Re: Looking for a new keyboard...
- From: Aragorn <aragorn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:35:56 +0200
On Saturday 25 April 2009 15:50, someone identifying as *Mark Draheim* wrote
in /alt.os.linux.mandriva:/
Aragorn wrote:
(First of all, thanks to everyone who has responded so far. ;-))
Until last year or so, these were still available from Cherry under the
"Professional Line" range, but as it would seem, they have now vanished
from the catalog, and only a more compact (and thus lighter and less
stable) model remains, alongside all of the multimedia keyboards.
hum, I use a Cherry G80-3000 and, though it stil has that heavy duty
feel, it weighs only a fraction of the ten year old G81 that my brother
has written thousands of lines of code on
Well, Cherry has renamed its models a few time, and what was called
"Professional Line" later on - I take it that these are the heavy models
you're referring to, and of which I currently own two - was still called
"Business Line" a while earlier.
The later "Business Line" models - of which I currently own one - are less
wide - the word "wide" here referring to the dimension from the spacebar
end to the function row end of the keyboard and are much lighter. Not only
do they move out of place easily if you strike them by accident, but they
also feel like they're bending under the pressure from your typing, like
they are made of some cheap plastic. The bigger "Professional Line" models
do not exhibit this behavior.
However, Cherry seems to have abandoned the larger footprint ones now in
favor of the smaller footprint - which is also more or less the same as on
the Das Keyboard.
one to my liking is the Microsoft Natural Keyboard. And now I hear you
say "What?! Microsoft?!", and then I must say "Yes, exactly...", because
I would rather not have anything with the Microsoft name sitting on my
oh, the software may be crap but all MS labeled keyboards I had
were actually quite good value for money. All of them died by means
of liquid sugar :-/
Well, this is one of the things I was inquiring about, yes. However, I have
noticed that while Microsoft claims that the keys on their latest Natural
Keyboard - the 4000 series - can withstand up to one million keypresses per
key, the Cherry keyboards and the Unicomp models seem to have a lifetime of
up to 5 billion keystrokes per key. That's quite a big difference in
durability!
At the link that George provided - I remember I had previously already
visited this website - I found the following model interesting. Not
ergonomic, but it seems to have springloaded keys and it more or less
resembles the look of the old famous IBM keyboards (which I absolutely
loved):
http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/customizer.html
Another one I also find interesting in this offer - because of the double
row of function keys at the top - is the PC/5250 122 key terminal emulator
model - the PC/5250 does not require special drivers and uses the default
IBM PC keycodes, unlike its two emulator siblings in the offer. Of course,
it wouldn't have the "Windows" keys - which I do gratefully make use of in
KDE, but which always leave me wondering why they /must/ have the Microsoft
logo on them - and in all honesty I'm not too familiar with the layout of a
terminal keyboard, particularly with regard to that which would be the
navigation island on a PC-style extended keyboard. Also, these keyboards
do not seem to come with a USB connector, and I don't know whether a
PS/2-to-USB converter plug would match the power requirements of this
beast...:
http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/pckeyboards_2049_2841490
Does look very solid, though.
When the first curved keyboards came out I bought one. Could also
have been one with a Microsoft label but I don't remember. The thing
is, you easily get used to the different position of the hands and may
experience slight problems when typing on another plain keyboard.
I've briefly used such a curved/split keyboard once on a computer of one of
my friends when they asked me to get rid of the Windows ME they had
installed and wanted to go back to Windows 98. These were not
computer-savvy people and they hadn't even heard of GNU/Linux, so I humored
them.
It was not a Microsoft keyboard though, but the brandname was "Trust",
which, as I gather, is a rather generic brand of computer peripherals that
does not manufacture any of them by themselves but have them built
somewhere in the Orient with different manufacturers.
I haven't really evaluated that keyboard for its rigidity, and it did feel a
bit strange at first, but I must admit that it didn't feel uncomfortable to
me at all and that I probably could get used to that feel quite easily. At
first glance - or at least, for as far as I remember because this was eight
or nine years ago - the keystrokes felt somewhat like on one of the older
Cherrys.
But then, I have to switch between different keyboards all the time:
fullsize desktop keyboard, large laptop keyboard and the small
keyboard on the eee 1000. Takes only a few seconds to get used
to...
Laptop keyboards require lots of getting used to for me, and possibly more
so than for other people because of my autism. I can get used to typing on
a laptop keyboard, but I don't really like it as it's too small and lacks a
separate numeric keypad, et al. Also, I make far many more typos on a
laptop keyboard than I do on a regular one due to the compact nature - my
laptop is an older (secondhand) Toshiba Satellite, from long before the
16:10 screen ratios and large screen "desktop replacement"
laptops/notebooks - and also due to the mushy nature of the feel of the
keypresses.
So, my vote goes to the plain Cherry keyboards. You could glue
a plate of lead to it to get back that heavy feel of old. Otherwise
these keyboards are very good without multimedia fuzz and blinking
LEDs everywhere.
Oh, I know that they're good... For years they have been my preferred
choice - apart from the old IBMs, but those are proprietary to IBM
computers, of course - but unfortunately those big footprint models are no
longer in Cherry's catalog. I've checked at both the international and
German Cherry websites. The Das Keyboard *is* actually a Cherry, for most
part even, but I don't really like its shape.
But if you feel adventurous, go get an MS keyboard. All of mine
were quite good and cost much less than a Cherry.
On the other hand, what kind of key click do you prefer? It is really
hard to find keyboards with a real click. Cherry has gone to "linear",
meaning that the keys do not click at all but simply have an endpoint
to the movement. Once I got used to it I like it very much now. Ceap
keyboards often have that gummy feeling of remote controls.
I share the same preferences here. The keyboard I'm typing this reply on
right now is one of those large footprint Cherrys, and I find that the feel
of their keypresses is slightly different from that of their earlier models
- which were far less "confirming" than the IBM keyboards that I had gotten
used to as the Cherrys lacked an audible click - but this one here has a
very clear clicky sound, albeit not a clicky feel. You do have a solid
confirmation feel of the keypresses, and I have come to find it a very
pleasant feel to work with.
Thank you for your advice. I will definitely keep it under consideration,
and I'm still open to any feedback from any of the other posters. ;-)
--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)
.
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