keyboard trends

[Dan Ritter]

On Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 03:35:19PM -0500, Tom Metro wrote:
> No doubt this has been primarily driven by aesthetics (and I guess they
> assume most of their buyers are too young to remember the junky
> keyboards that looked like this in the 80's), but manufacturers claim
> that the design makes typing less error prone. As you would expect, this
> claim has been debated, and the issue gets muddied due to Apple's
> involvement.

The actual advantage of an island key arrangement is that
instead of having a huge hole in your laptops's case, you have 
a nice panel with small holes cut out of it. Stiffness goes up
considerably.

For desktop keyboards, I'm typing on an IBM Model M right now,
have another one near me, and my personal Northgate Omnikey 101
is at work. I'm considering buying a PCKeyboards.com model which
they claim is built to similar specs.

Yes, I like a steel plate on my keyboard so it doesn't move,
loud clicky keys that don't have to bottom out to register, and
keyswitch construction that can last for years and years and
years.

I don't need a number pad much, though.

-dsr-


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