First ever physical keyboard try/review thread.

[SirClickAlot]

Hi,

A crazy idea of mine is to send my Matias Tactile Pro or my Apple Extended II on its first ever physical keyboard try/review thread.

This idea surfaced after some discussion with fellow forum members about how to gain access to different keyboards without actually buying them.

So : ever wanted to try a keyboard without buying it? All I ask is that after you receive the keyboard you post your opinion ( review ) on this board and you send it to the next person on a list. Shipping costs are limited because the shipping is always national. Because the US is by far the biggest country with keyboard enthusiasts for this first tryout only US citizens can apply. ( This is due to the heavy costs of international shipping ) Upon success more keyboards and more countries can be handled.

I need to reach at least 5 people in the US who are interested in participating in this endeavor before I am willing to send my keyboard overseas. So, are you interested in participating in this new concept? Send me a PM with your keyboard preference.

I will maintain a list of people who are selected( my selections are based on forum trust-ability -> number of posts )  and for this first run I want to use this forum to update everybody on the status.


Regards

[Viett]

Sounds like a great idea. My only concern is that in the US, we can just buy used clicky ALPS boards for 2-3 times the price to ship your keyboards around.

[Findecanor]

It costs too much to send them between many European countries also, I think.

One thing that I did the other day was to look up a local "hacker space", where geeks hang out. There are hacker spaces in some places that are oriented towards machining things out of wood and metal, and that is what I was looking for. However, this one was oriented more towards computer geeks, electronics geeks, anime fans and geeks who play various types of games (role play, board games, card games, etc..)
There was lots of vintage computer equipment there, up and running, and stacks upon stacks of old Amigas in the bookshelf. I was told that they used to have a whole lot more, but they had to move a lot to the dump because they ran out of space ...
I got to try my hands on a tactile - but not clicky - Dell 101W, a few granite SGI boards, a linear terminal (?) board by Keytronic that I had never seen before, a linear Amstrad 128K, a Sun Type 5 (rubber dome, but is otherwise the most beaauutiful keyboard in the world, if this one just wasn't so dirty) and a Sun Type 6 (rubber dome). There was a lucky b****rd there who had just found a nice Cherry G80-3000HAD (ISO layout, Cherry black, double-shot keys) in a dumpster and was replacing the coord. Unfortunately (for me), it worked flawlessly once repaired, so I did not manage to convince the owner to sell it to me ... Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my camera.
That is my advice if you want to try out various keyboards: look up hacker spaces.

[SirClickAlot]

Sounds like a great idea. My only concern is that in the US, we can just buy used clicky ALPS boards for 2-3 times the price to ship your keyboards around.

I assumed this was not the case since the matias tactile pro costs a lot and the apple extended II is hard to get.

How about the DAS K3 Professional or Steelseries 7G?

Are there people wanting to try out one of these keyboards and help others form an opinion as well?