at that time; I would've given my right arm for a keyboard that good!

Also, at what point does price enter into this? C=64 was around $199 at the time the PC came out at, oh 7 or 8 times the price...

Re:Well...

[sprag]

Despite its height, the C64 keyboard wasn't that bad. Sure, typing on it gave me much more finger strength than I really needed (and the nickname "the claw" when typing on softer keyboards), but the extra symbols on the keys weren't confusing and the oddly placed keys (inst/del & clr/home) were much less irritating than some of the PC keyboards I've used with a skinny vertical return key or the NeXT which put the pipe/backslash over on the freaking keypad.

Funny this just came up

[dsginter]

Just before I hit slashdot to find this article, I was *literally* just looking at the keyboard of my new Lenovo Thinkpad and thinking that keyboards don't hold up like they used to. The surfaces of the keys, in just a short while, have worn appreciably. The pessimist in me thinks that manufacturers are reducing durability of keyboard so as to keep that "new laptop smell" appeal.

But then I thought, "what if these things have the same lead problem as the Chinese toys?"

I'm quite certain that even the most well-designed lead-laden keyboard would be worse than the worst-design on this list.

Has anyone tested keyboards for lead yet?

... and the ZX80?

[Anoraknid the Sartor]

The ZX81 was there - in the guise of the Timex 1000, but its predecessor, the ZX80 wasn't.

I remember when I sold my Sinclair ZX80 and bought the Sinclair ZX81 - and marvelled at the relative comfort of its keyboard. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_ZX80 Compared to the ZX80, the Commodore keyboard was a joy.

In fact every machine Sinclair made had a slightly dodgy keyboard - the QL was a pain to word-process on and the Cambridge Z88 was - effective, and quiet, but took some getting used to.

Re:"Windows Key" anyone?

[Waffle Iron]

The key steals valuable space from the spacebar (no pun intended).

OTOH, I really like an unintended consequence of the Windows key. I've got a MS "Natural Multimedia" keyboard where the Windows key shoves the left Alt key over to where it's comfortably positioned directly under my left thumb. Since the vim editor ships without any Alt combos premapped, all of them are free for me to customize for may favorite commands and macros. I get easy access to a couple of dozen of my most frequently used commands while barely moving any fingers. (Most importantly, I mapped Alt+F to replace the infamous ESC mode switch.)

The truly stupid thing about this keyboard is Microsoft's brain-dead idea for the "F-Lock" key, which replaces all the function keys with bogus new fixed function keycodes like "Open" and "Send". The keyboard comes up by default with the function keys disabled, and there's no way to switch the mode via software; you have to physically press the F-lock button to switch modes. I had to find and install a special script to make Linux reinterpret the stupid new keycodes as regular function keys.

The worst keyboards _I_ ever used...

[dpbsmith]

...I'm afraid I don't recall the brands, but several makers of video terminals used layouts that inserted an extra key in the bottom row, thus placing the CTRL key one key-width farther left than usual. Of course that required relearning--whenever I used one of those keyboard, for the first half-hour or so I'd keep hitting the extra key when I meant to hit CTRL, but that wasn't the problem.

The problem was that every CTRL combination required you to stretch your pinky that much further from the rest of your fingers than usual.

And one of them was at a company that used emacs as their standard text editor.

That was the only time in my life that using a computer made my hands, or rather my left hand, hurt so badly that I was on the verge of seeing a doctor. I trained myself to type all CTRL combinations using two hands, and the problem gradually subsided.

Man..the memories of being a tech in a basement..

[Rub1cnt]

I was a tech in a basement of a major oil company...they issued me this Dell "quietkey" keyboard for my PC. I have occupied open top cubes next to mine and techs in them... Now..I don't know how the name quietkey came about...but the keyboard they game me was one of the loudest I've ever typed on...I type a consistent 90-120wpm...it took less than 5 minutes of typing before I got my first complaint. "The clicking of your typing is driving me nuts!" I still have that keyboard somewhere.. :)