If I had the money to start a company selling computer products, it had crossed my mind that it might be simpler to start a company that sold keyboards rather than one that made and sold its own brand of PC... and that by doing so, one could still fulfill one's dreams of making a PC with a distinctive identity.
And just what would I be selling?
There are already companies out there selling tenkeyless keyboards, laptop-style keyboards for desktops, and the famous Happy Hacking keyboard.
I would be tempted to offer a keyboard with extra keys that had the option of a USB connection, a PS/2 connection, an ADB connection, and even a Sun connection. But I might have to start small, and simply import a keyboard made with minimal retooling required.
I would want the keyboard to have good tactile feel, but still be very affordable, so I would probably go with a keyboard made with some form of imitation of the ALPS switch.
I would try to make the keyboard itself special, even with a standard 103-key layout, in this way: using either a multimedia button, or, if I had to, the Scroll Lock key, activate some custom programming in the keyboard for alternate scan codes - so that one could use the keyboard as a substitute for a 122-key keyboard, or a Japanese keyboard, and so on and so forth.
I would also provide a convenient space on the far end of the keyboard for putting in a card with a keyboard diagram. Not as fancy as an Optimus Maximus, but a slot that you can slide a card into is still neater than taping a piece of paper to the keyboard, so it's something.
And, as I noted, making a keyboard can be almost as good as making a computer in terms of... distinctiveness.
So the final element of my mad plan would be to include, in the same box as the keyboard, a CD containing useful software. Not just a driver for multimedia keys.
Maybe a Linux distribution. (It's possible to write software for Windows that reads and writes to simulated disk volumes for compression or encryption; so one could perhaps give Windows the ability to read Linux partitions that way, to avoid a recent patent issue...)
Maybe a copy of the LISP Machine software, converted to run on the PC, if it were affordable to license that.
At the very least, I would want to include an APL interpreter on the CD. (Ideally, Windows, Mac, and Linux versions thereof!)
So, spruce up your computer with this new keyboard... and turn it into a new computer, at least a little bit.
As I've noted, too, this is but a fantasy... I couldn't start such a business, but maybe someone out there is already doing this, and I haven't noticed, or maybe this idea will inspire someone.
EDIT: I forgot to note this: if I could do some special tooling, one of the first things I would do, since I see that all the basic keycap shapes are still available from Signature Plastics, is put a plastic wedge under the keyswitches to tilt them forwards - so that when the keyboard is tilted up, one would press straight down on the keys to type.
