Keyboard love

[HareBrain]

This is my desktop keyboard. I've had it since about 2003, three PCs ago, and it's brilliant. It's a Cherry, with mechanical switching, and I can type on it quite a bit faster and with fewer mistakes than any other I've used. It's not that quiet, though -- sounds a bit like hail on a tin roof.

My writing laptop (for use in coffee houses etc, if people remember those) is an old Samsung NC10, from about 2008, and I keep it on because its keyboard, though very different from the Cherry, is almost as nice to use. I've tried other laptops occasionally, and their keyboards feel horrible. I type very slowly on them and make loads of mistakes. I don't know if that's something inherent in them or just that I haven't adapted to them.

Anyone else assign much importance to the keyboard? Does anyone use a laptop with an external keyboard (where space permits)?

 

[Venusian Broon]

I'm surprised you can still read all the symbols on the keys. Keyboards built then must be higher quality! Love the old fashonishe beige-ish plastic. Takes me back to 'PC suites' in Uni

I've got a 'free range' wireless logitech in 2016, I think. and I've lost quite a few symbols on the keys through use. And it being black shows it a bit unclean, but whatever...

Luckily though typing is now being handled by my hands rather than my eyes or brain. They can touch type and therefore know exactly where everything is.

Couldn't think of typing on anything else. Unless it broke irrevocably I suppose.

 

[HareBrain]

I'm surprised you can still read all the symbols on the keys. Keyboards built then must be higher quality!

I hadn't thought of that, but I guess you're right. None of the markings on mine have faded at all. It was one of the most expensive you could get at the time, but it's proved a good investment.

Love the old fashonishe beige-ish plastic. Takes me back to 'PC suites' in Uni

It might be white if I cleaned it properly! And yeah, it's like one of those old IBM jobs but without the two-tone grey keys. Luckily, it doesn't come with the smell of twenty unwashed compsci students.

 

[Abernovo]

I've used an external keyboard for a long time. If I'm on the move, then I just use the laptop keys -- something I find reasonable on my present model, compared to the horrible cheap-feel keyboards on previous laptops. But if I'm at a desk/table, then I want the screen just right for comfort, and that's usually raised and back a bit, making the keys more difficult to access.

I suspect I've also been spoilt by my work, as I use a company laptop, with a docking station, which connects all peripherals, and duplicate screens; then I disconnect when I need to work away from my desk. So, I now connect my personal laptop to my piddy TV, link up a keyboard and mouse, and pretend I'm being productive.

 

[Ursa major]

The one I use is a Logitech G213 gaming keyboard even though I don't play games. The reason I chose it was something VB said: "I'm surprised you can still read all the symbols on the keys." My previous keyboard was also a Logitech** that looked a lot like VB's other than he seems to obliterate the markings on different keys to the ones I do.

And what's the solution (other than trial and error with regard to keyboards, and life's too short, particularly at the moment): keyboards where the symbols are backlit... in my case, with a uniform cyan at low illumination (so something like the colour on the leftmost keys below)!

​

** - I've found that the HP keyboards that come with desktops/All-in-1s are fine with regard to the symbols remaining intact, but I'm using the keyboard above with a laptop and I've hated all the laptop keyboards I've ever used.

 

[Biskit]

I'm not a keyboard connoisseur, but I have noticed that all my current keyboards are a lot more lively than they used to be, dodging around to avoid letting my fingers land in quite the right place.

 

[Cydramech]

I've always been hard on my keyboards (even messy, sometimes). There have been times when I'd only go weeks, and other times months, and maybe a few lucky times, for more than a year, before having to replace a keyboard. Needless to say, assigning importance to a keyboard is one thing I can't do - I'm just too much of a keyboard-killing machine.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

Ugh - PCs!
Here's my (separated) Mac G5 & keyboard.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I like the keyboard on my Macs but from employment memories, I loved those noisy keyboards, HB, and similarly made less mistakes (and the clack was glorious!).

Using my iPad on commutes to type into scrivener was horrid at first and I bought a Bluetooth keyboard to use. It was a pain and I went back to just the screen keyboard. Now, a few years later I don’t even think about it. The only issue is the latency of my iPad (which is from the late Cambrian period - aka big trees and scary scorpion things).

One hates to be arch, but it might be that if you got a bloody smartphone you’d have gone through all this years ago and wouldn’t be dependant on your clacker-tap. Silly little goose.

Can we now agree @Dan Jones @The Big Peat and @Venusian Broon that HB needs a smartphone?

Congrata to VB for being able to touch-type!! I’m still a looker

pH

 

[Venusian Broon]

Congrata to VB for being able to touch-type!! I’m still a looker

pH

You've clearly not typed enough !

It's not a skill that I deliberately tried to foster. I just woke up one day and, voilà, I discovered I could do it.

Away from a keyboard, if I think of a letter I can actually feel the correct finger 'tingle'.

However it is completely dependent on a QWERTY keyboard. Stick a AZERTY keyboard in front of me and my typing collapses.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

Touch typing is a skill I tried to learn too late in life. I've developed far too many poor habits to re-train my fingers into the discipline needed, and I have huge respect for people like @Venusian Broon who manage to do it well.

 

[Cydramech]

As a kid, I never really got to learn how to type (I never was given a keyboard class or anything of the sort), but then I started learning to touch-type by myself just while playing Everquest Online Adventures, and later, Final Fantasy XI (well, maybe I learned a bit from chatting through AOL/AIM back then).

 

[Venusian Broon]

Touch typing is a skill I tried to learn too late in life. I've developed far too many poor habits to re-train my fingers into the discipline needed, and I have huge respect for people like @Venusian Broon who manage to do it well.

I'm not brilliant at it, just that I think my eyes got bored of looking down all the time.

(I just typed that sentence with my eyes closed just to test myself. Still got it )

 

[The Big Peat]

A) @HareBrain does need a smartphone

B) That said, different keyboards do throw me. I'm used to working on a small laptop keyboard right now, but for working from home I use my wife's big laptop and I make a ton of mistakes on it. It's worse because I touchtype without looking at the screen or the keyboard so I'll often only realise I'm typing gibberish a sentence in.

 

[Ursa major]

so I'll often only realise I'm typing gibberish a sentence in

It's almost the same with me...

...except I'll often only realise that I'm not typing gibberish a sentence in....

 

[.matthew.]

I remember learning to touch type on something called an Acorn... I have no idea, never heard of the brand since, and since forgotten how to touch type... mostly. I sometimes slip into it, like now I'm not looking at the keys at all but I make the odd little error as I mostly just two finger type rather than keeping my hands in set positions, but that comes from playing games as a leftie where I need to remap keys and sort of trained myself out of the default asdf jkl; positions.

Edit: Just noticed that I actually two finger type the letters but then use the other fingers for the enter and modifier keys.

As for keyboards, they're important but I have odd tastes. I keep meaning to buy a preowned business laptop (with the well reviewed keyboards) but for now pretty much anything will do. My desktop has linear mechanical 'silent' keys that I added some of those little rubber washers to to make it quieter. It's still not as silent as a basic laptop keyboard though and without an actuation click I pretty much end up bottoming out (which is honestly what I was going for anyway because I like to type hard...ish).

 

[HareBrain]

I remember learning to touch type on something called an Acorn... I have no idea, never heard of the brand since

The BBC Micro from the early 80s?

 

[Ursa major]

It could have been the Acorn Electron, a cut-down version of the BBC Micro, or the Acorn Atom.

 

[.matthew.]

Acorn Atom sounds familiar and it was around 1999. I think they were old even then though.

 

[tinkerdan]

I remember those click-y keyboards.
I think that part of the adjustment is that the click in your mind indicates that the key has been struck.
When going to a less noisy device your mind causes a hesitation if it's unclear from lack of the proper sound that you have struck the key--let alone the correct key.

Every keyboard I've had has some sort of sound and still it is difficult sometimes to adjust from the desktop to the laptop because the keys sound different.

The thing is, they could make them really quiet; however, I think that would drive a lot of people mad.