The last time I tripped through Tokyo, I was all set to get myself a HHKB Pro 2. So one morning I launched myself from the (capsule) hotel, cash in pocket, on my way to Akihabara. I wandered around for a while, looking for that little keyboard shop and couldn't find it. That isn't what this rant is about, but geez, somebody needs to post directions.
Anyway, later that day saw me arriving on the 2nd floor of Yodobashi Camera's Akiba megastore. There before me was a display of what looked like must be every current keyboard known to man. I shuffled down the row, glancing over the selection until the HHKB came into view. Wow, compact and sleek, even just its looks made it stand out.
I picked it up...hmmm...sturdy. Tapped a few keys... Huh. Not a click; more like a really soft thud. I think the Japanese onomatopoeia for that sound is "don", so that's what I'll call it.
So, I put the keyboard down and placed my fingers in typing position. Don. Nice feel. Don don don. Oh, yeah. Don...don don don...don...don don don don don. I'm in love. Don don don don don don...don don don...don don don don CLACK. Ack! What was that?! Oh, I hit the spacebar. Let's see here...CLACK...ugh...CLACK CLACK CLACK. Eeeeeew, that's bad.
I stood back and assessed the situation. The HHKB looked great, felt great, and for the most part sounded great. But heck, if I'm going to pay that much for a keyboard, using it had better be a darn near religious experience.
I thought, maybe in regular use the rest of the experience would be so nice that the clackiness of the spacebar would fade from awareness. I stepped back up to the keyboard and just typed for maybe five minutes, trying CLACK to CLACK convince CLACK myself CLACK that CLACK would CLACK be CLACK the CLACK case.
Arrrrgh! I got a mousepad as a consolation purchase and went back to the hotel.
How could the designers put so much effort into the rest of it but screw up so badly on that one feature? I thought maybe because in Japanese typing, the spacebar doesn't get used nearly so much and in fact is a much smaller item on the Japanese keyboard. They just didn't test the English version much. Still, that doesn't sound like Japanese engineering.
It doesn't end there. Back in the USA, I've noticed that better than half the new keyboards I try in shops have spacebars that are significantly louder than the rest of the keyboard. In contrast, mine that are 20+ years old have spacebar clack that doesn't stand out.
OK, so this is just one more example of the decline of civilization. But I'd really like to call the manufacturers to task over this.
Meanwhile, to introduce a positive note, how about suggestions for quieting noisy spacebars?
