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Mechanical 'Clicky' Keyboards Still Have Followers (Video)
For a good number of years, the sound of the old IBM or other mechanical keyboard clacking away was the sound of programmers (or writers) at work on their computers. Then, according to Edgar Matias, president and cofounder of the Matias Corporation, computer companies started using membrane switches and other cheaper ways to make keyboards, which made a lot of people mutter curse words under their breath as they beat their fingers against keys that had to go all the way to the bottom of their travel to work, unlike the good old mechanical keyboards we once knew and loved.
Enter Edgar Matias, who started out making the half keyboard, which is like a chorded keyboard except that you can use your QWERTY typing skills with little modification -- assuming you or your boss has $595 (!) to lay out on a keyboard. But after that Edgar started making QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards for semi-competitive prices. FYI: No Slashdot person got a free keyboard (or extra money) for making this video, but I have a Matias keyboard, and in my opinion it's far better than the cheapie it replaced. A lot of other people seem to want "real" keyboards, too, which they buy from Matias or from other companies such as Unicomp, which makes keyboards just like the classic, heavily-loved IBM Model M. Again, I've owned a Unicomp keyboard (that I bought; it was not a giveaway) and it was excellent. Both companies put out quality products that are far easier on your hands and wrists than the $10 or $20 keyboards sold by big box electronics retailers.
Enter Edgar Matias, who started out making the half keyboard, which is like a chorded keyboard except that you can use your QWERTY typing skills with little modification -- assuming you or your boss has $595 (!) to lay out on a keyboard. But after that Edgar started making QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards for semi-competitive prices. FYI: No Slashdot person got a free keyboard (or extra money) for making this video, but I have a Matias keyboard, and in my opinion it's far better than the cheapie it replaced. A lot of other people seem to want "real" keyboards, too, which they buy from Matias or from other companies such as Unicomp, which makes keyboards just like the classic, heavily-loved IBM Model M. Again, I've owned a Unicomp keyboard (that I bought; it was not a giveaway) and it was excellent. Both companies put out quality products that are far easier on your hands and wrists than the $10 or $20 keyboards sold by big box electronics retailers.
I'm right handed, and I think a half-keyboard for the right hand would make much more sense. I only saw references to the left-hand one in the given link. I've found a number of good reasons to mouse on the "wrong" hand.
On another, more general note, mechanical does not have to mean clicky. I can't stand any extra noise, but I still like the feel of good mechanical keyboards, so something like Brown switches are a good compromise.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
You can't walk through the aisle of a Fry's or Best Buy without passing an array of mechanical keyboards. They're pretty much the de facto standard for gaming.
"still" have followers? They're mass market implements.
I'm all for clicky keyboards, but when your keyboard is priced at nearly $600 you can guarantee it's going to fail. No qwerty keyboard on the planet is worth $600.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
The problem I have with current keyboards is not just the short travel and lack of clickyness, but the tiny height of the keys.
Instead of the tall keys with space between them for fingernail clearance, there are these thin squares maybe an eighth of an inch above a solid surface. If I don't keep all my fingernails cut short, when they go past the side of the key they hit the panel and the key doesn't "strike". Letters get dropped. (So I get to pick between typing well and playing the guitar. I pity those who must keyboard for a living but want long nails to maintain their social life.) The short travel means there's little margin for finger variation, so some letters, where my fingers don't depress the keys as far, normally, don't strike, while others, where I support the weight of my hands, do strike when they shouldn't, or strike multiply.
After over a year I haven't been able to adjust. You may have noticed that my spelling has gone to hell as a result: I have to do a lot more correction and sometimes miss fixing things up.
(The inadequately-configurable trackpads, in positions where they detect the palm resting on the laptop (or brushing them) and randomly jump the cursor or highlight whole paragraphs so the next keystroke replaces them, are no help, either.)
On the other hand, when the nails do hit the key, they quickly wear through the top level of black plastic, exposing the backlit transparent light below it. I replaced a laptop about a year ago and after about six months about a half-dozen heavily-used keys had their pretty letters obscured by the giant glow of the scoured away region.
I had been running on older thinkpads and toshibas, with classic keyboard-shaped keys, or at least the little fingertip cup and substantial fingernail clearance. Switching (in a two-dead-laptops-in-two-weeks emergency) to a lenovo z710, then to a company-supplied toshiba s75, both with the stupid "I'm so thin", square, low-travel, no-finger-cup keys has been a disaster.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I got my CMStorm for $55 after $20 rebate from Newegg. It was shocking how much less the gaming peripheral companies could sell these for.
It's my normal-use typing keyboard that I use for gaming too. I got the Cherry MX Brown. Common types are:
Cherry MX Blue - classic clicky switch, half-way press
Cherry MX Red - pure gaming - key is light (a lot less force to push down) and must be pressed down all the way (to benefit double-tapping)
Cherry MX Brown - In-between blue and red
I initially purchased a Blue (from DAS), but I hated it (too heavy and noisy), and returned it to Amazon. Brown was perfect though. More info about switches here:
http://www.overclock.net/t/491...
Edgar Matias saved the ALPS switch industry. His company, at significant expense, and through expensive trial-and-error, has succeeded in perfecting the manufacture of clicky and non-clicky ALPS switch clones.
While most of us keyboard enthusiasts extol the virtues of buckling-spring IBM/Lexmark keyboards continued by Unicomp, and the recent introduction of full Cherry MX Green heavy clicky switch keyboards (previously only used in spacebars alone), Matias is a true hero.
Newegg Rosewill/Striker, Newegg ABS, DS International, and Ducky have had reasonably good ALPS clones that have fallen out of production. But Matias continues to be the gold standard for those of us who appreciate the sound and feel of classic ALPS clicky and non-clicky keyboards.
It's a complicated and varied history in the original and clone ALPS switches if you're into that sort of thing.
Kriston