Hey fellow type-o-maniacs,
You know how it can be when you discover something so new and special, it adds a whole new energy and excitement to your life?
I've heard people describe many things that way: relationships, jobs, sports, coding, cars, electronics, music... They can feel like a whole new world's opened up to you. You feel extra-alive.
I'm guessing that for most of us, MKs were like that. They were for me—twice.
The first time was in my 20s, when personal computing arrived. My first PC (using the term generically) was a Radio Shack Model III with
Alps SKCC Creams:
...and 16K (that's
K) of RAM, which I later upgraded to a whopping 32K. (Only rich people could afford the single-density 140K floppy drives, around $1500
each in today's dough.) It was soon replaced by other models due to its reputation for radio disturbance. (I fantasized about finding key sequences that would open my neighbours's garage doors.)
I then had an Apple //c (
Alps SKCM Ambers):
...(with, oh joy, a
hardware switch for the Dvorak layout!).
To most of you, these built-in keebs must seem hilariously retro, sci-fi B movie stuff. But as integrated hardware, they had to be durable, responsive and good-feeling. (And lest you get too smug, later there were these things called "laptops".)
External keebs were expected to be solid and clickety too. What else would you
want to type on? Certainly not some flimsy, printed-contact rubber sheet job that started wearing out the moment you put your fingers on it... It was unthinkable.
RDs soon appeared, but they were
good RDs. You still got a discrete-switch feeling, and many were of reasonably high quality and consistency. And of course they were quieter—which was important if you needed to type in places like libraries, medical offices, um... funeral homes...? But no one I knew preferred them over MKs. MKs gave you the feeling that what you typed was
important enough to be crisp and clackety, not that it had to be done as cheaply and non-annoyingly as possible. (For many of us that came later, in the form of marriage.)
Then the tsunami of $5 Asian membrane boards reached our shores, and everyone—except some IT pros, scientists, space-center designers, etc.—forgot about MKs. We got preoccupied with transfer speed, as we slowly and painfully went online. (If you remember this:
NO CARRIER
~!E*3$#...you're probably as old as I am.
)
Then everything went GUI, and it was all about software, CPU speed, graphics, RAM, storage (and for the Apple people, what color your case was, etc.).
Keebs faded into the background—thin, cheap, disposable, characterless input devices that you, you know, typed on.
Then, decades later, boom! MKs were back. To my generation, it was a second youth. (Arcade emulation was too!) To you GenX/Millennials, it was new speed, accuracy, aural and tactile stimulation, fun. And of course something to geek (i.e. obsess) over—which
has to be good, right?
Remember that? I do.
Well, sorry to ramble. I just wanted to pause with all of you to recall when MKs became, or re-became, part of our lives. Take my word for it, as an older guy: Things like that happen seldom enough, they're worth remembering.
Feel free to share your MK-discovery/rediscovery stories. Or just keep typing.
Geek note: I'm writing this on my 55g Realforce TKL—which, while not a classic MK, affords significant MK excitement without alienating the wife sitting a few feet away. (Like I said.)
