Author Topic: das iii typos at higher speeds (Read 99058 times)

Hamps · « **Reply #200 on:** Tue, 26 May 2009, 22:43:11 »

Quote

It's been a week. Did ANYONE return their Das board as a result of the blog?

I did, but I had just ordered the keyboard so the 30-day no questions asked policy still applied to me. Mine wasn't because of the blog. The timing of the blog post was just coincidental since I had explained the typo problem in my refund request as well as linked to this thread and the very article they refer to in their own blog before they posted it. I almost feel responsible for it lol, like the final straw or something. If you've owned it for longer than 30 days and are past the policy period I think you have to e-mail Daniel the co-founder to get a refund.

I'm wondering though, when they get mine if they'll refund the shipping as well. It was 25 bucks

and I'm in Louisiana-- one state away from them. Damn heavy ass keyboard.

Hamps · « **Reply #201 on:** Tue, 26 May 2009, 22:54:51 »

Quote

It's been a week. Did ANYONE return their Das board as a result of the blog?

I did, but I had just ordered the keyboard so the 30-day no questions asked policy still applied to me. Mine wasn't because of the blog. The timing of the blog post was just coincidental since I had explained the typo problem in my refund request as well as linked to this thread and the very article they refer to in their own blog before they posted it. I almost feel responsible for it lol, like the final straw or something. If you've owned it for longer than 30 days and are past the policy period I think you have to e-mail Daniel the co-founder to get a refund.

I'm wondering though, when they get mine if they'll refund the shipping as well. It was 25 bucks

and I'm in Louisiana-- one state away from them. Damn heavy ass keyboard.

lowpoly · « **Reply #202 on:** Wed, 27 May 2009, 16:25:13 »

Quote

Upon graduating from business school in Hamburg, Germany, where she is originally from

LOL, I'm from Hamburg too.

alpslover · « **Reply #203 on:** Wed, 27 May 2009, 19:58:08 »

Quote from: ripster;92865

Thanks for responding. Amazing only one person following the post with over 14,000 views is willing to ship it back for a confirmed problem.

actually, i've emailed daniel about returning my das 3. he said someone would get back to me.

alpslover · « **Reply #204 on:** Wed, 27 May 2009, 20:20:30 »

Quote from: ripster;93029

Don't tell the Das guys about this 14,118 view hit thread. I'd hate for them to come rumbling in and spoil the fun.

i think they might already know. they said they were made aware of this issue 'last november', which coincidentally is when i started this thread. so someone here may have already tipped them off.

sprintf32768 · « **Reply #205 on:** Wed, 27 May 2009, 22:45:07 »

Quote from: alpslover;93031

i think they might already know. they said they were made aware of this issue 'last november', which coincidentally is when i started this thread. so someone here may have already tipped them off.

"Last November" is total fiction, I RMA'd two keyboards for this problem in July 2008. Not that I am bitter.

Surely you all can tell that I am not bitter. I am all posies and heart-stickers for Das Keyboard.

Hamps · « **Reply #206 on:** Sat, 30 May 2009, 04:18:17 »

Quote from: ripster

They won't refund you the shipping. Sorry. That's the way most of these "30 day guarantees" work. $25 was high, I paid $12 from a UPS store on the West Coast. It's not THAT heavy.

They finally got the keyboard back and refunded the price of it, but the shipping... well, "There was no note or anything to indicate you desired a refund of the shipping cost, and the packaging has been thrown away already."

Looks like it's my fault for assuming they would and not leaving a note, but I mean... why wouldn't I desire my money back? Damn businesses. The customer service person did calculate the cost and refunded me $8, even though for some reason my UPS store charged me $23, so I did thank her for that. Their customer service has been pretty great aside from that one caveat

I also asked them when their "next version" would be out and they said they had no specific timeframe, but their goal is this year and that they'll contact me when it's debuting.

Also could someone explain to me why it cost me so much to ship it?! I asked at the store if that was the cheapest and the girl was just all, "uh huh :B" so I shrugged and reluctantly paid it.

zwmalone · « **Reply #207 on:** Sat, 30 May 2009, 04:39:58 »

That's a horrible shipping cost... I mailed a model m AND a chicony PRIORITY MAIL and it only cost me something like $15...

o2dazone · « **Reply #208 on:** Sat, 30 May 2009, 12:26:39 »

It's rather funny how sour your clientele can turn by nickel and diming them over shipping. Companies like Zappos and Newegg have wonderful return shipping deals, as if they're almost finding ways to give you free return shipping and free expedited shipping on the next item you purchase from them.

Instead you'd rather piss your customers off by keeping the couple bucks to ship? Jesus...

Hamps · « **Reply #209 on:** Sat, 30 May 2009, 16:12:33 »

Quote from: ripster

Hamps - I'm still curious about the "contact the CEO" part. Did you do that? Did they call you to follow up? Was the RMA "no questions asked? - no receipt required?"

Nah, I didn't contact any CEO. I just submitted a refund ticket using their helpdesk and they responded immediately with an apology, RMA #, and instructions for shipping http://daskeyboard.mojohelpdesk.com/

Like I said though, I just ordered the thing and was still within the 30-day policy so my return was just the run of the mill type. In your case it's probably different since getting a refund in light of their blog post is undoubtedly more complicated, but still I'd go through with it if I were you because they're offering it. Oh and also because the keyboard doesn't type right lol.

alpslover · « **Reply #210 on:** Sun, 31 May 2009, 09:21:39 »

someone did get back to me, she asked me to submit a ticket to their help desk (in addition to the one i submitted back in november, but that one was closed without any real resolution) and once i did, i was given instructions on how to send the keyboard back to them.

Rajagra · « **Reply #211 on:** Sun, 31 May 2009, 19:28:23 »

Quote from: ripster;93520

Metadot sells the trouble ticket system. It's a very interesting business model they have - sell flaky keyboards and the SW to track their flakiness.

At least we know their software is thoroughly tested.:smile:

Hamps · « **Reply #212 on:** Mon, 01 June 2009, 02:56:43 »

I'm still convinced their an undercover government agency whose real goal is to collect fingerprints. You need a product that you know people will return and you need that product to be a magnet for fingerprints. Thus, the Das III was born. The mechanical keyboard that typos.

Hamps · « **Reply #213 on:** Mon, 01 June 2009, 03:08:44 »

I'm still convinced they're an undercover government agency whose real goal is to collect fingerprints. You need a product that you know people will return and you need that product to be a magnet for fingerprints. Thus, the Das III was born. The mechanical keyboard that typos.

alpslover · « **Reply #214 on:** Tue, 16 June 2009, 14:34:42 »

just got my refund from metadot.

alpslover · « **Reply #215 on:** Wed, 17 June 2009, 10:17:02 »

yes, return shipping took a couple of days and the refund to my credit card took another couple of days.

i also have a blue cherry filco on order.

wellington1869 · « **Reply #216 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 00:28:43 »

Everyone on GH has just declared war on "chris_". "Unsubstantiated" my fat ass. First off it ISNT the "same result" on other boards (is he a metadot plant?!), and secondly if his board is working either he doesnt type as fast as he thinks, or he clearly got a model after some patch went into effect.

sheesh.

wellington1869 · « **Reply #217 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 00:32:35 »

And no doubt, here is chris_ "analyzing" the Das keyboard that I received:

"Um. What hole?"

sprintf32768 · « **Reply #218 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 00:50:57 »

Unsubstantiated, hunh. Someone tell Das, maybe they can retract their admission of guilt. It's not like we're all a bunch of nutcases and DAS acknowledges the problem because we're so charismatic. Surely, they'd rather dismiss our bogus assertions and continue selling their perfect keyboards, if these claims are truly unsubstantiated.

chris_ = troll.

o2dazone · « **Reply #219 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 00:56:07 »

I don't think he really understands the definition of a meme

wellington1869 · « **Reply #220 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 01:31:16 »

ignore this post

wellington1869 · « **Reply #221 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 01:57:51 »

Quote from: ripster;97856

Welly, I was going to say something about your last post but am actively trying to NOT catch up with your post count.

Give the idea to Lowpoly, not Metadot. They need to concentrate on fixing the board they got.

lol, i had posted it in the wrong thread (it was meant for the humblehacker thread).

Its in the right place now.

And yes, I'm trying very hard to MAKE you catch up to me

but i'm not being very successful at it

Rajagra · « **Reply #222 on:** Sat, 20 June 2009, 13:52:41 »

Quote from: ripster;97825

Sorry to keep bumping this but now Geekhack is a VIRAL MEME!!

This is from The Techlounge.

Haha, funniest bit was: "a lack of testing of other keyboards". He doesn't know you guys very well! :doh:

o2dazone · « **Reply #223 on:** Wed, 24 June 2009, 09:12:22 »

another one bites the dust

cmr · « **Reply #224 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 17:46:31 »

guess what, i'm in the thread.

and no, not one of you has any sort of data about the sampling rates of this controller or of other controllers. it's an unanswered question.

cmr · « **Reply #225 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 18:19:33 »

i don't have a trouble ticket to file. i have not noticed any unusual level of typos on mine. i am able to reproduce the same behavior on my M10, even though it requires more precise timing before the keystrokes register simultaneously. i am able to reproduce the same problem on every dell rubber dome board in my cube at work. i await convincing evidence that there is a problem with the sampling rate of this keyboard.

it's as simple as this: the keyboard is either sampling too slowly to permit accurate typing at reasonable speeds, or it is not. i would say that any keyboard should be expected to handle up to 150 wpm.

now, in order to demonstrate that there is a bug we need data: we need to know the sampling rate of the controller and we need to know how much variance there usually is in time between keystrokes for human typists (because obviously at 100 WPM I am not issuing keystrokes at an unvarying rate of 8⅓ Hz).

with this data we can determine whether the board is sampling too slowly. without it, all we can demonstrate is that when multiple keys land between scans the controller sends them in a predictable order. this is unsurprising behavior for a deterministic machine.

huha · « **Reply #226 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 20:14:23 »

-huha

cmr · « **Reply #227 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 20:15:34 »

now we're getting somewhere.

Rajagra · « **Reply #228 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 21:08:17 »

Quote from: cmr;99222

guess what, i'm in the thread.
and no, not one of you has any sort of data about the sampling rates of this controller or of other controllers. it's an unanswered question.

It isn't unanswered at all. Why so confrontational? Daniel, the co-founder of Das Keyboard has stated that "the detection time of the current version was designed as 100ms."
http://www.daskeyboard.com/blog/?p=82

Quote

Important message about potential character inversions

Hello everyone! I am Daniel the co-founder of Das Keyboard. We are a US company located in Austin Texas and we love the passion of our users.

We have been looking into the character inversion phenomenon that occurs in some cases. As Devin Coldewey from CrunchGear says describing a Das Keyboard user experience: “when keys are pressed in rapid succession on his Das Keyboard, the letters always show up on the screen as if he’d pressed the leftmost keys first, then the ones on the right. “. This was brought to our attention last November. Our testing has shown that this is in fact a “limitation” of the first version of our keyboards. The detection time of the current version was designed as 100ms which means that if you are a very, very fast typist, approximately 120 words per minute then, you might encounter this limitation. It’s something we are redesigning for the next version of Das Keyboard.

In the meantime, we would be more than happy to let anyone who is experiencing this problem return the keyboard for a full refund. To do so, you can contact me at any time at +1-512-346-0360 or via e-mail at daniel(at)daskeyboard.com. If you would like to discuss this with me personally, you can reach me the same way or I am happy to discuss it here in our community. Your feedback is critically important to us, please keep it coming to help us improve future generations of our keyboard. Thank you.

100ms. That's 1/10s. That was an extremely poor design choice, and it's pitiful considering what modern electronics is capable of. Don't you think it's bizarre that an IBM model M made 25 years ago is superior in this respect?

wellington1869 · « **Reply #229 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 21:49:06 »

what raj said

cmr · « **Reply #230 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 22:20:23 »

finally, the data!

now i'm left wondering only why 70 and 80wpm typists are complaining. they shouldn't even be running into this.

Rajagra · « **Reply #231 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 22:55:41 »

wpm is an average. There are bursts where series' of keys come in faster, especially where you can roll your fingers across keys.

Anyone who's been typing for a while probably has certain words they can type really fast. When I did programming in BASIC I could type words like FOR NEXT GOTO GOSUB LET blisteringly fast even though I couldn't type a coherent sentence to save my life.

I barely scratch 60 wpm even now, but even I've seen a few errors from the DAS. Not enough to worry about as my own errors easily outweigh them.

And I think once you know about the problem you can adjust your technique to avoid the problem, by typing smoothly. I think that is good form for normal typing speeds anyway. But once you get past 120wpm it's a different story.

wellington1869 · « **Reply #232 on:** Thu, 25 June 2009, 23:05:43 »

Quote from: Rajagra;99286

There are bursts where series' of keys come in faster, especially where you can roll your fingers across keys.

thats exactly right, thats why you dont have to be an expert typer at all to start seeing the problem. If you're a hunt and peck typer you might not see it, but nearly everyone else would run into it as their finger roll across common words while typing.

Hamps · « **Reply #233 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 00:54:10 »

I talked to a person last night who was bragging about owning a Das III. I told him about its transposition error at higher speeds. His response couldn't have been more perfect:

"I haven't noticed any problems with thsi keybaord"

itlnstln · « **Reply #234 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 07:44:03 »

Quote from: Rajagra;99286

And I think once you know about the problem you can adjust your technique to avoid the problem, by typing smoothly. I think that is good form for normal typing speeds anyway. But once you get past 120wpm it's a different story.

Sightly OT: I don't type particularly fast (maybe 60-65 WPM at best), but I type very smoothly. With a lot of people, you hear them type something like a word at a time (short pauses between each word). When I type, especially when I have fully thought out what I am going to type, it sounds like continuous stream of key presses with no breaks in between words (other than hearing the spacebar being pressed).

alpslover · « **Reply #235 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 08:17:31 »

Quote from: cmr;99227

with this data we can determine whether the board is sampling too slowly. without it, all we can demonstrate is that when multiple keys land between scans the controller sends them in a predictable order.

but even without that data, we can also demonstrate that the predictable order occurs with greater frequency on the das (and some other keyboards, as you've noticed) than on other keyboards. because what we think are 'simultaneous' keypresses are not always truly simultaneous, we can infer that that the das scans its keys slower.

suppose two cars accelerate full throttle from a dead stop. one car takes twice as long to hit 120mph than the other. you do not need to know the horsepower outputs of the cars to make this observation. you can also reasonably conclude that the quicker accelerating car has more horsepower than the other, even if you don't know the exact numbers.

btw, you mentioned you could reproduce the problem on the m10 and rubber dome keyboards, but you didn't say anything about the model m or dell at101 or keytronic keyboards you have in your sig. did you test them?

Quote

now, in order to demonstrate that there is a bug

i personally never referred to it as a bug, i've always called it an 'issue'. bugs are flaws in software/firmware that result in unintended effects. i couldn't be sure that this behavior wasn't inherent in the das's design, so i couldn't be sure it was a bug. since we now know that the 100ms scan interval was by design, this is technically not a bug.

cmr · « **Reply #236 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 08:40:16 »

no, i just tested what was on hand at the time. i don't really see the point now that we know the scanning frequency is 10 Hz, which is below the minimum limit for supporting 150 WPM.

o2dazone · « **Reply #237 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 08:49:49 »

Quote from: Hamps;99308

"I haven't noticed any problems with thsi keybaord"

lmao

alpslover · « **Reply #238 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 09:47:33 »

Quote from: Rajagra;99286

And I think once you know about the problem you can adjust your technique to avoid the problem, by typing smoothly.

metadot could use this as a selling point.

itlnstln · « **Reply #239 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 10:06:23 »

Quote from: alpslover;99358

metadot could use this as a selling point.

What. "We f*cked up our keyboard, so we can help you with your typing?"

alpslover · « **Reply #240 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 10:55:28 »

Quote from: cmr;99345

no, i just tested what was on hand at the time.

ah, that makes sense then. you didn't experience the issue with your das in normal typing, so you were understandably skeptical that there was one. you briefly tested some keyboards and they behaved no different than the das (because they too had relatively slow key scanning), which affirmed your skepticism. believing there was no problem, you saw no reason to test any other keyboards, like your model m or dell at101. if you had, though, i believe you probably would have noticed that, given enough test iterations, the das would produce repeated patterns significantly more often than either of those keyboards.

(not attacking you, just trying to understand why you were initially resistant to the das problem.)

cmr · « **Reply #241 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:06:48 »

well, that, and that until last night the only evidence i'd seen anyone present was that "it is possible to press two keys inside a single scan" followed by a whole bunch of hocus-pocus and handwaving about feeling that there were more transposition typos

o2dazone · « **Reply #242 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:08:06 »

because when you dump $130 into a keyboard, your natural reaction is to justify your purchase

jk I don't want to be a part of this sh!tstorm

cmr · « **Reply #243 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:09:59 »

oh did i not mention i got mine for 50% off?

place your order from a college campus address, it pays

itlnstln · « **Reply #244 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:15:39 »

Quote from: ripster;99362

He's the OP of this megapost. I know sarcasm when I see it. :d

F'Sho'. I was just piling on.

wellington1869 · « **Reply #245 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:28:50 »

Quote from: cmr;99373

oh did i not mention i got mine for 50% off?

place your order from a college campus address, it pays

megadot is giving a 50% college discount?!

itlnstln · « **Reply #246 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:36:00 »

Quote from: ripster;99379

Only on campuses with heavy alcohol consumption. Keeps the WPM below 120.

Not really. It just affects spelling and choice of words. You can still type just as fast. I had my all time best score at Minsweeper hammered (97 on Expert). I was much faster drunk than sober.

wellington1869 · « **Reply #247 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:39:59 »

by the way has megadot fixed this problem yet? (I do see it as a bug by the way). if you buy a new das today, does it have the same issue?

alpslover · « **Reply #248 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:44:45 »

Quote from: cmr;99371

well, that, and that until last night the only evidence i'd seen anyone present was that "it is possible to press two keys inside a single scan"

in the very first post, i thought that this may have been the cause of the issue, though i didn't use those terms. the keypress test results appeared to support this, or at the very least didn't contradict it. to me, that was evidence, though not necessarily proof. (i'm using the term 'evidence' in the scientific sense of the word - i.e. observations to support or disprove a hypothesis.)

when deckguy adam posted to the thread, he mentioned key scan rates and that gelled it together for me. it still wasn't proof though - that didn't come until metadot finally revealed the 10hz scan rate.

Quote

a whole bunch of hocus-pocus and handwaving about feeling that there were more transposition typos

it was this 'feeling' that prompted me to do all the testing. i'll be the first to admit the simultaneous keypress test is subjective, so i tried to reduce bias as much as i could with what i had. the results i posted were just a subset of all the results. i did a substantial number of iterations with different key combinations, switched hands and mixed fingers from different hands to reduce muscle memory effect, etc. the das produced the repeated patterns significantly more often than my other keyboards (although in the course of expanded testing, i discovered that the das was not alone - some other keyboards also had this issue, but i hadn't run into this problem before because these other afflicted keyboards are not ones i normally use).

i posted my thoughts and results to see if others could confirm or contradict them, but i also knew that not everyone would experience the issue in normal typing.

itlnstln · « **Reply #249 on:** Fri, 26 June 2009, 11:47:56 »

Quote from: ripster;99385

World record continues to be Stella Pajunas in 1946, 216 WPM on an IBM electric. Guiness no longer keeps records for fastest typist.

Must be not leet.

Good lord. On a typewriter, even. 216 WPM doesn't even seem possible. I can't even move my fingers that fast let alone accurately pressing keys.

News:

Author Topic: das iii typos at higher speeds (Read 99058 times)