G81 is actually good!

[czarek]

Hi guys, I recently found out that G81's good side. I'm setting up a small machine shop with CNC mills and lathes and I decided to use G81 keyboards on computers that control those machines. Yesterday I was working with hard materials (steel and aluminium), drilling, cutting and putting parts together. You know while doing it hands are getting used to high resistances. After that I sit down to a G81 to manually control the milling machine and... oh man it feels so good. Bottoms out with almost no effort and it actually feels great. Bottoming out MY switch is not as harsh as on MX Black due to super high resistance close to bottom, and you don't really have to bottom out to actuate the key, while typing it's actually hard to bottom out MY switch and you mostly stop when the hard part kicks in (when you finish pressing the spring and it starts to compress the leaf).
I think this was the purpose for the G81 design. To be cheaper (so it can be replaced easier when damaged) G80 with more resistance so it could be used in workshops like mine.

[Masterchief79]

We have these in my university as regular keyboards and they aren't too bad. But I (and a lot of other people) will most probably still prefer G80's, Model M's etc (and thanks to eBay there's not even a huge price difference when you know where to look)

[davkol]

They feel ridiculously gritty/mushy to me. I have to try some lube.

Their almost exponential action is very nice to avoid bottoming out, obviously.

[eth0s]

Well, tbh, if you strike the MY switch directly downward, they're not bad to type on.  The problem however comes with the modifier keys, which can feel awful when not struck straight down.  But again, when struck straight down, the MY switches are not really that bad.  In fact there have been many others who liked the MY switches.  And of course you discovered the real reason they were invented:  they are cheaper to replace than MX switches.  So continue to enjoy your G81!

[czarek]

Well, tbh, if you strike the MY switch directly downward, they're not bad to type on.  The problem however comes with the modifier keys, which can feel awful when not struck straight down.  But again, when struck straight down, the MY switches are not really that bad.  In fact there have been many others who liked the MY switches.  And of course you discovered the real reason they were invented:  they are cheaper to replace than MX switches.  So continue to enjoy your G81!

Don't get me wrong - I don't prefer them for anything but workshop. At home I'm using BS and Topre. In the office Cherry G80 (with MX Blues), which I don't like as much as I don't like my office.

[Peter]

Vintage plate-mounted black MY's are very good for heavy-handed typists
and also feel a lot smoother than the new (horrible) MY's ..

[Edel]

To me they feel like **** tbh... they are mushy, they are heavy, they feel cheap!
Usually I salvage keycaps from them and the rest is going straight in the trash.

[eth0s]

To me they feel like **** tbh... they are mushy, they are heavy, they feel cheap!
Usually I salvage keycaps from them and the rest is going straight in the trash.

Well, somebody on this forum who is much smarter than me coined the phrase "typing on wet newspaper" to describe the Cherry MY switches.  And yes, vintage G81 boards serve only as a source of keycaps for most of us.  And 1800 bodies too.  People convert them to MX keyboards, I guess.  It seems like too much work, for too little benefit to me though.  But a G80-1800 keyboard does look pretty sweet, even an ersatz one.