I came across this forum while searching for a mini keyboard so I wanted to share this point of sale keyboard I took a chance on. I've had a wide variety of keyboards from the Darwin Smartboard, to TypeMatrix, to Happy Hacker, to every cheap keyboard imaginable. I've given up on the fancy ergonomic ones because I have too many different devices to switch between. But for a while now I've been trying to find a good "mini" keyboard without the numpad or the 6+arrows, in order to improve my ergonomics. I've tried mechanical Cherry, Razer, and Logitech keyswitches in stores but didn't really like any of them. They feel too loose to me, there's a certain amount of wobble that I don't like. But I've been searching eBay for POS keyboards hoping to find something durable and compact. Only a select few POS keyboards are compact, most have a number pad and/or additional programmable keys to the right. One of the few compact units is the Cherry MPOS G86 or more specifically G86-51410EUADAA. There seem to be two versions, one with a stripe reader and one without.
Anyway I took a chance on this keyboard because Cherry has a good reputation and I figured their membrane switches are probably good. Well I was right, it has excellent tactile feedback, the right amount of resistance, and a nice clacky sound-- Not clicky but clacky. It reminds me of the 90s and older Mac keyboards like we had in the computer lab in middle school.
Cherry has software available for download that lets you reprogram any key which would be one advantage over a standard USB keyboard if you need to switch layouts or disable certain keys.
The one bad thing is the spacebar wasn't installed properly so I had to pull it off and try about 10 times to get the spring into the slots properly. But I did notice in the process that the keys are lubed with white grease.
Here's a picture. The thing to the left is a Genovation Controlpad 683, which sucks because it only recognizes up to 2 keypresses at a time and is a pain to program.
