Best Keyboard Ever™
#1
http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

Keys with faces that change according to keyboard settings and controls.

OS independant.

Additional keys for program switching.

Fashionably expensive.

Russia, we salute your mad keyboard-making skills.
When in mortal danger,
When beset by doubt,
Run in little circles,
Wave your arms and shout.

BattleTag: Schrau#2386
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#2
NiteFox,Sep 24 2005, 07:59 PM Wrote:http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/

Keys with faces that change according to keyboard settings and controls.

OS independant.

Additional keys for program switching.

Fashionably expensive.

Russia, we salute your mad keyboard-making skills.
[right][snapback]90112[/snapback][/right]

Now, just imagine the lovely advertisements that could no doubt be sent to that thing through the shoddy browser that is IE. :D
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#3
It's going to take more than fancy face-changing keys to replace my IBM Model M Keyboard.

We loves our preciousss, yess we do, nassty little keysssesss.
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#4
It looks like a good keyboard for storing macros, especially the keys on the left.
The Bill of No Rights
The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance. Robert A. Heinlein
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#5
That is a really sexy keyboard, but it would really suck if you spilled anything on it :(

I have used a dozen or so different keyboards over the years, but I still keep coming back to the monstrous Compaq keyboard I got about 5 years ago.

[Image: keyboard7vp.jpg]

I just can't find another keyboard that is as comfortable to use as this old Compaq one. It weighs a ton and it has giant rubber feet that almost welds it to my pine table. The angle on it is perfect and the keys have an awesome solid clicky feel with a lot of travel.

Has anyone else noticed that while computer mice have gotten better over the years (ie the Microsoft Intellimouse and Logitech MX series), keyboards have gotten worse? I took a trip to Staples to check out their selection of newer keyboards and I couldn't find a single one that was a solid and as comfortable to use as my ancient Compaq. I saw piles of mice that I really liked, but the latest keyboards felt flimsy, weak, and uncomfortable.
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#6
Walkiry,Sep 25 2005, 12:13 AM Wrote:It's going to take more than fancy face-changing keys to replace my IBM Model M Keyboard.

We loves our preciousss, yess we do, nassty little keysssesss.
[right][snapback]90117[/snapback][/right]
Now that deserves the label "Best Keyboard Ever".
Hugs are good, but smashing is better! - Clarence<!--sizec--><!--/sizec-->
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#7
Walkiry,Sep 24 2005, 05:13 PM Wrote:We loves our preciousss, yess we do, nassty little keysssesss.[right][snapback]90117[/snapback][/right]
Right there with you, Walkiry. I think as a general rule it's like this: the first keyboard you get used to is the one you prefer forever. I love the old, stodgy, super-well-built model M's, and they can be hard to find sometimes.

-Bolty
Quote:Considering the mods here are generally liberals who seem to have a soft spot for fascism and white supremacy (despite them saying otherwise), me being perma-banned at some point is probably not out of the question.
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#8
I have two keyboards that I no longer use, but still love.

One is a keyboard made for the Macintosh a long time ago, for people with big hammy fingers. Each key on the board is like 20% larger. I loved to type on that. It had good solid heavy springs, and it was clearly made for people that learned to type on typewriters, because different keys had different tensions, depending on their place on the board. You could HAMMER on that thing and each keystroke was met with a solid mechanical "THUNK"! It was frightfully loud though, almost as much as a regular typewriter. I am told that people could tell what sort of mood I was in by the sounds made by that keyboard. Light clackity clack sounds meant that I could be safely disturbed, THWACK THWACK THWACK sounds meant serious harm to life and limb. I dunno. Considering at full tilt, I can churn out around 100 wpm, it must have sounded like machine gun fire.

The second was the classic full featured Macintosh Keyboard based on the IBM Model M. Only one little difference for mine... It was designed for people that are left handed. Once I got used to it, it was a joy to use. Keypad and function keys on the left side, all the command keys right at the left where they should be, oh man it was perfect. Mac users will know the board I am talking about. It was affectionately called "The Battleship." The 106 key model.

I am a keyboard abuser. I learned to type on an old typewriter, the kind you had to hammer down on the keys to make the magic happen. Took a lot of force to make it work. My typewriter didn't even use electricity. And the keys stuck. They were rusty. So all my typing habits carried over to the computer. I can totally wreck a keyboard in no time. Well, these cheap flimsy newfangled ones. All soft and squishy when you type.

I just realised how much the new keyboards suck.
All alone, or in twos,
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.

And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad buggers wall.

"Isn't this where...."
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#9
Walkiry,Sep 24 2005, 06:13 PM Wrote:It's going to take more than fancy face-changing keys to replace my IBM Model M Keyboard.

My keyboard looks just like the IBM Model M, but it says "Key Tronic Corporation" on the back (dated 10-03-90). It's my favorite keyboard ever. Newer keyboards just don't feel right. They're small, light, and the keys neither feel nor sound "right." Laptop keyboards are the absolute worst. *shivers*

-Lemmy
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#10
LemmingofGlory,Sep 25 2005, 11:27 AM Wrote:My keyboard looks just like the IBM Model M, but it says "Key Tronic Corporation" on the back (dated 10-03-90). It's my favorite keyboard ever. Newer keyboards just don't feel right. They're small, light, and the keys neither feel nor sound "right." Laptop keyboards are the absolute worst. *shivers*

-Lemmy
[right][snapback]90134[/snapback][/right]

The Powerbook 1400 from Apple used heavy duty scissor springs and had the same tactile feel as a heavy duty workhorse keyboard. It was also tough as a tonka truck and nearly indestructable. It was known as the Volvo of Powerbooks. People still talk about, and demand, that people make laptop keyboards like that one, instead of these spongy awful things they have now. It had a wonderfully annoying clackity clack as you typed. Drove people crazy. Critics called it the noisiest keyboard for a laptop ever, but everybody that used it loved it. You could hammer away on that thing and get satisfying tactile feedback.

Of course, it weighed almost 8 pounds too. And the noise... The noise is just to much. I could only imagine what would happen if you started typing your papers out on an airplane full of sleeping people. Of if you took notes with it in a college classroom.

Er sorry for being a keyboard nerd. I come from a different generation of computer users. We like big solid clonky mechanically noisy keyboards because they remind us of typewriters. It warms my heart to see some of you younger folks that love your big honking solid keyboards. :wub: Not to many people remember what typewriters were like... How hard you had to press on some keys to make the mechanics work. Or how the space bars on certain brands of typewriters liked to stick so they made it nice and wide so you could slap it with your hand to make sure it worked. And once you learn these things, they don't seem to unlearn themselves from your memory. I smash the keyboard when I am typing. Some of you younger folk type so lightly that it makes me cringe... I wonder if the input will make it in to the machine... keyboards now are so pussified. Soft. Squishy. Fragile feeling.

It's strange, seeing the world change. On the internet, if you are angry, YOU TYPE EVERYTHING IN CAPS! Way back in the day, if you had a typed letter, you could tell if somebody was pissed off by the indentations of the keystrokes on the paper. A furious typist would leave noticeably deep dents in the paper from bashing out stroke after stroke on the keyboard. You could actually see which part of the letter they were at the peak of their anger, because the letters would be so bold and deep... You knew they had to be raising their hands up to shoulder level and jamming their fingers down in to the keys, hammering out their venom at you. You can't see that now online. But it would be a cool technology if somebody invested some sort of font that registered how hard you were smashing your keyboard as you typed. I think only us old timers would really get that though. I doubt the younger folks would like it. They would just continue hammering stuff out in caps yelling "OMG STFU NOOB!" at each other.

Sorry, the old man is rambling again.
All alone, or in twos,
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall.
Some hand in hand
And some gathered together in bands.
The bleeding hearts and artists
Make their stand.

And when they've given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all it's not easy
Banging your heart against some mad buggers wall.

"Isn't this where...."
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#11
Saw that a while ago. Looks just as interesting now as it did back then.

I'd been using a standard 104 key keyboard for a month or two after inexplicably losing my previous Logitech Elite to a power surge (which fried the keyboard, but left all four USB ports untouched; I'm still trying to figure that one out), but I went and picked up a Logitech Multimedia Keyboard today, which is pretty much identical, just a little newer-looking and about thirty dollars cheaper. Once again, I'm reminded how much I love the relatively soft keys and zero-degree tilt of most Logitech keyboards.
ArrayPaladins were not meant to sit in the back of the raid staring at health bars all day, spamming heals and listening to eight different classes whine about buffs.[/quote]
The original Heavy Metal Cow™. USDA inspected, FDA approved.
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#12
Not ergonomically designed? Tsk, tsk... It may be the best keyboard ever at the moment, but there is room for improvement.

--Copadope
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