I have been rummaging through the geekhack posts for quite a while, and finally decided today to make an account.
Being interested in keyboards first began in my video gaming days, but back in 03' there were few actual good keyboards known being made, and I typically stuck with the cheap microsoft membrane keyboards. I ran my equipment hard, typically rendering these keyboards into mush, and destroying cables on mice, producing massive short connections. It is not to say that the microsoft keyboards were bad, I just typically mashed keys, as I frantically wrote messages to team members in counterstrike.
It was not until around 07' when I actually began to really research anything about keyboards. During that time, I had my mind set on the Razer Tarantula keyboard, boasting highly tactile keys, and 10 programmable macro's. I bought the keyboard for around $110 after tax, and most of my fellow friends thought I was falling into pure insanity. Needless to say, coming from cheap Microsoft keyboards, the Razer keyboard was by far superior, but after a few years of use, I knew it was rendering its self into a pile of mush just as the Microsoft ones did.
Nowdays, keyboards have become a very valuable tool for me in the past few years, as I now currently make my living through programming. I have always been a fan of highly tactile keyboards, but I had no clue that the Cherry MX series switches even existed until gaming keyboards began to be made with them. I knew about mechanical switches from the old DOS keyboards, and have always been a fan of them (although, never got my hands on one), but I never knew exactly how good the MX Blue switches were until I found a showcase keyboard of the Razer Black Widow.
Why I am here:
Last year, after my Tarantula keyboard began to give up the ghost as it began to mis-register keystrokes, my boss actually gave me an old Gateway AnyKey Keyboard with programmable keys. Granted, this is not a mechanical keyboard (*drools at the thought of owning a mechanical*), the key feel is far superior to any other membrane keyboard I have ever felt. I immediately programmed it's programmable keys to operate vim commands: :q, :q!, :w, :wq... etc, and it worked beautifully with NO DRIVERS! Even better, it came with an old DIN connectior, so I could continue to use it on my DOS machine.
Sadly, a week ago, the keyboard became quite dirty, so I disassembled the whole thing, cleaned every part by hand... but when it was reassembled... multiple keys no longer registered... *ultimate sad face.*
So, here I am on geekhack, back on my razer tarantula (cleaned it also, works better, still mushy keys), but now I am armed with some ideas! I plan on doing more research digging through for information, as I wish to design and build a completely custom keyboard.
Maybe use the logic board from the AnyKey? 10 Programmable keys, yet also 10-keyless with MX-Blue switches?
If I follow through with my ambitions, I may start a build thread here... only time will tell, as long as I do not get distracted, or become poor *laughs silently.*
