mechanical keyboards

[jyl]

We all get OCD about something. For me, that includes keyboards.

I spend most of my waking hours at a keyboard. I didn’t give the keyboard itself much thought. A bout of carpal tunnel got me paying attention. A Microsoft Natural Keyboard took care of that. Then I started paying attention to the feel of the keys, and found them wanting.

A thirty-five year old IBM Model M keyboard eventually appeared on my desk. The crisp, definite keyfeel - authoritatively clicky, haptic and aural feedback, long key travel and firm weight - it was a revelation.

I started learning about legendary keyboards of days past. What might be even better than a Model M? Whatever it was, I had to try it.

For a year, I thought about getting the Model M’s ancestor, the Model F. Then I learned about an even older, more storied, keyboard.

A working IBM beamspring keyboard costs $5,000, and the key layout is archaic. Stymied, I was, for another year.

I learned of a company that was going to make reproductions of the famous beamspring switches in keyboards with modern layouts - that is to say, the Model M layout which remains the standard full-size layout today. Another year spent mulling and hemming, saving my pennies, contemplating therapy.

Today I finally pulled the trigger. In a few weeks, my beamspring keyboard will arrive. Complete with the solenoid that hammers the case with each keystroke, apparently to soothe typists used to the machine gun rat ta tats of their Selectric typewriters.

Yes, I work alone. Yes, I have stepped over the edge.

[Bill Douglas]

Good luck with it and I hope it works.

I'd like a clacky keyboard. 1980's style, yep, old IBM style. Clacky, but soft, so you don't have to hit it too hard.

[wdfifteen]

Good for you. It’s important to like the tools you work with and important to recognize when your tools are getting in the way. It’s hard to do good work when you’re constantly fighting your equipment.

[id10t]

Have my Real IBM 286 - complete with 2.88mb floppy drive - in the garage, and yes, it still has the model M keyboard with it.

Also still have my Northgate Omni 101, though I stopped using it a few years ago.

Current home keyboard is a Logitech G710 mechanical key "gaming" keyboard.

Unfortunately at work all I have are Dell squishy key things. Need to get my boss to spend some college money on a G710 for the office...

[id10t]

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

Good luck with it and I hope it works.

I'd like a clacky keyboard. 1980's style, yep, old IBM style. Clacky, but soft, so you don't have to hit it too hard.

Check the Logitech G710 - it comes with a few different strength springs.

[OK-944]

Makes me nostalgic...not quite for the old Underwood I'd used back in high school - but at least for the typewriter I had in college...a Selectric I think...the one with the ball which would rotate around for letter strikes? How cool was that?

[stevej37]

I wish they would return to using the bumps for the FJ home keys.

[KFC911]

It's been a long, slow downward spiral .... the keyboards were awesome, wheen speeling and tuping mattered ... no backspace key on them ... that I can recall anyways

[Tobra]

NERDS!

You guys geek out over the most random stuff

[Shaun @ Tru6]

[GH85Carrera]

I have the Logitech G-613 that is huge, and has a good key stroke. The one bad thing about it is as it gets older and gets the inevitable dust and crud of using it, it starts to make keystrokes double letter. I have to take it to my garage and use the air compressor to blow the the crap out and allll is well for a few months. It is a battery operated wireless keyboard, as I have it in a keyboard drawer that I can close when just watching a video, or not using the computer.

[herr_oberst]

That teardown video is amazing. There are worlds out there that few of us are aware of even though some are literally at our fingertips.

[masraum]

I spend all day at a keyboard. I've never had carpal tunnel, but many years ago, became interested in ergonomics. I bought some no name ergonomic keyboard that was similar to the microsoft natural but the front of the keyboard had legs instead of the back which made more sense to me. I used that at home. Then I decided that I wanted ergo keyboards at work (2 computers) so I bought 2 microsoft naturals for work. I think I paid $5 each for them. I liked all of my ergo keyboards.

I used to peruse the Fentek site as they had many, many ergo options including some really odd ones - https://www.fentek-ind.com/ergo.htm. The ergo boom which is what that time must have been seems to have settled to a more stable plateau of offerings. I use (and have been for ~15 years, I think) one of the odder ergo keyboards out there. I used to have 2, one that I kept at work and one that I kept at home. These days, I just carry one back and forth since I don't have a set desk at work and I'm not in the office 5 days.

The keyboard that I use is the Kinesis Ergo Advantage keyboard. It's got mechanical switches. I eventually bought a new one with the "quiet" keys although it is possible to turn on a key-click sound if you want. I swapped to quiet keys because the keyboard noise was coming across loudly on conference calls.

Kinesis makes a new and improved version of the advantage, and when they first came out you could special order them with any keyswitch you wanted out of a selection of up around 100 different switches IIRC. The kinesis-ergo company has now started selling 2 versions, one with quiet switches and one that's not quiet. But you can still go to "Upgrade keyboards" and order the Advantage 360 (or the older Advantage 2 like I have) with pretty much any key switch you want.
Upgrade
https://upgradekeyboards.com/collections/kinesis-advantage360-keyboards

kinesis ergo
https://kinesis-ergo.com/keyboards/advantage360/

Advantage (old version that I have)


Advantage 360 (the new version)


comparison between the 2


I think I paid about $260 for my first Kinesis (refurbished). I think I paid about $350-380 for my second because it was the pro version with more memory and came with a foot switch. I think my third which was a newer version was about $400. It looks like they have refurbished versions of the 2 new keyboards available now (Advantage 360 and 360 Pro)

[masraum]

These are some of the newer competition
The Glove80


and the Moonlander

[jyl]

I knew some here would understand .

Mechanical keyboards are a mini rage now. Many new switches have been introduced, to be mix-and-matched with the many new keyboard chassis now available. Hot swap - you simply plug and unplug the switch from the circuit board, no soldering - is common. Hundreds if not thousands of keycap styles can be used. The industry has standardized on one keycap mount and is mostly standardized on one switch pinout.

Sadly, the keyboards resulting from all this energy are mostly appalling. Most are very small. The so-called “40%” keyboards have no numeric pad, no F keys, not even dedicated navigation keys (up, down, right, left). Forget things like Page Down, Home, etc. They are pink, or gold, or iridescent white. The keycaps are multicolored, pastel or a vaguely 70s palette. Some keycaps are shaped like hamsters or slippers. Colored LEDs make flashing patterns like a disco floor.

These keyboards look like those miniscule purses that hold a credit card and lip gloss, or a miniature puffy dog. I need a working keyboard. Like a 55 liter messenger backpack, or a German Shepherd.

Worse, modern switches are - I haven’t tried that many, but so far they seem “just okay”. Better than the squishy domes on the throwaway Dell or HP keyboard on almost every desk. If your baseline is typing on wet foam, better is not hard. Much better, sometimes. Not anywhere close to really good.

The problem with starting at Model M is that one’s baseline is set very high. It is the keyboard that created the standard 104 key layout we used today. Many consider it the best keyboard ever. Where do you go next?

Why go anywhere, you might ask. If a Model M is so great, why try anything else? Why leave the town you were born in? Why travel the world? Why ever date more than one woman? Why drive more than one car?

This company - actually, this one guy - reproduces the IBM buckling spring and beamspring switches and, finally, puts them in modern layouts, with metal cases and sober, we-mean-business, not-pink keycaps.

https://www.modelfkeyboards.com/

They’re not cheap. I can write it off.

[KFC911]

^^^^ Having always driven a QWERTY in my "day job" ... I just like an old fashioned style. When sitting (and not at a console, etc.) .... I had the keyboard in my lap most of the time and not sitting on the desktop.

I invented the laptop

[jyl]

mausram, I’ve thought about getting the mythical Model M ergonomic keyboard. If my carpal tunnel returns, I’ll be really sorry I don’t have one.

[fanaudical]

Thanks for the new rabbit hole, John. I was just thinking the other day how much I miss a tactile keyboard and now am looking...

[pavulon]

had no idea something like this had been contemplated much less now offered for sale...remarkable stuff!

[Otter74]

When I got my first MacBook in 2007 and retired the PC that my dad had built for me*, I kept my two IBM keyboards because i loved their feel. I don’t remember where they are as I haven’t seen them in ages - I hope I didn’t get rid of them - but it would be nice to be able to use them at work.

*Building computers was one of my dad’s hobbies, so we had an Apple I (II?) in ~1981, and growing up in the 80s and early 90s we had 5 PCs in the house - one each for me, my sister and my mom, and two for dad.