henry cow
April 15th, 2011, 04:03 AM
Allow me to dodge the question a bit and describe a few keyboards that I like.
I have a Northgate Omnikey 102 from 1990 that is pretty nice, if you want a behemoth on your desk.
My keyboards at work are IBM post-Model-Ms (blasphemy, I know) that are really pretty nice and easily found for a couple of dollars second-hand. The KB-8923s are particularly good and the KB-7953s are OK. Both have conventional keys, but the layout is right. That is, (for someone like me, a big strong guy with big hands) the keys are tall, widely separated, and concave on top. There is good feel and sound, but people can sleep in the other room when I work at night.
For me, the shape, size, and configuration are what counts, and the mechanism is secondary. The noise of the Northgate can get annoying, even for me, but the light touch is gratifying.
But I have a dark secret, that would cause me shame with purists, if I cared. Compaq made great keyboards a decade ago, I have owned several models. The one I keep coming back to is the SK-2800 "internet" keyboard with extra keys scattered across the top. The primary keyboard has the nice shape and feel of the IBM 8923s, and the bonus keys are rubbery. This beige/gray keyboard came with Presarios circa 2000-03. I would upload a picture but the icon above only seems to want to let me link to a URL.
Now, I must admit that I am a sucker for rubber keys. When I buy a calculator, I look for rubber keys because they feel so good. This keyboard has a complete set of music keys (Play/Pause, skip Forward/Back, Volume Up/Down, and, most important, Mute) and 7 programmable keys that I actually want: Internet, email, photo editor, word processor, spreadsheet, places, and wikipedia are what I am currently using.
You get very spoiled very fast when opening any of these applications takes one quick stab with a fingertip (onto a rubber key - heaven). Having become accustomed to that, even half a second dragging the mouse around and making at least one click seems DREADFULLY slow and clumsy. Your "touch typing" reaction just incorporates these keys like they were just another letter or number.
I will admit that while they work perfectly in XP, I have not gotten them all up and running in Ubuntu (lineak gets me only partway there). This is a sweet keyboard and I have several of them second-hand as backups.
So there are 3 that I really like. When I find an IBM M I will certainly buy it and give it a thorough trial, but these extra buttons have totally spoiled me. I suppose that the purists hate them because they are gimmicky (and I am a person who usually hates gimmicks on principle) but this set is really just right (except for the stupid crescent moon one (is that "sleep"?) and one with a rocket that I never have figured out.
I have a Northgate Omnikey 102 from 1990 that is pretty nice, if you want a behemoth on your desk.
My keyboards at work are IBM post-Model-Ms (blasphemy, I know) that are really pretty nice and easily found for a couple of dollars second-hand. The KB-8923s are particularly good and the KB-7953s are OK. Both have conventional keys, but the layout is right. That is, (for someone like me, a big strong guy with big hands) the keys are tall, widely separated, and concave on top. There is good feel and sound, but people can sleep in the other room when I work at night.
For me, the shape, size, and configuration are what counts, and the mechanism is secondary. The noise of the Northgate can get annoying, even for me, but the light touch is gratifying.
But I have a dark secret, that would cause me shame with purists, if I cared. Compaq made great keyboards a decade ago, I have owned several models. The one I keep coming back to is the SK-2800 "internet" keyboard with extra keys scattered across the top. The primary keyboard has the nice shape and feel of the IBM 8923s, and the bonus keys are rubbery. This beige/gray keyboard came with Presarios circa 2000-03. I would upload a picture but the icon above only seems to want to let me link to a URL.
Now, I must admit that I am a sucker for rubber keys. When I buy a calculator, I look for rubber keys because they feel so good. This keyboard has a complete set of music keys (Play/Pause, skip Forward/Back, Volume Up/Down, and, most important, Mute) and 7 programmable keys that I actually want: Internet, email, photo editor, word processor, spreadsheet, places, and wikipedia are what I am currently using.
You get very spoiled very fast when opening any of these applications takes one quick stab with a fingertip (onto a rubber key - heaven). Having become accustomed to that, even half a second dragging the mouse around and making at least one click seems DREADFULLY slow and clumsy. Your "touch typing" reaction just incorporates these keys like they were just another letter or number.
I will admit that while they work perfectly in XP, I have not gotten them all up and running in Ubuntu (lineak gets me only partway there). This is a sweet keyboard and I have several of them second-hand as backups.
So there are 3 that I really like. When I find an IBM M I will certainly buy it and give it a thorough trial, but these extra buttons have totally spoiled me. I suppose that the purists hate them because they are gimmicky (and I am a person who usually hates gimmicks on principle) but this set is really just right (except for the stupid crescent moon one (is that "sleep"?) and one with a rocket that I never have figured out.