Author Topic: Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!  (Read 3695 times)

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Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:36:39 »
Hi guys,

Newbie here and compliments on a great site.

I am looking for a low vision mechanical keyboard. Money is very tight and I like to keep the cost as low as possible.

Boards I tried....

*First bought the Keys-U-See low vision board for $35. It's membrane felt like mush and was actually worse then my ten year MS board. Back it went.

* For the first time, I tried a mechanical keyboard with the CM Storm QuickFire for $89 and I fell in love with the Brown keys. Great price and exactly what I wanted. My problem with that board is that it's lettering is off white on black and it's very hard to read when I'm tired or low light. So I returned it.

*I am writing right now on a borrowed BlackWidow. Nice board but whoever invented the fonts on that board should not be allowed to reproduce! The low level back-lighting is nice and ideally it should have been white. But without an easy to read font, it's a waste of time.

What I didn't try because it was panned on this site was the DSI low vision boards with Alps keys or the iOne with the trackball.

Ideally, low vision boards, at least in my opinion, should have large, easy to read fonts and multiple colours for the action keys. I experimented for hours on the WASD and came up with a perfect board (my opinion) but in the end, with shipping and subsequent taxes, it would be north of $220.

Soooo.....

I love to buy the CM again but I need some kind of low vision keys. Or at the very least, as large and as clear defined font as possible.

OR

Is there any other inexpensive suggestions?

OR

Are the Alp keys really that bad? Are they noisy and prone to failure? can I rubber o-ring back them to reduce the clang?

THANKS in advance to any and all.



BTW, I had the same post last Friday but something happened and it was accidentally deleted.

Offline 1391401

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:45:19 »
Hey - have you looked at a custom set from WASD?  I made a set with relatively large legends which might be what you are looking for, you could probably get White or Yellow keys to get a nice contrast going...  It might not be too cost effective though

edit - attached a pic as an example

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 49920[/ATTACH] (probably should have resized that)
« Last Edit: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:47:54 by 1391401 »
People I've given money to from this webform who never respond to me and have not shipped me anything: ctrlalt.io 1 2, Team Readline Reputable alternatives to GH group buys: http://pimpmykeyboard.com, https://www.massdrop.com,

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:49:01 »
I did, see my opening post. I live in Canada and by the time I get shipping, customs and taxes on top, it's north of $220. Money is a bit tight.

Offline 1391401

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:52:30 »
Ah ok - wasn't sure if that price was a board+keys or just the keys.  That's crazy tax+fees - I guess I am spoiled living in the US?
People I've given money to from this webform who never respond to me and have not shipped me anything: ctrlalt.io 1 2, Team Readline Reputable alternatives to GH group buys: http://pimpmykeyboard.com, https://www.massdrop.com,

Offline mkawa

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 22:58:53 »
mayhaps you are looking for something like this? http://www.fentek-ind.com/lrgprt.htm#kblfps2

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 23:05:06 »
I did and it's cheap and locally available for $40. BUT.....when I did a bit of homework on it, the keys and feel was panned.

I'm wondering if I should open a thread about it.........

You responded to my previous thread before it disappeared and you were working on "something"?

Offline mkawa

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #6 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 23:06:22 »
i had some caps for sale, but i'm afraid someone sniped them :(

fwiw they weren't a complete set anyway.

to all the brilliant friends who have left us, and all the students who climb on their shoulders.

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #7 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 23:24:27 »
No problem mkawa.

I wonder if the solution lays in buying the CM Storm, working with it and when someone offers a more reasonable priced key-set, buying it.

Does anyone other then WASD offer custom keycaps? They want $60 and while it makes it a bit more palatable price wise, I have concerns about the perimeter keys. A bit to my surprise, keys caps are not the same.

Offline 1839cc

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #8 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 23:28:15 »
Quote from: Spartan;589934
I wonder if the solution lays in buying the CM Storm, working with it and when someone offers a more reasonable priced key-set, buying it.

Does anyone other then WASD offer custom keycaps? They want $60 and while it makes it a bit more palatable price wise, I have concerns about the perimeter keys. A bit to my surprise, keys caps are not the same.

You're going to wish you never asked that. There are always a bunch of group buys going, and apparently keycaps are like crack. You can never get enough.
i have seen unix admins with john deere trucker hats, and even seen a man in a nascar shirt correct a passerby's klingon.


Offline dorkvader

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #9 on: Sun, 06 May 2012, 23:52:12 »
In my opinion, you should have kept the Cmstorm, and just gotten a custom keyset from WASD. Other people do custom keysets, but all (to my knowledge) are much more expensive than WASD.

Other than that, you could look out for a suitable cherry keyset. I have always thought the legends on those were easy to read, but I don't know the details of your situation: I also think IBM keyboard legends are easy to read.
---
What Perimeter keys aren't the same? I have two CMStorms, and one WASD, and the keycaps should all be interchangeable. The only major difference is the windowed LED keycaps on the CM, but I can easily tell if the LED is lit by looknig at the plate. It's even easier with white ABS

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #10 on: Mon, 07 May 2012, 00:05:35 »
Quote from: dorkvader;589974
What Perimeter keys aren't the same? I have two CMStorms, and one WASD, and the keycaps should all be interchangeable. The only major difference is the windowed LED keycaps on the CM, but I can easily tell if the LED is lit by looknig at the plate. It's even easier with white ABS

I like the Storm too and was concerned about the interchangability of some of the keys. Particularly the spacebar. Also, the ctrl-win-alt keys size is even on the WASD and two different sizes on the Storm.

If you can confirm that the WASD keys work and there are no issues with the spacebar and spacing, then I will go with the Storm.

In the store, the salesman pulled a key from a Thermaflake G1 and changed put it on the Storm. It was clearer to me then the Storm. There are a few some run of the mill keycaps that are more legible then the Storm.  Of course none are as good as the 24 point and multricoloured WASD's.
« Last Edit: Mon, 07 May 2012, 00:07:41 by Spartan »

Offline captain

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #11 on: Mon, 07 May 2012, 00:16:39 »
Quote from: Spartan;589883

Newbie here and compliments on a great site.

I am looking for a low vision mechanical keyboard. Money is very tight and I like to keep the cost as low as possible.


Welcome to geekhack!

We do not know the meaning of that third sentence.  Please open wallet, remove money.  Remove credit card.  Up the limit.  Remove other credit cards.  Rinse & Repeat.  :-D


However, if you are some kind of freak of will-power and restraint, then here is your answer:  Buy one of these
http://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=43
and learn to touch type.  Legends are for people with enough money for a crack addiction but no crack addiction.  Now ClickClack addiction... that's like a full blown coke addiction.
« Last Edit: Mon, 07 May 2012, 00:20:14 by captain »
Welcome to geekhack -- where we like to type -- but don't care so much about reading.

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #12 on: Mon, 07 May 2012, 00:23:42 »
Quote from: captain;589992
Welcome to geekhack!

We do not know the meaning of that third sentence.  Please open wallet, remove money.  Remove credit card.  Up the limit.  Remove other credit cards.  Rinse & Repeat.  :-D


I have one and only ONE word for you....

WIFE

Aka, Queen Lorena Bobbit of Walletburg. *looks over shoulder*

Offline captain

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #13 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 04:27:04 »
There are many kinds of spouses.  You need the kind that shares some of your hobbies (like wine and food) and then competes with you for how much you can each spend on your relative hobbies.  (Isn't that like eating chocolate together and the calories don't count?  ;-)
Welcome to geekhack -- where we like to type -- but don't care so much about reading.

Offline N8N

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #14 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 11:38:20 »
Would a set of Cherry Corp. doubleshot keycaps be visible enough for your needs?  I have most of a shiny set of blacks, and also an extra set of beige/grey.  I'm thinking the black might be sufficient, but only you could really answer that question.

If you really want to go cheap, I have some Cherry POS boards available as well that said caps could be used on.  It'd look like a cheap, ugly mutt of a keyboard, but honestly, the only reason I don't use them is that I don't like the feel of clear switches PCB-mounted (but I have one with browns too.)  They're still ages better than a cheap keyboard from MicroCenter or wherever.
Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #15 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 13:13:46 »
Quote from: N8N;590736
Would a set of Cherry Corp. doubleshot keycaps be visible enough for your needs?  I have most of a shiny set of blacks, and also an extra set of beige/grey.  I'm thinking the black might be sufficient, but only you could really answer that question.

If you really want to go cheap, I have some Cherry POS boards available as well that said caps could be used on.  It'd look like a cheap, ugly mutt of a keyboard, but honestly, the only reason I don't use them is that I don't like the feel of clear switches PCB-mounted (but I have one with browns too.)  They're still ages better than a cheap keyboard from MicroCenter or wherever.



Please be patient...I'm a military grade noob!

1....you have a bunch of boards with "clear" and one with "brown".

Okay, I like brown and clear doesn't seem like a big deal. What do you mean by POS boards? What's wrong with them? How much?

~~

2....you have "most" of a set of shiny blacks.

W*ll, do I kn**d to sp*ll @ll th* @lph@b*t? LOL!  

Which ones are you missing?  And how clearly legible are the letters? Picture?  How much?

~~

3...you have a set of white and gray.

What do they look like? Picture? How much? The board I "designed" at WASD had 24 points black on white keycaps and the rest gray.
« Last Edit: Sat, 12 May 2012, 13:55:37 by Spartan »

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #16 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 13:30:36 »
Quote from: captain;590499
There are many kinds of spouses.  You need the kind that shares some of your hobbies (like wine and food) and then competes with you for how much you can each spend on your relative hobbies.  (Isn't that like eating chocolate together and the calories don't count?  ;-)



Meh...mine doesn't really say no, she just stares.

"honey, I'm spending $220 on a keyboard"

Silence.

"did you hear me"

Silence. Comes and stares at me from the doorway.

"my birthday is coming up!"

Silence. More staring.

"I will love you more if I can type without hunting for keys"

Silence. More staring.

"Okay, I'm going to search for  a cheaper solution".

Woof......

Offline IvanIvanovich

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #17 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 13:49:13 »
Cherry doubleshot are pretty visible, like this:

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #18 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 14:00:04 »
Quote from: ripster;590843
The look.

Funny how the look changes from.......promises of fun....to.....The Shinning.
« Last Edit: Sat, 12 May 2012, 14:04:52 by Spartan »

Offline JaccoW

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #19 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 15:40:17 »
Quote from: Spartan;590808
Please be patient...I'm a military grade noob!

1....you have a bunch of boards with "clear" and one with "brown".

Okay, I like brown and clear doesn't seem like a big deal. What do you mean by POS boards? What's wrong with them? How much?

~~

2....you have "most" of a set of shiny blacks.

W*ll, do I kn**d to sp*ll @ll th* @lph@b*t? LOL!  

Which ones are you missing?  And how clearly legible are the letters? Picture?  How much?

~~

3...you have a set of white and gray.

What do they look like? Picture? How much? The board I "designed" at WASD had 24 points black on white keycaps and the rest gray.

Translating....

1. One of them has cherry MX Clear switches, the other MX Brown. Both are tactile switches, but the Clear has stiffer springs and a more noticable tactile bump. Brown is a safe first bet for most people.
2. POS is not Piece of ****, but Point of Sale. Meaning it was used in a store or office. Heavily used, but mechanically sound.
3. Don't see where that was said. Could refer to a switch type or the keys itself.

Lurk enough and you will know enough of the keyboard-lingo. :P
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Offline captain

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #20 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 16:09:01 »
Quote from: Spartan;590820
Meh...mine doesn't really say no, she just stares.

"honey, I'm spending $220 on a keyboard"

Silence.

"did you hear me"

Silence. Comes and stares at me from the doorway.

"my birthday is coming up!"

Silence. More staring.

"I will love you more if I can type without hunting for keys"

Silence. More staring.

"Okay, I'm going to search for  a cheaper solution".

Woof......


Well, at least the dog talks to you!  lol  :-)
Welcome to geekhack -- where we like to type -- but don't care so much about reading.

Offline N8N

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #21 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 19:09:55 »
yup, keys like Lysol posted were what I was thinking.  I might actually have a whole set, but some of the nav cluster may be the wrong row.  If you are interested I can check.

POS board:

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Cherry-8200-G80-8200LPBUS-Wired-Keyboard-/74113268

that's the exact board that I have, the big differences between that board and one of the high-end mechanicals you see touted here like Filco, Leopold etc. are a) it's ugly, and it was intended to be used at a POS workstation so it has an integrated card reader and b) while it uses the same Cherry MX switches, they do not have a supporting metal plate to stiffen them up.

In short, it's pretty much the cheapest way to get a Cherry MX board, and if you are the kind of person who likes to tinker, swapping springs and sliders to try a different switch type can easily be accomplished in an afternoon *because* it doesn't have the plate mounted switches - e.g. I have two of those boards, one w/ browns and one w/ clears.  I wanted to try "ergo clears" and it didn't take long at all to make that happen.  I eventually decided that I liked the straight clears better, but I didn't want to make the commitment to hack up a Filco (because you can't get a Filco with clears, and you can't get anything off the shelf with ergo clears, that is a custom switch made by using a clear slider and brown/blue/red spring) until I'd decided what I preferred best, because the Filco being a plate mount took me MUCH longer to swap than the POS board.  I didn't keep track, but it probably took me 4-5 hours and would have been impossible without a good soldering station and a solder sucker.

Hope that made more sense now...  sometimes you'll hear these boards called "rawko boards" because that is an eBay seller that about the time I started seriously researching keyboards was selling these old POS boards at fire sale prices and people who liked clears were snapping them up because they were the cheapest way to get a whole mess of clear stems and also the boards themselves if you don't mind the look are NKRO over PS/2 just like the good gamer boards and also the extra keys are programmable, if you want to set them up as media keys or whatever.  I was actually using a rawko board at work for a while before I went off the deep end, I took an hour or so and made up an AutoCAD file for the labels for the relegendable keys, and knocked out a set of labels that put the AutoCAD functions on the F-key row (I used to know them by feel, but haven't done CAD work seriously in about 7 years so I'm a little rusty.)

Now that I think about it though, the other main reason that I stopped using the rawko board was the stupid ISO enter and pipe/backslash on an ostensibly "US" layout keyboard.  I forgot all about that until I looked at the picture - so my idea won't work.  All the doubleshots I have have ANSI enters, as it should be.  But what you could do, if the ISO enter doesn't bother you, is get a set of keycaps from WASD in the biggest font/highest contrast that they offer, and put that on a rawko board.
« Last Edit: Sat, 12 May 2012, 19:12:40 by N8N »
Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline N8N

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #22 on: Sat, 12 May 2012, 19:44:09 »
Here is another option for you, just find a keyboard that you like and try these...  cheaper than sourcing doubleshots and even more visible.

http://www.thekeyboardcompany.com/large-print-keyboard-stickers-35

I haven't a clue how long they last or whether they feel like arse or not to type on, but it's an idea.
Filco Majestouch-2 with Cherry Corp. doubleshot keys - Leopold Tenkeyless Tactile Force with Wyse doubleshots - Silicon Graphics 9500900 - WASD V1 - IBM Model M 52G9658 - Noppoo Choc Pro with Cherry lasered PBT keycaps - Wyse 900866-01 - Cherry G80-8200LPBUS/07 - Dell AT101W - several Cherry G81s (future doubleshot donors) (order of current preference) (dang I have too many keyboards, I really only need two)

Offline Spartan

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Inexpensive low vision mechanical board keyboards. HELP!
« Reply #23 on: Sun, 03 June 2012, 12:25:23 »
I waited and finally bought the Cooler Master Trigger with the idea that backlight will make it easier to see the letters. Nope. It doesn't. In fact, the backlight makes them blurrier.

So off I go to custom keycaps.