Keyboards (a regular whinge revisited)
Oct. 12th, 2004 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dennyI don't regard myself as being a particularly unusual person. Therefore, I'm always surprised when a product I want, especially one that I can clearly specify the (short) required feature-set of, isn't easily available. After all, if I want it, surely the market must be there for mass production of said toy/gimmick/thingymajig.
In this case, what I want is a computer keyboard. Two actually, one for at home and one for at work, to replace the two I currently have. There are only five requirements for this keyboard, three of them essential, the other two desirable. Here they are, in order of importance:
I loathe soft-touch keyboards. A keyboard is meant to *clack* with every keypress. Ask anyone who ever used an IBM 3270 console :)
Ergonomic layout is nice, if you can touch-type. Well, I like it anyway. This is the type commonly referred to as 'natural' now, by the way, as the immense Microsoft products gravity field bends our language around itself.
USB is a basic requirement of any input device these days. My current keyboards, while meeting the first two criteria, are not even PS/2, but AT type connectors. This is Not Good. Also, they have a quirky habit of throwing in occasional line noise which manifests as random backticks (`) under Linux, which is quite irritating.
Cordless would be handy, just to keep things neat and tidy and also to allow me to control DVD playback from the sofa.
And it needs to be black because, well, um... I'm not a goth, okay! I just want my keyboard to match my new monitors ;)
Anyway, you can't buy them. Or if you can, sporadic searching by me and a few friends over the last few years has failed to find them. Is it really that unusual a set of requirements? Or has the free market completely failed to fill a profitable niche here?
The closest thing I can find is so far is the Logitech 'Comfort', which meets four of my five criteria, but NOT the all important and massively over-riding first criterion.
Updates:
Split M-type keyboard?? Apparently not actually for sale. *sulk*
Datadesk SmartBoard. Weird keyboard layout, but online reviews suggest it has a very nice key action... hrm.
Kinesis Maxim. Adjustable split keyboard of some repute (and high price).
In this case, what I want is a computer keyboard. Two actually, one for at home and one for at work, to replace the two I currently have. There are only five requirements for this keyboard, three of them essential, the other two desirable. Here they are, in order of importance:
- NOT BLOODY SOFT TOUCH
- Ergonomic layout
- USB
- Cordless
- Black
I loathe soft-touch keyboards. A keyboard is meant to *clack* with every keypress. Ask anyone who ever used an IBM 3270 console :)
Ergonomic layout is nice, if you can touch-type. Well, I like it anyway. This is the type commonly referred to as 'natural' now, by the way, as the immense Microsoft products gravity field bends our language around itself.
USB is a basic requirement of any input device these days. My current keyboards, while meeting the first two criteria, are not even PS/2, but AT type connectors. This is Not Good. Also, they have a quirky habit of throwing in occasional line noise which manifests as random backticks (`) under Linux, which is quite irritating.
Cordless would be handy, just to keep things neat and tidy and also to allow me to control DVD playback from the sofa.
And it needs to be black because, well, um... I'm not a goth, okay! I just want my keyboard to match my new monitors ;)
Anyway, you can't buy them. Or if you can, sporadic searching by me and a few friends over the last few years has failed to find them. Is it really that unusual a set of requirements? Or has the free market completely failed to fill a profitable niche here?
The closest thing I can find is so far is the Logitech 'Comfort', which meets four of my five criteria, but NOT the all important and massively over-riding first criterion.
Updates:
Split M-type keyboard?? Apparently not actually for sale. *sulk*
Datadesk SmartBoard. Weird keyboard layout, but online reviews suggest it has a very nice key action... hrm.
Kinesis Maxim. Adjustable split keyboard of some repute (and high price).
