Hi all, I just signed up. Well I signed up a couple of days back, but it didn't take. So I retried today and after dealing with the antispam picture a half dozen times here I am.
I came across a link to this forum on Ars Technica, and since I just got a new old stock IBM Model M from eBay for a very reasonable price I came over to look and liked what I found. I have always wondered why so many people are willing to pay a lot of money for a computer and then seem happy with a $15 keyboard?
I am finding that I type a lot faster and without looking on this M. While I do not think the M is the ultimate keyboard ever made, I do think it is the standard typists have to compare to. Anything better has to be very good indeed, anything almost as good is an OK keyboard. I guess I would put the Keytronics at the bottom of the usable keyboard list, if it is not that good it is JUNK!
Sometimes I wonder about keyboard comments I hear. "The Model M is ugly." Not to my mind, it is not "cool", it is just a plain ordinary standard usable keyboard. That is not the same as ugly. Not by a long shot. Another is how "White keyboards are always dirty". Hey, clean the damn thing, OK? In my imagination the perfect keyboard would be something like a Happy Hacker Pro with fabulous feeling keys, and a Track Point (my laptop is a Thinkpad). I have noticed reading the the threads here that many of the nice keyboard that were available as recently as two-three years back ard no longer on the market. I find that very sad.
My own preferences in a keyboard are a definate overcenter feel to the keys, a soft click, and a basic typewriter layout without extra keys. I have not use for the keypad, and am sad that the compact Model M is no longer easy to find.
What I really like about geekhack is that you can get real opinion on various keyboards, unlike reviews where they are going to lose advertising or access to freebees if they do not say positive things about the keyboard. No device is perfect, but it is nice to have some idea if the tradeoffs are something you can live with before you spend your few available dollars on it. Anyway, I think I am going to like it here.
