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What is "The Best Keyboard Ever Made"?

I'll swear by IBM's Model M keyboards, I have two, one for each of my otherwise-modern desktops. They've outlasted most of my other components and I think I can count on them for at least a couple more decades!

Half-Saint: Unicomp keyboards aren't typically that expensive, and for the most part, since they basically took over IBM's Model M manufacturing facility, they use the classic buckling-spring technology.

Slashdot had an interesting review of the latest iteration of the Das Keyboard recently, interestingly enough. CmdrTaco apparently didn't like it because it doesn't cooperate with his Mac too well, heh. The comments are great, though, and of course mostly focus on the IBM Model M.
 
dreddnott said:
Half-Saint: Unicomp keyboards aren't typically that expensive, and for the most part, since they basically took over IBM's Model M manufacturing facility, they use the classic buckling-spring technology.
Click to expand...

I never explicitly said they were expensive. As it is, I think they are actually the cheapest of the newly manufactured clicky bunch. As for me, I'll just stick to the good old Model M. They're still relatively easy to find at the flea market and cost about $5 a piece :D

Cheers
SainT
 
I always liked the old Northgate Omnikey keyboards. I have 5 of them last time I counted. One is the old gold label version. :)
 
Model M's are great, but I have a tendency to stay up really late at night,and I'm always afraid the loud clicking will wake someone up, or at the least annoy someone who's already up into making me go to bed.
 
Although I'm typing this on a Wang-branded Model M, I like other ones better. German-made Cherry keboards for the NCR 286 systems had a great feel and put the basic F1-F10 keys on the left, as in the 5150 keyboard, with F11-30 on a top row across the keybord.

The best-constructed one that I can recall was a George Risk made for (I think) RCA. Individual sealed and pressure-calibrated reed switches for all keys. No springs used--just doughnut-shaped ceramic magnets encircling the reed switch. Encoding was via a diode matrix and some very early Fairchild DTL. Output was EBCDIC. I used it with my TV Typewriter for a time.
 
That George Risk keyboard sounds interesting. Is there a picture anywhere?

I just bought a 1991 IBM Model M for $4. I think I'm starting to get a bit of a "keyboard obsession". If I look at all the retro computers around my house, I can count 24 keyboards. Last year I had 2.

Maybe I better go to a "Keyboards Anonymous" meeting. ;)
 
Mr.Amiga500 said:
That George Risk keyboard sounds interesting. Is there a picture anywhere?
Click to expand...

No, I wish I still had the thing, but it departed as excess baggage in a move years ago. I've checked the web for photos of old RCA equipment from the Spectra 70 era, but there's almost nothing around.

Note that no one praises modern Apple keyboards...:p
 
I've been looking though a bunch of old Byte magazines (what an awesome magazine that was) and the keyboard of the Victor 9000 looks great. Does anybody have one? Does it feel as good as it looks?
 
I'm not certain, but ISTR that the keyboard in the Sirius/9000 was made by either Microswitch or Cherry (back then, they were almost interchangeable). Both my Durangos have Microswitch keyboards and they're very nice indeed.

One thing that the older keyboards feature is what's called "double shot" molded keytops, where the legend on the key is molded into the key as a differently-colored plastic. AFAIK, that's not done on modern keyboards, so keytop legends eventually wear off.

Even the Model M reproductions that you can buy don't have the old style keytops. I get the impression that double-shot molding is pretty much unobtainium today.
 
IBM Model M 101-key keyboards

IBM Model M 101-key keyboards

I'm definitely in the camp that IBM Model M keyboards are the best. These represent IBM's commitment to quality and the idea that things should be made with pride in the USA. I'm glad these keyboards are still made today in the USA.

I can understand why Microsoft and others have removed or "demoted" the insert key. Since the default is already "insert" and since there is little desire to "overwrite," it would appear that the insert key is little pressed. However, I press it often because I use keystroke Shift+Insert to paste instead of Ctrl+V. I'm probably one of the few that still use Shift+Insert.

I'm annoyed that the Microsoft Windows logo is on nearly every keyboard made since the mid-1990s. It doesn't seem right to attach one of these 104-key keyboards with the Microsoft Windows logo key to a computer running another operating system. Why couldn't keyboard manufacturers label these keys without promoting a specific operating system?

So I prefer IBM Model M keyboards with the previous, enhanced 101-key layout.
 
Allen said:
Why couldn't keyboard manufacturers label these keys without promoting a specific operating system?
Click to expand...

Oh, I don't know. You think it might be because in excess of 90% (probably closer to 95%) of the computers in the world are running Windows?

The other 5 to 10% (I don't have the exact figure handy and I'm too lazy to look them up) are Mac OS, Linux and all others.

Chances are extremely good that, if you sit down at a computer and push that logo key, you are going to get a start menu.
 
Windows Key Logo License Agreement

Windows Key Logo License Agreement

The Windows key doesn't do anything on my Linux system. There appears to be a "Windows Key Logo License Agreement" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_key). It sounds like keyboard manufacturers are required to put the Microsoft Windows logo on these keys. I guess I'm in the minority feeling "oppressed" by Microsoft.
 
The Windows key is just Ctrl+Esc isn't it? Atleast that is what I use on my old Northgate Omnikey/102 thats pre Windows keys.
 
Alternatives to pressing the Windows and menu keys

Alternatives to pressing the Windows and menu keys

Yes, keystroke Ctrl+Esc is like pressing the Windows key, but it doesn't look like you can use the shortcuts (like Windows key+M which minimizes all windows) unless you have the Windows key itself. Keystroke Shift+F10 is like pressing the menu key.
 
Allen said:
The Windows key doesn't do anything on my Linux system. There appears to be a "Windows Key Logo License Agreement" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_key). It sounds like keyboard manufacturers are required to put the Microsoft Windows logo on these keys. I guess I'm in the minority feeling "oppressed" by Microsoft.
Click to expand...

Oh, I don't know. Look at all of the Peecee keyboards with "SysRq" and "Pause" keys on them. Does SysRq do anything on your system? The legend on the Model M seems to indicate that it's an "Alt" combination. But it still doesn't do anything on any of my systems. The Model M doesn't have a Windoze key on it and I've never missed it.

I do wish the M had a volume control knob on it, like many of the "internet" keyboards. That's just so convenient...
 
carlsson said:
A volume knob to turn up or down the clickety-clack? :)
Click to expand...

That's not as silly as it sounds. IIRC, the operator's console on the CDC 6600 had a speaker and a volume control (accessible from the underside of the keyboard) to make a "chunk-chunk" sound as keys were pressed.

I've certainly seen the same thing on other keyboards.
 
There's just no pleasing everybody ;-)

Allen's WIN key doesn't work in Linux, but his SysRq key quite possibly does, whereas it's apparently the opposite for Chuck (or would be if he had a WIN key)...

I think it's one of those good ideas that never took off; many of the systems I worked on in the "good old days" had a similar key that would take you out of an application and into the OS under any circumstances, and I think that was the intent. Instead, many PC applications used one of the F keys (often F10) for a similar purpose; easier to implement but not quite as universal.

FWIW, my Toshiba 3100e uses SysRq to switch screen modes, and various other systems used it as well for hardware functions (reset, etc.)...

m
 
Did "break" on a PC ever really do anything on it's own? On my MS ergo keyboard it's actually incorrect merging Pause/Break and Printscreen/SysRq (those are top->bottom) but that'd be incorrect since it should theoretically be shift+pause to get break and in this writing it would be shift+break to get pause.

Bleh.. anyway, I only knew break from basic programming and ctrl+break but I don't remember if ctrl+c has always also done a break or not?

Also, I think I asked this before but were there useful applications for the Alt key besides ctrl+alt+del and Word Perfect?.. just curious if it came from mainframe world or what.
 
Well, the ALT key gets a good workout in Windows...

One of the more useful applications is to type special characters not on the keyboard (ALT + numeric keyboard ASCII value)

m
 
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