Author Topic: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions  (Read 1248987 times)

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Offline phwog_

  • Posts: 19
Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5600 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 12:27:09 »
big ass enter>iso>ansi (not an unpopular opinion just thought I should mention cause its true)
jwk durock recolors are THE biggest scam by keyboard manufacturers to date.
silent switches can feel better then non-silent, if the bottom out feels soft instead of mushy
mech markets are a scam, except when it comes to trading.
salmon alps aren't that good
black alps aren't that good
skcm cream alps aren't that good

all my opinion don't get mad pls ;D

Offline Mikhail

  • Posts: 91
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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5601 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 12:32:13 »
big ass enter>iso>ansi (not an unpopular opinion just thought I should mention cause its true)
jwk durock recolors are THE biggest scam by keyboard manufacturers to date.
silent switches can feel better then non-silent, if the bottom out feels soft instead of mushy
mech markets are a scam, except when it comes to trading.
salmon alps aren't that good
black alps aren't that good
skcm cream alps aren't that good

all my opinion don't get mad pls ;D

What’s wrong with the JWK recolors?

Offline alertArchitect

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5602 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 12:36:21 »
Touch screen typing is horrible, though sometimes a necessary evil. Laptop keyboards on the other hand are an unnecessary evil as far as I'm concerned. I've never met a laptop I didn't hate using, and that includes my own.

This. This x1000. I used laptops for YEARS because I needed portability, since I had to constantly move apartments thanks to my parent's job, and because it was more convenient for my extra curriculars in school, such as the robotics club (which I needed that computer for). It was always laptop keyboards or rubber domes for me, until I bought my first macropad because it was what I could afford that was mechanical and I wanted it for playing games on something that felt better than a laptop keyboard and could also put silly chat binds on. Since then I have always loved my click-clackin' mechanicals, and you would have to pay me a substantial amount to go back for even a month to laptop keyboards.

I understand why laptop keyboards are the way they are, but the tiny travel and minimal response while typing just feels absolutely awful, and I would rather have a chunkier laptop with a keyboard that feels at least halfway decent over a paper-thin thing with something that barely amounts to a keyboard at all. One of the reason I can't stand Mac computers in general, all of the keyboards they come with are just absolutely awful.

And I definitely agree that the terrible-ness of laptop keyboards is entirely unnecessary. A bit thicker, and viola, something that feels at least ok, even if it's not necessarily great. Or, if you have to use a laptop with a bad keyboard, you can build a travel-sized mechanical keeb to take with you for when you use the laptop. Either option works, but if they could just include better keyboards with decent typing feel on more modern laptops I would hate them much less, though I would still have a lot of issues with using laptops for anything outside of necessary job stuff on the go. Except for maybe 2-in-1s that can be used with styluses, like the Surface. I could use that to keep working on my digital art until I feel it's something presentable.

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5603 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 13:58:23 »
black alps aren't that good

I think that's the accepted conventional wisdom. I think they get more hate than they deserve. I'll take them over anything MX I have tried.

Touch screen typing is horrible, though sometimes a necessary evil. Laptop keyboards on the other hand are an unnecessary evil as far as I'm concerned. I've never met a laptop I didn't hate using, and that includes my own.

This. This x1000. I used laptops for YEARS because I needed portability, since I had to constantly move apartments thanks to my parent's job, and because it was more convenient for my extra curriculars in school, such as the robotics club (which I needed that computer for). It was always laptop keyboards or rubber domes for me, until I bought my first macropad because it was what I could afford that was mechanical and I wanted it for playing games on something that felt better than a laptop keyboard and could also put silly chat binds on. Since then I have always loved my click-clackin' mechanicals, and you would have to pay me a substantial amount to go back for even a month to laptop keyboards.

I understand why laptop keyboards are the way they are, but the tiny travel and minimal response while typing just feels absolutely awful, and I would rather have a chunkier laptop with a keyboard that feels at least halfway decent over a paper-thin thing with something that barely amounts to a keyboard at all. One of the reason I can't stand Mac computers in general, all of the keyboards they come with are just absolutely awful.

And I definitely agree that the terrible-ness of laptop keyboards is entirely unnecessary. A bit thicker, and viola, something that feels at least ok, even if it's not necessarily great. Or, if you have to use a laptop with a bad keyboard, you can build a travel-sized mechanical keeb to take with you for when you use the laptop. Either option works, but if they could just include better keyboards with decent typing feel on more modern laptops I would hate them much less, though I would still have a lot of issues with using laptops for anything outside of necessary job stuff on the go. Except for maybe 2-in-1s that can be used with styluses, like the Surface. I could use that to keep working on my digital art until I feel it's something presentable.

Laptop keyboards used to be decent, even for what they are. Modern laptops are too thin. There's no reason for them to be razor thin. They should be thick enough for both a mechanical keyboard and for more powerful and/or configurable hardware with better cooling. Outside of cheap Atom and Celeron systems, there should not be BGA CPUs that cannot be upgraded without specialized tools, or a lack of DIMM slots for memory upgrades, or any reliance on EMMC without the option for SATA or PCIe storage.

I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.

Offline andresteare

  • Posts: 39
Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5604 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 14:04:38 »
black alps aren't that good

I think that's the accepted conventional wisdom. I think they get more hate than they deserve. I'll take them over anything MX I have tried.



I mean, in stock shape I get it, but once removed the tactile leaf they become pretty damn good linears

Offline azzipa

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5605 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 14:07:42 »
there's a really unpopular opinion: laptops are too thin. agreed, if the only criterion is the keyboard. there are, however, also the considerations of weight and available space in a bag for those of us who (used to) travel a bit.

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5606 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 14:39:16 »
there's a really unpopular opinion: laptops are too thin. agreed, if the only criterion is the keyboard. there are, however, also the considerations of weight and available space in a bag for those of us who (used to) travel a bit.

I carry a 17" gaming laptop to and from my friend's house. I don't store a laptop in a shared bag with other items where the screen could be damaged due to localized pressure. Laptops should have their own dedicated bags either way, and even the heaviest of laptops made in the last 20 years (besides maybe Panasonic Toughbooks, etc) really aren't all that heavy.

Offline fohat.digs

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5607 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 15:18:22 »

the tiny travel and minimal response


My ex-wife is a magazine editor who has typed thousands of words per day since the 1980s, and that is precisely what she wants since her typing style is floating fingertips above the keyboard and just dipping down for the least distance with the least pressure. That is not what I like, but you can't argue with a large body of evidence.




I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.

 
I would like to have that, but do they still make them that way?
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Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5608 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 15:26:36 »

I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.

 
I would like to have that, but do they still make them that way?




I'm not even sure if all 3 are made by a major OEM anymore, I'm still rocking a Samsung Galaxy S5.  ;D

I find the IR blaster very helpful in random classrooms in which I may have no idea where the remote may be for random ceiling-mounted electronics, and those have basically gone extinct entirely, so I may be sticking with the S5 for a very long time into the future.
« Last Edit: Mon, 03 May 2021, 15:34:02 by Maledicted »

Offline phwog_

  • Posts: 19
Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5609 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 16:04:48 »
big ass enter>iso>ansi (not an unpopular opinion just thought I should mention cause its true)
jwk durock recolors are THE biggest scam by keyboard manufacturers to date.
silent switches can feel better then non-silent, if the bottom out feels soft instead of mushy
mech markets are a scam, except when it comes to trading.
salmon alps aren't that good
black alps aren't that good
skcm cream alps aren't that good

all my opinion don't get mad pls ;D

What’s wrong with the JWK recolors?
unless they are made of a particularly special material, IE c^3 tangerines, it is a scam. if they say they use a "different mold" its just the logo on the switch. the markup is insane compared to stock durock, for no extra smoothness. some jwk recolors, even if they do use "different materials"  :rolleyes: there are straight up clones, OF THOSE CLONES, take for example muave vs lilac linears. exact same.

Offline phwog_

  • Posts: 19
Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5610 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 16:08:09 »
black alps aren't that good

I think that's the accepted conventional wisdom. I think they get more hate than they deserve. I'll take them over anything MX I have tried.

Touch screen typing is horrible, though sometimes a necessary evil. Laptop keyboards on the other hand are an unnecessary evil as far as I'm concerned. I've never met a laptop I didn't hate using, and that includes my own.

This. This x1000. I used laptops for YEARS because I needed portability, since I had to constantly move apartments thanks to my parent's job, and because it was more convenient for my extra curriculars in school, such as the robotics club (which I needed that computer for). It was always laptop keyboards or rubber domes for me, until I bought my first macropad because it was what I could afford that was mechanical and I wanted it for playing games on something that felt better than a laptop keyboard and could also put silly chat binds on. Since then I have always loved my click-clackin' mechanicals, and you would have to pay me a substantial amount to go back for even a month to laptop keyboards.

I understand why laptop keyboards are the way they are, but the tiny travel and minimal response while typing just feels absolutely awful, and I would rather have a chunkier laptop with a keyboard that feels at least halfway decent over a paper-thin thing with something that barely amounts to a keyboard at all. One of the reason I can't stand Mac computers in general, all of the keyboards they come with are just absolutely awful.

And I definitely agree that the terrible-ness of laptop keyboards is entirely unnecessary. A bit thicker, and viola, something that feels at least ok, even if it's not necessarily great. Or, if you have to use a laptop with a bad keyboard, you can build a travel-sized mechanical keeb to take with you for when you use the laptop. Either option works, but if they could just include better keyboards with decent typing feel on more modern laptops I would hate them much less, though I would still have a lot of issues with using laptops for anything outside of necessary job stuff on the go. Except for maybe 2-in-1s that can be used with styluses, like the Surface. I could use that to keep working on my digital art until I feel it's something presentable.

Laptop keyboards used to be decent, even for what they are. Modern laptops are too thin. There's no reason for them to be razor thin. They should be thick enough for both a mechanical keyboard and for more powerful and/or configurable hardware with better cooling. Outside of cheap Atom and Celeron systems, there should not be BGA CPUs that cannot be upgraded without specialized tools, or a lack of DIMM slots for memory upgrades, or any reliance on EMMC without the option for SATA or PCIe storage.

I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.
just my opinion :p I am very biased, tactiles are my least favorite switch type by far. I do know that you can make damn good linears out of black alps, and those aren't anything to sleep on. simply talking stock (restored for sure, but otherwise stock) switches here.

Offline alertArchitect

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5611 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 16:16:55 »
there's a really unpopular opinion: laptops are too thin. agreed, if the only criterion is the keyboard. there are, however, also the considerations of weight and available space in a bag for those of us who (used to) travel a bit.

I carry a 17" gaming laptop to and from my friend's house. I don't store a laptop in a shared bag with other items where the screen could be damaged due to localized pressure. Laptops should have their own dedicated bags either way, and even the heaviest of laptops made in the last 20 years (besides maybe Panasonic Toughbooks, etc) really aren't all that heavy.

Agree with Maledicted here. My first laptop was a chunky, Windows Vista rocking HP Pavilion. Damn thing had a full DVD / CD drive built in, and was damn beefy compared to modern laptops. My only complaint would be the OS on it, because Vista is a damn nightmare, but since I got the hard drive fully wiped down to the BIOS I'm thinking of putting XP on it if I can make it work with the drivers and all that. Otherwise I'll build a different machine to do older PC games on, because I'd be fine recycling that old POS if it turns out I can't do anything with it.

But honestly modern stuff should look a bit more into the past for some ideas. Chunkier design isn't always a bad thing. Now, if you have a bag that can only be a certain weight because you're going on a flight or something like that, I get it. Carry all of the lighter stuff you can. But there is no reason that it needs to be the norm for every laptop to be incredibly thin when you could easily make more rugged designs with better durability, heat management, keyboards, and even specs and upgradability than the current slew of designs that feel fragile enough most times to feel like you could break them by moving your bag wrong unless you treat them like they're made entirely out of glass.

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5612 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 17:18:15 »
there's a really unpopular opinion: laptops are too thin. agreed, if the only criterion is the keyboard. there are, however, also the considerations of weight and available space in a bag for those of us who (used to) travel a bit.

I carry a 17" gaming laptop to and from my friend's house. I don't store a laptop in a shared bag with other items where the screen could be damaged due to localized pressure. Laptops should have their own dedicated bags either way, and even the heaviest of laptops made in the last 20 years (besides maybe Panasonic Toughbooks, etc) really aren't all that heavy.

Agree with Maledicted here. My first laptop was a chunky, Windows Vista rocking HP Pavilion. Damn thing had a full DVD / CD drive built in, and was damn beefy compared to modern laptops. My only complaint would be the OS on it, because Vista is a damn nightmare, but since I got the hard drive fully wiped down to the BIOS I'm thinking of putting XP on it if I can make it work with the drivers and all that. Otherwise I'll build a different machine to do older PC games on, because I'd be fine recycling that old POS if it turns out I can't do anything with it.

But honestly modern stuff should look a bit more into the past for some ideas. Chunkier design isn't always a bad thing. Now, if you have a bag that can only be a certain weight because you're going on a flight or something like that, I get it. Carry all of the lighter stuff you can. But there is no reason that it needs to be the norm for every laptop to be incredibly thin when you could easily make more rugged designs with better durability, heat management, keyboards, and even specs and upgradability than the current slew of designs that feel fragile enough most times to feel like you could break them by moving your bag wrong unless you treat them like they're made entirely out of glass.

If the system shipped with Vista, there should be XP drivers for everything. Vista was so reviled on launch that OEMs started offering free upgrades from Vista to XP when purchasing a computer. You could also install a minimal Linux distro like Lubuntu and may find it to be perfectly usable still for most tasks one would use something like a Chromebook for. I'm not sure whether or not Snappy Driver Installer Origin still supports Windows XP, but an older version of it may still work. I love it because I can download basically every driver ever made for every piece of hardware for a Windows operating system and keep them all bundled with that program on a flash drive. I can then plug that flash drive into any system, with or without networking, and have it install all of the latest available drivers that it detects. Otherwise, this should have all of the drivers you may need. I believe it is where Snappy Driver Installer Origin pulls from, and it was used pretty heavily by people that used to slipstream drivers into Windows XP with nLite as well, which is another toy you may want to look at if you want to strip all of the useless fat out of even XP.

HP may still host their versions of the drivers on their website too. Around that time period, it was common to have a set of both XP and Vista drivers for any given system released. OEM drivers are often years out of date though.

I'm honestly pretty sure that we saw a slump in performance gains in laptop CPUs for years because of this pointless obsession with "ultrabooks" with their anemic cooling and low power consumption. I hope the trend finally dies so that companies like Intel and AMD put more emphasis into performance above all else again (within reason, of course). We're seeing the opposite trend continuing in both phones and laptops though. "You need all of the ports we just removed? Oh well, get with the times. Pointless dongles are the future."

Offline Volny

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5613 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 19:18:47 »
there's a really unpopular opinion: laptops are too thin. agreed, if the only criterion is the keyboard. there are, however, also the considerations of weight and available space in a bag for those of us who (used to) travel a bit.

I carry a 17" gaming laptop to and from my friend's house. I don't store a laptop in a shared bag with other items where the screen could be damaged due to localized pressure. Laptops should have their own dedicated bags either way, and even the heaviest of laptops made in the last 20 years (besides maybe Panasonic Toughbooks, etc) really aren't all that heavy.

Agree with Maledicted here. My first laptop was a chunky, Windows Vista rocking HP Pavilion. Damn thing had a full DVD / CD drive built in, and was damn beefy compared to modern laptops. My only complaint would be the OS on it, because Vista is a damn nightmare, but since I got the hard drive fully wiped down to the BIOS I'm thinking of putting XP on it if I can make it work with the drivers and all that. Otherwise I'll build a different machine to do older PC games on, because I'd be fine recycling that old POS if it turns out I can't do anything with it.

But honestly modern stuff should look a bit more into the past for some ideas. Chunkier design isn't always a bad thing. Now, if you have a bag that can only be a certain weight because you're going on a flight or something like that, I get it. Carry all of the lighter stuff you can. But there is no reason that it needs to be the norm for every laptop to be incredibly thin when you could easily make more rugged designs with better durability, heat management, keyboards, and even specs and upgradability than the current slew of designs that feel fragile enough most times to feel like you could break them by moving your bag wrong unless you treat them like they're made entirely out of glass.

It's not even just the requisite thinness that prevents laptop manufacturers from using better keyboards but, I suppose, a lack of customer demand for them. My laptop is a brick - a big, heavy 'gaming' laptop with a dedicated GPU inside. It's literally 5x thicker than my wife's laptop, yet their keyboards are basically identical. If the market allows a 5x thicker (and much, much heavier) laptop to exist for the sake of extra processing power, you'd think it would allow a 3x thicker (and only moderately heavier) one to exist for the sake of typing comfort.

And yes, Mac keyboards are terrible, but not as terrible as their mice! You've really done a number on your customers when they accept dragging a symmetrical, unergonomic rock with only one button and no wheel around a desk as desirable. How that company became associated with good design in the public imagination is a real failure of the public imagination. Their OS has some idiotic design decisions in it too. I worked as a graphic designer for many years, surrounded by Macs, and I was the only one in the office who refused to use any of the Mac peripherals. Though I'll admit that when I opened up one of the Macs one day to check some faulty RAM, it almost took my breath away. Compared to the ugly and haphazard mess inside most PCs, the inside of the Mac was almost like a work of art. Apple certainly know how to do form well. Just not necessarily function.
« Last Edit: Mon, 03 May 2021, 19:23:50 by Volny »

Offline jamster

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5614 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 20:52:54 »
Laptop keyboards used to be decent, even for what they are. Modern laptops are too thin. There's no reason for them to be razor thin. They should be thick enough for both a mechanical keyboard and for more powerful and/or configurable hardware with better cooling. Outside of cheap Atom and Celeron systems, there should not be BGA CPUs that cannot be upgraded without specialized tools, or a lack of DIMM slots for memory upgrades, or any reliance on EMMC without the option for SATA or PCIe storage.

I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.

Heavily agreed.

My most recent laptop purchase was to secure a Thinkpad before they totally dropped the concept of a built in NIC and removable batteries (what sort of totally crap laptop designer thought it would be acceptable not to have external batteries).

Same with phones- there is huge marketing effort into pushing thin phones, but the first thing most people do is put them into chunky cases because a slick aluminium shell 3mm wide is too easy to drop.

Offline HungerMechanic

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5615 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 22:39:23 »
The original Macbook Air in some ways was a real curse. Like you really need to stick a laptop in an envelope?

I don't need to stick a laptop beside my other envelopes and carry it like paper in a briefcase most of the time, it's impractical.

If they had just focused on weight reduction, while keeping thickness reasonable, it would have been fine. Same footprint on a desk/tray.

Having 'slim/light' internals in a thicker case would allow much more space for repairability and cooling, two major problems today. Form over function has gone too far with laptops, and it's caused a keyboard apocalypse. Even Thinkpads down to 1.5mm travel instead of 1.8mm, and it used to be higher than that.

Truth is, if you have good industrial design, a case 2-3x thicker than an ultrabook can be made to look compact, good, and modern.

Offline jamster

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5616 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 23:55:29 »
Yeah, Thinkpad keyboards have really gone downhill too. Ten years ago they were better, and fifteen they were good.

Offline MIGHTY CHICKEN

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5617 on: Mon, 03 May 2021, 23:56:54 »
The original Macbook Air in some ways was a real curse. Like you really need to stick a laptop in an envelope?

I don't need to stick a laptop beside my other envelopes and carry it like paper in a briefcase most of the time, it's impractical.

If they had just focused on weight reduction, while keeping thickness reasonable, it would have been fine. Same footprint on a desk/tray.

Having 'slim/light' internals in a thicker case would allow much more space for repairability and cooling, two major problems today. Form over function has gone too far with laptops, and it's caused a keyboard apocalypse. Even Thinkpads down to 1.5mm travel instead of 1.8mm, and it used to be higher than that.

Truth is, if you have good industrial design, a case 2-3x thicker than an ultrabook can be made to look compact, good, and modern.
Agreed, although now, the og macbook would probably be considered kinda thick now. Although I really hated the weird ass cheese wedge shape that I think it had as well as it being very very hot.

Offline andresteare

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5618 on: Tue, 04 May 2021, 09:32:38 »
12.- There should be a way to buy quality discrete rubber domes for a fair price, I would gladly pay $10 for a pack of 110 new NMB level rubber domes.
These things are made by millions, how is it that nobody sells them at non bulk quantities and I'm not interested in topre style rubber domes, those are way too expensive.

Offline alertArchitect

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5619 on: Tue, 04 May 2021, 09:44:44 »
Agreed, although now, the og macbook would probably be considered kinda thick now. Although I really hated the weird ass cheese wedge shape that I think it had as well as it being very very hot.

Wasn't the original Macbook the one that was so bad at heat management that the exhaust fans would blow hot air directly onto the glue holding the 2 parts of the monitor together, melting the glue and ruining your monitor? Or was that a later one? Honestly don't remember.

12.- There should be a way to buy quality discrete rubber domes for a fair price, I would gladly pay $10 for a pack of 110 new NMB level rubber domes.
These things are made by millions, how is it that nobody sells them at non bulk quantities and I'm not interested in topre style rubber domes, those are way too expensive.

I think the problem with that is the way that rubber domes / membranes work compared to mechanical switches. It's not separate things with a membrane, it's one capacitive whole with a mat of rubber domes laid over. So the only way to build or repair most membrane keyboards is to go out of your way to get replacement parts for the whole over getting individual switches, not to mention the different way the keycaps are mounted compared to mechanicals. It just isn't practical to sell those parts unless you're selling them to a manufacturer or something like that because almost no one is going to want to open up their $15 keyboard to fix messed up domes or a bad membrane when they could just recycle the thing and pay another $15 for the same keyboard, and the enthusiasts are so much more obsessed with topre or mechanicals that selling the stuff to make or repair a membrane keyboard on their own would be selling product to a small percentage of an already fairly small community and likely wouldn't justify the extra marketing, packaging, or manufacturing costs compared to just shipping out the membrane keebs themselves and letting any interested enthusiasts just tear them apart if they really want something from the internals.

Offline tp4tissue

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5620 on: Tue, 04 May 2021, 10:07:37 »
Yeah, Thinkpad keyboards have really gone downhill too. Ten years ago they were better, and fifteen they were good.

Tp4 still uses x220, buh.... the new island ones are OK, not horrible. some of the layout arn't as good, but feels is aight.

Offline andresteare

  • Posts: 39
Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5621 on: Tue, 04 May 2021, 10:09:01 »
Agreed, although now, the og macbook would probably be considered kinda thick now. Although I really hated the weird ass cheese wedge shape that I think it had as well as it being very very hot.

Wasn't the original Macbook the one that was so bad at heat management that the exhaust fans would blow hot air directly onto the glue holding the 2 parts of the monitor together, melting the glue and ruining your monitor? Or was that a later one? Honestly don't remember.

12.- There should be a way to buy quality discrete rubber domes for a fair price, I would gladly pay $10 for a pack of 110 new NMB level rubber domes.
These things are made by millions, how is it that nobody sells them at non bulk quantities and I'm not interested in topre style rubber domes, those are way too expensive.

I think the problem with that is the way that rubber domes / membranes work compared to mechanical switches. It's not separate things with a membrane, it's one capacitive whole with a mat of rubber domes laid over. So the only way to build or repair most membrane keyboards is to go out of your way to get replacement parts for the whole over getting individual switches, not to mention the different way the keycaps are mounted compared to mechanicals. It just isn't practical to sell those parts unless you're selling them to a manufacturer or something like that because almost no one is going to want to open up their $15 keyboard to fix messed up domes or a bad membrane when they could just recycle the thing and pay another $15 for the same keyboard, and the enthusiasts are so much more obsessed with topre or mechanicals that selling the stuff to make or repair a membrane keyboard on their own would be selling product to a small percentage of an already fairly small community and likely wouldn't justify the extra marketing, packaging, or manufacturing costs compared to just shipping out the membrane keebs themselves and letting any interested enthusiasts just tear them apart if they really want something from the internals.

Yeah, that's thew sad truth, have you tried the green domes present in some Compaq keyboards? those are fantastic.
They also made a gray variant in some Digital keyboards that is also very good, I was able to type super fast in those

Offline andresteare

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5622 on: Tue, 04 May 2021, 10:12:17 »
13.- PCB mounted Costar stabilizers should be a thing

Offline yui

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5623 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 02:28:11 »
12.- There should be a way to buy quality discrete rubber domes for a fair price, I would gladly pay $10 for a pack of 110 new NMB level rubber domes.
These things are made by millions, how is it that nobody sells them at non bulk quantities and I'm not interested in topre style rubber domes, those are way too expensive.
if i recall correctly alps tried the discreet rubber dome switch thing, but from chyros's review they were pretty bad, soo maybe do not go to buy some right now.
vi vi vi - the roman number of the beast (Plan9 fortune)

Offline andresteare

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5624 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 08:15:07 »
My bad, I meant discrete rubber domes as not a single sheet with domes integrated. Puting domes in an enclosure limits the travel distance and it's not a good idea overall

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5625 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 10:56:57 »
And yes, Mac keyboards are terrible, but not as terrible as their mice! You've really done a number on your customers when they accept dragging a symmetrical, unergonomic rock with only one button and no wheel around a desk as desirable. How that company became associated with good design in the public imagination is a real failure of the public imagination. Their OS has some idiotic design decisions in it too. I worked as a graphic designer for many years, surrounded by Macs, and I was the only one in the office who refused to use any of the Mac peripherals. Though I'll admit that when I opened up one of the Macs one day to check some faulty RAM, it almost took my breath away. Compared to the ugly and haphazard mess inside most PCs, the inside of the Mac was almost like a work of art. Apple certainly know how to do form well. Just not necessarily function.

I hate everything about that company, including their aesthetic tastes (with a few exceptions). It is like they intentionally try to make everything as useless/lacking in user-friendliness as possible but convince everyone that they're the most user-friendly option somehow anyway ... as a joke, and then charge you an extra 50% for the Apple logo and infuriating ecosystem on top of it.

13.- PCB mounted Costar stabilizers should be a thing

Long live Costar stabilizers. I wish they were more common. There's no reason to have anything else with clicky switches. They feel and sound so much better to me.

Offline alertArchitect

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5626 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 11:15:53 »
I hate everything about that company, including their aesthetic tastes (with a few exceptions). It is like they intentionally try to make everything as useless/lacking in user-friendliness as possible but convince everyone that they're the most user-friendly option somehow anyway ... as a joke, and then charge you an extra 50% for the Apple logo and infuriating ecosystem on top of it.

I agree with a lot here. And I could kinda deal with that if it weren't for 2 things: The elitism associated with their damn products (you would not believe how much bs I've gotten from Apple fans for daring to use an Android phone. Not even kidding), and the fact that they actively lobby against Right to Repair laws. They actively push to make it so that the only way to get an Apple product repaired legally is to take it to an Apple store. It's literally the same as saying that if you were to take your new car to a third-party mechanic to get an oil change, and you lost your warranty and all that because you didn't take it to the dealership you bought it from, who would've told you to buy a new car instead claiming it as the cheaper option. That's not even a big exaggeration. I know someone who was told that since their display wasn't working on their Macbook the Apple employees told them just to buy a new Macbook for a massive amount of money... And when they asked a third-party technician they knew, the issue was a loose backlight cable. An issue so trivial to fix that the technician told them they wouldn't charge them for the repair, because it was 5 minutes to diagnose the issue, open up the laptop, and get one loose cable plugged back in before closing it back up.

Yeah, I really dislike Apple. They push their minimalism so hard they want the market to be minimalist too. Give me a keyboard I've built, a mouse I've chosen, and a PC I've built any day over a waste of silicon so thorough they get by on reputation alone.

Offline andresteare

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5627 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 11:29:47 »
I hate everything about that company, including their aesthetic tastes (with a few exceptions). It is like they intentionally try to make everything as useless/lacking in user-friendliness as possible but convince everyone that they're the most user-friendly option somehow anyway ... as a joke, and then charge you an extra 50% for the Apple logo and infuriating ecosystem on top of it.

I agree with a lot here. And I could kinda deal with that if it weren't for 2 things: The elitism associated with their damn products (you would not believe how much bs I've gotten from Apple fans for daring to use an Android phone. Not even kidding), and the fact that they actively lobby against Right to Repair laws. They actively push to make it so that the only way to get an Apple product repaired legally is to take it to an Apple store. It's literally the same as saying that if you were to take your new car to a third-party mechanic to get an oil change, and you lost your warranty and all that because you didn't take it to the dealership you bought it from, who would've told you to buy a new car instead claiming it as the cheaper option. That's not even a big exaggeration. I know someone who was told that since their display wasn't working on their Macbook the Apple employees told them just to buy a new Macbook for a massive amount of money... And when they asked a third-party technician they knew, the issue was a loose backlight cable. An issue so trivial to fix that the technician told them they wouldn't charge them for the repair, because it was 5 minutes to diagnose the issue, open up the laptop, and get one loose cable plugged back in before closing it back up.

Yeah, I really dislike Apple. They push their minimalism so hard they want the market to be minimalist too. Give me a keyboard I've built, a mouse I've chosen, and a PC I've built any day over a waste of silicon so thorough they get by on reputation alone.

We're getting a little off topic here

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5628 on: Wed, 05 May 2021, 12:48:19 »
I hate everything about that company, including their aesthetic tastes (with a few exceptions). It is like they intentionally try to make everything as useless/lacking in user-friendliness as possible but convince everyone that they're the most user-friendly option somehow anyway ... as a joke, and then charge you an extra 50% for the Apple logo and infuriating ecosystem on top of it.

I agree with a lot here. And I could kinda deal with that if it weren't for 2 things: The elitism associated with their damn products (you would not believe how much bs I've gotten from Apple fans for daring to use an Android phone. Not even kidding)

I would believe it, because I have heard the same for years. I was hearing it from other kids in high school before the iPhone even existed about Apple computers in general.

I know someone who was told that since their display wasn't working on their Macbook the Apple employees told them just to buy a new Macbook for a massive amount of money... And when they asked a third-party technician they knew, the issue was a loose backlight cable. An issue so trivial to fix that the technician told them they wouldn't charge them for the repair, because it was 5 minutes to diagnose the issue, open up the laptop, and get one loose cable plugged back in before closing it back up.

I have done similar "repairs" for people in the same sort of scenario. That's just the tip of the iceberg. They use hardware ID numbers in their config files to prevent upgrades on older systems, regardless of their capabilities, in order to try to force you into buying new hardware instead. I think some of it comes down to laziness, since their driver support has always been horrendous even on the latest version of OSX/macOS, but a lot of it is just to keep the gravy train rolling.

Offline mode

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5629 on: Thu, 06 May 2021, 01:17:49 »
13.- PCB mounted Costar stabilizers should be a thing

They are a thing, I have a set ;)

No idea where to get them new, but, you can find them on some vintage boards.

Offline AstralYT

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5630 on: Thu, 06 May 2021, 07:08:22 »
I prefer 60% over 65%, because symmetry. Mods should be the outermost keys ending with a blocker/edge, 65% and 75% break that rule. Exploded 65% and 75% do look better, but still no symmetry and horrible bezel layout. Only the exploded Compact 1800s look nice.

I would go 60% always. I always use caps+IJKL  for arrows. If not that, I'll just go TKL.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk


Offline bkrownd

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5631 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 05:28:12 »

I miss my thumb trackball


Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5632 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 09:05:39 »

I miss my thumb trackball

Why don't you get another one? Focus dome with slider feels pretty nice in my opinion. I found one of that exact board, under a different brand name, at a recycling facility. I didn't pay a whole lot for it.

Offline ideus

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5633 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 10:16:24 »

I miss my thumb trackball

Show Image





I wonder why this type of input solution that is all-inclusive did not succeed in the market.

Offline alertArchitect

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5634 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 10:48:37 »
I wonder why this type of input solution that is all-inclusive did not succeed in the market.

My personal thoughts boil down to mice having been made first, they tend to be a bit more accurate than trackballs - which is important when considering computers were mainly invented for business purposes, and efficiency trumps all in business settings most of the time - mice being cheaper to produce and easier to maintain, and, finally, because of simple ableism. Doesn't matter that the default isn't all-inclusive when the majority can use it just fine, at least in the eyes of the people at the time the mouse became the dominant input method. :rolleyes:

Offline bkrownd

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5635 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 19:26:11 »

I miss my thumb trackball

Why don't you get another one? Focus dome with slider feels pretty nice in my opinion. I found one of that exact board, under a different brand name, at a recycling facility. I didn't pay a whole lot for it.

I haven't found any made like that recently.  The keyboard is so old it uses an AT style keyboard connector.  I got it from an electronics overstock site in 2001 and used it until 2006 when the machine it was connected to croaked. 



Offline bkrownd

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5636 on: Fri, 07 May 2021, 19:36:51 »
My personal thoughts boil down to mice having been made first, they tend to be a bit more accurate than trackballs

There are two giant things I prefer about trackballs.  First is when you let go of the ball or push the buttons the cursor stays on the exact pixel where you left it.  The cursor will not move again until you touch the ball again.  With mice the cursor is always moving at least a hair.  The second is that the unit is stationary.  Then THIS particular trackball has a third wonderful property which is the ultimate WIN, in that you don't even need to take your fingers off the home row to operate this keyboard's trackball and its buttons.  It was a really efficient device for my purposes. 

The downside to trackballs (and trackpoints and touchpads) is that they don't do high dynamic range movements very well - particularly for gaming purposes.

Mice have always been an ergonomic disaster, but unfortunately we're stuck with them for the most part. 


Offline Cosmin

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5637 on: Sat, 08 May 2021, 04:19:02 »
when you let go of the ball or push the buttons the cursor stays on the exact pixel where you left it.  The cursor will not move again until you touch the ball again.  With mice the cursor is always moving at least a hair.
Honestly I think you have been using really really really bad mice or there's an underlying issue that affects you (slightly moving the mouse when clicking). The former is easily solvable by getting a flawless mouse, the latter is more a practice thing with reasonable settings of the mouse (disable acceleration, use reasonable DPI, etc) and yourself (e.g. a lot of inexperienced drivers move the steering wheel when shifting gears).

Offline yui

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5638 on: Mon, 10 May 2021, 04:36:38 »
I miss my thumb trackball
Why don't you get another one? Focus dome with slider feels pretty nice in my opinion. I found one of that exact board, under a different brand name, at a recycling facility. I didn't pay a whole lot for it.
I haven't found any made like that recently.  The keyboard is so old it uses an AT style keyboard connector.  I got it from an electronics overstock site in 2001 and used it until 2006 when the machine it was connected to croaked. 
i have the bigger FK9200 connected to my laptop thought a cheap (2USD) dual connector blue convertor, works perfectly well
I miss my thumb trackball
Show Image

I wonder why this type of input solution that is all-inclusive did not succeed in the market.
well for that one there is the issue of quality, being a Focus board, the ring around the trackball on mine makes the ball and buttons bind badly, and the clock drift pretty badly, and the placement of the trackball prevent the spacebar from being properly stabilized, i think having it up top like IBM did was a better idea in my opinion.
and i think those never really caught up because the market for trackball is small, mice and trackpads are much more popular.
vi vi vi - the roman number of the beast (Plan9 fortune)

Offline Snowdog993

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5639 on: Mon, 10 May 2021, 21:35:06 »
I miss my thumb trackball
Why don't you get another one? Focus dome with slider feels pretty nice in my opinion. I found one of that exact board, under a different brand name, at a recycling facility. I didn't pay a whole lot for it.
I haven't found any made like that recently.  The keyboard is so old it uses an AT style keyboard connector.  I got it from an electronics overstock site in 2001 and used it until 2006 when the machine it was connected to croaked. 
i have the bigger FK9200 connected to my laptop thought a cheap (2USD) dual connector blue convertor, works perfectly well
I miss my thumb trackball
Show Image

I wonder why this type of input solution that is all-inclusive did not succeed in the market.
well for that one there is the issue of quality, being a Focus board, the ring around the trackball on mine makes the ball and buttons bind badly, and the clock drift pretty badly, and the placement of the trackball prevent the spacebar from being properly stabilized, i think having it up top like IBM did was a better idea in my opinion.
and i think those never really caught up because the market for trackball is small, mice and trackpads are much more popular.
Interestingly, I did find this:
Perixx PERIBOARD-509H
Not to my liking, but maybe to yours.

Offline quasistellar

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5640 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 10:43:38 »
Laptop keyboards used to be decent, even for what they are. Modern laptops are too thin. There's no reason for them to be razor thin. They should be thick enough for both a mechanical keyboard and for more powerful and/or configurable hardware with better cooling. Outside of cheap Atom and Celeron systems, there should not be BGA CPUs that cannot be upgraded without specialized tools, or a lack of DIMM slots for memory upgrades, or any reliance on EMMC without the option for SATA or PCIe storage.

I'm also the kind of guy that won't touch a phone with no 3.5mm headphone jack, micro SD card slot and removable battery though either.

Heavily agreed.

My most recent laptop purchase was to secure a Thinkpad before they totally dropped the concept of a built in NIC and removable batteries (what sort of totally crap laptop designer thought it would be acceptable not to have external batteries).

Same with phones- there is huge marketing effort into pushing thin phones, but the first thing most people do is put them into chunky cases because a slick aluminium shell 3mm wide is too easy to drop.

My favorite phone ever was the Motorola Droid Turbo with the ballistic nylon.  Had a convex back that had nice texture and just fit great into my hand.  I never once put a case on it.  New phones REQUIRE cases because they're too thin and too slippery.

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5641 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 12:56:54 »

I miss my thumb trackball

Why don't you get another one? Focus dome with slider feels pretty nice in my opinion. I found one of that exact board, under a different brand name, at a recycling facility. I didn't pay a whole lot for it.

I haven't found any made like that recently.  The keyboard is so old it uses an AT style keyboard connector.  I got it from an electronics overstock site in 2001 and used it until 2006 when the machine it was connected to croaked.

Did you get rid of the board then? I would use one of those old Focus boards over anything MX-derived I have tried. I think I have more boards with AT connectors than USB and PS/2 combined.  ;D

Interestingly, I did find this:
Perixx PERIBOARD-509H
Not to my liking, but maybe to yours.

Scissor switches ruin any merit it could have otherwise had in my mind. Perixx does have some cool stuff otherwise. I think I have a similar board from them but with no integrated second input device.

Offline bkrownd

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5642 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 16:21:30 »

Did you get rid of the board then? I would use one of those old Focus boards over anything MX-derived I have tried. I think I have more boards with AT connectors than USB and PS/2 combined.  ;D


It's still on a shelf in my office at work, and dirtier than I expected.  It would need an epic deep cleaning, and some sort of AT-to-USB adapter to use it.  I took that photo just a few months back when I first found this forum.  I never thought the keyboard itself was super special, aside from the well placed trackball.  I also used a couple Model M with Trackpoints at the same time, scored off eBay cheap during the Dot-Bomb. 

Funny thing about the AT connector is that I accidentally blew out the PS/2 port on the motherboard the Focus was attached to 20 years ago, so I used an AT-to-serial adapter to use it from the serial port.

edit: thinking about that for a minute keyboard on serial port doesn't sound quite right, but the keyboard has the AT/serial connectors and I know I blew out one of the PS/2 ports on the motherboard and I had to patch around it.  I'll have to look at it again 
« Last Edit: Tue, 11 May 2021, 18:31:33 by bkrownd »

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5643 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 17:21:41 »

Did you get rid of the board then? I would use one of those old Focus boards over anything MX-derived I have tried. I think I have more boards with AT connectors than USB and PS/2 combined.  ;D


It's still on a shelf in my office at work, and dirtier than I expected.  It would need an epic deep cleaning, and some sort of AT-to-USB adapter to use it.  I took that photo just a few months back when I first found this forum.  I never thought the keyboard itself was super special, aside from the well placed trackball.  I also used a couple Model M with Trackpoints at the same time, scored off eBay cheap during the Dot-Bomb. 

Funny thing about the AT connector is that I accidentally blew out the PS/2 port on the motherboard the Focus was attached to 20 years ago, so I used an AT-to-serial adapter to use it from the serial port.

I have, after much fighting with the Windows registry, drivers and BIOSes, used passive AT to PS/2 adapters with F AT boards, since most motherboards I have around have PS/2 connectors. I gave up on that struggle fast though. I use too many computers and too few of them run primarily Linux or Windows XP (or older), which have much better support out of the box.

I don't think Focus dome with slider boards are super special to anybody that hasn't tried them and particularly liked them, the number of which must be close to 0. Even Chyros seemed to pan them in his video review. In the board I have, they seem pretty similar to me to Fujitsu Peerless ... which is itself either loved or hated. I like both.

When you've got one video on Youtube being practically the only reason anybody has ever even heard of them, and that video says that they tried to do what Peerless did but failed, there's not going to be much demand for them. lol

You should dust it off and compare it to some more common boards you've discovered since you abandoned it.

I have some computers with serial. I think a lot of POS systems still have it baked into the stock I/O. That would be an amusingly pointless thing to do.  :thumb:

Offline ideus

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5644 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 18:20:29 »
I wonder why this type of input solution that is all-inclusive did not succeed in the market.

My personal thoughts boil down to mice having been made first, they tend to be a bit more accurate than trackballs - which is important when considering computers were mainly invented for business purposes, and efficiency trumps all in business settings most of the time - mice being cheaper to produce and easier to maintain, and, finally, because of simple ableism. Doesn't matter that the default isn't all-inclusive when the majority can use it just fine, at least in the eyes of the people at the time the mouse became the dominant input method. :rolleyes:


It sounds that you nailed it.

Offline Snowdog993

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5645 on: Tue, 11 May 2021, 18:27:52 »
Scissor switches ruin any merit it could have otherwise had in my mind. Perixx does have some cool stuff otherwise. I think I have a similar board from them but with no integrated second input device.

Maybe a Kensington Trackball (like the blade or similar) or an arcade trackball that is PS/2 compatible? I don't know what else to suggest for you.

Offline yui

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5646 on: Mon, 17 May 2021, 02:44:16 »
Scissor switches ruin any merit it could have otherwise had in my mind. Perixx does have some cool stuff otherwise. I think I have a similar board from them but with no integrated second input device.

Maybe a Kensington Trackball (like the blade or similar) or an arcade trackball that is PS/2 compatible? I don't know what else to suggest for you.
before finding out about the FK9200 i was planning on modding an old unicomp PC122 with an arcade trackball, an integrated hasu converter and usb hub, but then i discovered the focus and kinda abandoned the project.
vi vi vi - the roman number of the beast (Plan9 fortune)

Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5647 on: Wed, 19 May 2021, 12:05:36 »
Scissor switches ruin any merit it could have otherwise had in my mind. Perixx does have some cool stuff otherwise. I think I have a similar board from them but with no integrated second input device.

Maybe a Kensington Trackball (like the blade or similar) or an arcade trackball that is PS/2 compatible? I don't know what else to suggest for you.
before finding out about the FK9200 i was planning on modding an old unicomp PC122 with an arcade trackball, an integrated hasu converter and usb hub, but then i discovered the focus and kinda abandoned the project.

Those Focus boards are really a hidden gem if you ask me. I only even saved it from the scrap pile because I thought the caps might fit Alps (they don't).


Offline Maledicted

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Re: Unpopular Keyboard Opinions
« Reply #5649 on: Wed, 19 May 2021, 17:39:42 »
Labeled Caps are n00b caps.

Is that unpopular?