At last I feel the joy of better keyboards, too.

[spremino]

Hello,

about one year ago my journey among mechanical keyboards began. Since in my country (Italy), they are rather difficult to come by, so far I restricted myself to:
- two IBM Model M;
- a Unicomp Space Saver with buckling springs (imported from USA);
- a Cherry G80-3000 with clears (imported from Germany);
- a Filco TenkeyLess with browns (imported from USA)

I've found the browns to be too light and the clears to be tiring (too much resistance). The IBMs lacked the Windows keys. Thus, my current daily mechanical driver is the Unicomp. My other daily driver is the chiclet keyboard of my netbook.

In the beginning I was preferring the chiclet keyboard because it seemed effortless compared to the buckling springs one. However, after one year of hammering on both keyboards, the crispiness and precision of the Unicomp has won me over. The chiclet started feeling dull and trembling.

I remember retorting to those members who despise (low quality) chiclets. Now I understand what they meant.

At last I feel the joy of better keyboards, too.

Have a nice day ^_^

[NamelessPFG]

Keyswitches, like anything else in life, can be an acquired taste.

Maybe I'd warm up to white XMs or whatever ALPS linear-force switches are found in Apple Extended Keyboard IIs if I just tried them for longer. (Can't comment on Cherry MX Blues or Browns yet; I'll probably have to pay up for a Filco to try them.)

[itlnstln]

That APL 'board has the best keys ever.

[itlnstln]

W kinda reminds me of ass.  Either boobs or ass, anything that looked like that would be a little saggy.

[ch_123]

Show Image

Did those APL caps come off some sort of terminal keyboard?

[WhiteRice]

Tomorrow I'll snap a picture of the APL keyboard I use at work.

[Sam]

Ripster,

Do you actually ever use it as an APL keyboard?  I recall a very long time ago, while in university, I wrote some APL programs as part of a class project.  But there wasn't any APL keyboard around, so it was a major pain using the workaround.  I thought APL was a lovely language, but unfortunately not very practical for most applications.

I suppose I ought to buy an APL keyboard one of these days just for a reminder of my past efforts.

[Sam]

Keyswitches, like anything else in life, can be an acquired taste.

I started out on computers who's keyboard was a front-panel of toggle switches and lights (DEC PDP and Altairs).  It certainly wasn't any acquired taste when I moved from that to a terminal.  Even with it's horrible keys, it was heaven compared to the tedious job of entering code via toggle switches.

Then onto some of the original Commodore, Apple, and Atari computers.  Again, nothing special about those keyboards that I could remember.

My next computer was an original IBM PC with the Model F keyboard.   I can't say that there was any acquired taste involved there.  I was in heaven the moment I laid fingers on that keyboard.  Although I'd learned to touch-type on an IBM Selectric years prior, so that could have influenced my instant love for that keyboard.

If anything, for me lesser keyboards are an acquired taste, or more appropriately a resistance to the shock of having to type on something less than Model F switches.  I've learned to accept typing on rubber dome keyboards without having to say "yuck" outloud each and every time.

For someone who's never lived through the IBM PC era though and had an experience working on one of those keyboards, I can understand them perhaps not liking buckling spring keyboards at first.

[Sam]

I'm not a programmer.  Despite the Unix beard.
I just liked the Egyptian vibe of a dead language.

Heresy!

[spremino]

For someone who's never lived through the IBM PC era though and had an experience working on one of those keyboards, I can understand them perhaps not liking buckling spring keyboards at first.

That's me. I marveled at how I ended up liking the Unicomp the most.

[Findecanor]

I just liked the Egyptian vibe of a dead language.

Only three years ago, I had a job interview for a position as a programmer on a company's flagship product, which was written in APL. On the other hand, they had not asked specifically for a APL programmer, but had supposed that I would have learned it on the job.

[ch_123]

It was just a standard full sized APL Model M that I swapped to a mini.

Interesting, because the keycaps are of terminal emulator style (e.g. the character in black is the corresponding terminal mapping, and the PC one is in blue)

[WhiteRice]

:3

[ch_123]

Ripster,

Do you actually ever use it as an APL keyboard?  I recall a very long time ago, while in university, I wrote some APL programs as part of a class project.  But there wasn't any APL keyboard around, so it was a major pain using the workaround.  I thought APL was a lovely language, but unfortunately not very practical for most applications.

I suppose I ought to buy an APL keyboard one of these days just for a reminder of my past efforts.

Unicomp still make them -

Link

[NamelessPFG]

I started out on computers who's keyboard was a front-panel of toggle switches and lights (DEC PDP and Altairs).  It certainly wasn't any acquired taste when I moved from that to a terminal.  Even with it's horrible keys, it was heaven compared to the tedious job of entering code via toggle switches.

Then onto some of the original Commodore, Apple, and Atari computers.  Again, nothing special about those keyboards that I could remember.

My next computer was an original IBM PC with the Model F keyboard.   I can't say that there was any acquired taste involved there.  I was in heaven the moment I laid fingers on that keyboard.  Although I'd learned to touch-type on an IBM Selectric years prior, so that could have influenced my instant love for that keyboard.

If anything, for me lesser keyboards are an acquired taste, or more appropriately a resistance to the shock of having to type on something less than Model F switches.  I've learned to accept typing on rubber dome keyboards without having to say "yuck" outloud each and every time.

For someone who's never lived through the IBM PC era though and had an experience working on one of those keyboards, I can understand them perhaps not liking buckling spring keyboards at first.

Perhaps "acquired taste" may not have been the right phrase to use, but switching to anything else generally requires some adaptation.

However, I was born in mid-1990, which basically means I missed the really interesting area of home computing that makes today's OS flamewars seem tame in comparison. (I don't actually like IBM PCs from that period, though-just their keyboards. Graphics and especially sound capabilities were far behind their competitors, especially the C64 and Amiga. Wasn't til 1990 that PCs started having VGA and a Sound Blaster or better as a general rule, and by that point, most of them weren't IBM.) It also means I haven't used a Model F or earlier, just a few Model Ms which I certainly don't want to part with now, maybe a few ALPS boards, and a whole lot of rubber domes.

Oh, and those APL keycaps would make it actually somewhat possible to TYPE math notes for once, what with all the damn symbols they use. Subscripts and superscripts may be a pain, though, unless that's what the red symbols on 9 and 0 actually mean.

[NamelessPFG]

Typewriters aren't my thing, though it's interesting that the Selectrics have those to use.

For math notes, I currently use the Tablet PC + OneNote approach. Saves me from having to deal with that kludgy dead tree stuff. Slower than typing, but it's either that or trudging through menus and the Character Map for subscripts/superscripts and those symbols, respectively.

(And then there's the diagrams and such that even an APL keyboard won't help with...)