[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.