I am currently salivating over the prospect of building a shiny new computer (waiting to get paid atm %| )
The details of the spec will be figured out a bit later according to precisely how much money I actually have, but something ive really been looking into is a keyboard.
I am going to uni to do AI (woo!) and so I am gonna be coding a lot (more than I do at the moment, which is quite a lot). I need a new keyboard (working on a laptop atm, so cant use that).
Really what I wanted to know was what keyboards y’all recommend, as a bunch of people who really use them. I’m looking for something reasonably priced, but its not too important, Id prefer to spend a bit more and get a nice one. Id like something with a really soft touch, and any funky things are much appreciated (such as extra shift keys where you want them, etc)
So yeah, what keyboards are good, whats bad, and what would you all think is the nicest?
I always get Apple keyboards - I don’t get them just to go with my Mac though. I find PC keyboard tend to break very easily and the key lettering gets worn out quick. Plus Apple keyboards look nice too. I got mine for £25 and it has 16 F keys, the help, home, page up/down, numpad, volume control and cd eject key. Ctrl, alt, shift and command keys on both sides. I believe the command key works as the Windows key under Windows. It has two usb ports on the keyboard too - I use one for a M$ optical mouse and the other for a set of usb headphones.
And a feeble attempt to fake such a keyboard by erasing the laser-etched symbols
and characters from my existing keyboard failed miserably
They make these cheap 10 dollar keyboards more solid than you’d belive.
I’ve:
Rubbed
Scrubbed
Sanded
Blasted
Polished
Electric-drill-with-sander filed
Worn
And even BURNED the darn keyboard just to get the #&%¤!" writing off the keys
it simply can’t be done. Now my keyboard is slightly deform (by the heat) and
wickedly rustic looking (like a halflife-2 keyboard) but the characters are STILL VISIBLE! :<
So you…dear Elysiun reader…probably wonder why I just didnt pony up the dough
for DAS keyboard …well u see…I’m not rich…and 80 dollars for a BLANK keyboard
is just plain WRONG. No matter how much they claim each key is weighted …
…normal keyboards are actually weighted too. So In my opinions these guys
sell a cheaper to make keyboard (because of the lack of the laser-etched characters)
to an INSANE price.
But the idea is good. I find myself typing without looking at the keys… I’ve
probably been doing so for the last 20 years or so (ya…I’m old…I know).
But the writing on the keys slows me down…so the Uber-geek keyboard totally blank
is a great idea. Makes you concentrate on what you type instead of “where’s the keys”.
My BTC 8190a isn’t real great, though I’ve not had many problems with.
The right shift key (the one I use to captilize) is nearly blank, I’ve rubbed most of the name and icon off.
‘A’, ‘S’, ‘D’, ‘C’ and ‘V’ are rubbing off as well. Left control is starting too and the down arrow key is as well, though none are as bad as the “Shift” key.
I really like having the vol. up/down, mute, play/pause, forward, backward and stop keys I love for audio stuff, they’re just above the num pad.
this is meant to be a great keyboard, backlit too, which will be usefull for when the uni work piles up and you cant even spare the time to turn on the light (just finished uni so talking from personal experience)
Yeah, thats part of the plan, but unfortunately, all of the “rsi-friendly” keyboards are too expensive.
If anyone has one of these keyboards, how do you find it? Also, how much was it?
Damn, ‘das keyboard’ is cool, and Ive wanted one since I saw it a while ago. I am trying a little experiment, my brothers a graff artist and im gonna buy a cheap keyboard and get him to paint it.
Thanks for the link, Id forgotten about that site. Looks like a nice keyboard.
Thanks everyone, this is great, any more info/suggestions greatly appreciated.
But I’ve got some experience with such stickers, I have such stickers on my old
Commodore SX-64 and Amiga 1000 computers (early releases) and after some heavy
coding - they kind of “slide off” because of the constant pounding on the keys.
Painting sounds like a good idea too, but it needs to be painted with a color
first - and then coated with a second coating in order to make the paint stick.
Even then…it’s not that easy.
Maybe I should just dig into that old rusty wallet (grhmblmhm…mumble…)
JoOngle, if you go to a hobby shop/warhammer place/anywhere that sells paintable plastic objects, theyll have the base coat paint. If you spray that all over your keyboard nicked from the skip (I havent tried it so I wouldnt recommend it on anything more expensive), then some ordinary spray paint should work.
Well I think the keys are a bit stiff on my one to be honest. My old ibook laptop keyboard felt tacky and cheap but it was much spongier and easier to press keys.
It’s the white Apple Pro keyboard.
I have a 3-button optical Microsoft mouse that works great with it too.
BTW, if you are getting a Mini, you might want to wait a bit because there are rumours of an upgrade. Some people are saying that’s why the waiting time went up on the store. Lots of people are saying Apple should have put standard hard drives in them instead of laptop drives and made the Mini slightly bigger and the saving would have let them beef up the graphics card a bit. Still, it’s a nice machine and I can play UT2004 smoothly.
JoOngle. I have another solution to your problem:
Or you could use some liquid plastic. I had some that I repaired my car bumper with. You just smear it on, let it harden rub it smooth with some sandpaper and paint over it. Do this 1000s of times and sell loads of them on ebay as a cheap alternative to dvorak.
