My girlfriend just arrived. I haven't seen her for few months (a few thousand miles will do that). I showed her the travelling board I had told her about. Her first thoughts "It seems flimsy", "Where are the [legends]?", and "I thought you said these were $300 or something." Then she typed on it for a bit:
Hello this keyboard feels`like typing felt. I am not a fan. Sorry eh. What is the advantage. Spaace bar feels weird.ASDFASDFASDFasdfasdf
You can tell she has been living in Canadia for a while, eh? I'll pick this up a bit later.
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I too am curious about the poor letter registration. To attempt to rule out issues with conflicting hardware or programs running in the background, I am going to do a small test eliminating the possible sources of errors one by one:
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To address the issue I was having with the skipped letters, I'm going to write something reallyfree flowing without usgn the backspace. This means tha you will see all offff badddd armmer and the issues I have been experiencing. I'll admit that I have a hard time NOT using the backspace ile I am typing this. It seems so natural to want to fix my errors. Already you can see evidence of the ekys bing pressed too long and sombeing missed like the e and space between some and beignin the last sentenc.e There we go again. I can't type without errorpopping up to talk about the errors. I also notehat I do double spaces betweeen sentence beginning and end, and thosen't ablways send correctlyeither stupiddddd spaces. And why do some letersdrag on like that? This is not my usual error set orrr uantity, and it is driving me crazy. Now I am going to try to eliminate issue to find the ssoure of the problem.
I have just unpluggemy other keyboard. Previously I had been typing wt boarth keyboards plugged in, but one set to the side. It was possse that the other keybrd was causing this one to skip, but that doesn't seem to be hcase. I still have errors
NOw I plugged the HHKB into a different socket on the computer. This one seems to be going ok so far. I had a hardtime doing it though, the darn USB kept not fitting, despite dturning it over repeatedly. DOesn't it seem like USB plug are devices that exist in more than 3 space? They are like hypercubes. Te errors are still present, and I'm dropping keys occasionally. I'm going to move on to the next step.
I've justshut down google chrome. This stage o the process of elimination I am going to try shutting dow n programs that run in tbcakroungd which might becausing the stuttering. This one seems to not have worked.
Steam is next. Now I won't know which Of my intrnet friends are plaing games without me. Oh how sad. I din't like them anyway. Yep. 'm still getting the drp[ped cracters . I must admit, some of thiese typos are mine and mine aolone. But I can feel qwhen the typing stutters. It seems to lag. Since I am typing in a fvery freeform way, everytimer the text lags behind the words s I say them to myself in my head, it jars me to attntion.
Next up: Foobar2000. This is really a top notc player. I can't stand using itunes, and winamp just han't progressed beyond that rivalry with realplayer years. Yep. Still dropping letters.
It seems I Have stopped everything that isn a system program. I would like to note that I am running Windows 7 on a higher end gaming cpu / mid tier gaming cpu. Don get me wrong, I love this box,but the graphics cards are just crossfired mid tier cards, not Titans. What am I, made of money? I'm typing this out ni NOTEPAD before copyupasting it to geekhack. I have no spellcheck or grammar check running. I am trying to do this on tlightest weight text editor possible for my system.
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I'm going to hand this off to the girlfriend to type on for a bit.
Hello keyboarders. I am testing out the ol' fancy keyboard. It is not as felt-like to my mind today but I am still not a fan. I like a crisper click. My main issue here is that I cannot get used to where delete/backspace is, but I am not having the same BlueNalgene problems with repeating keypresses. I also do not understand why the spacebar is on upside down. It hits my thumb. I think it might get annoying after a hile. I am leving in typos that are not just due to my typing fast, and as you can see there are somewhat fewer. Even then I am so used to using bakspace if somethingesn't quite register so it is really hard for me to tell. I am going to switch to Blue's Cherry Clear for acontrol moment. SCIENCE.
On the cherry:
Okay, let's do this. I wonder how many typos I make on a keyboard that has a feel that I prefer. I haven't tried to type without backspace in YEARS. There was some program I used as a kid to learn typing. Typing Tutor, maybe? It had games to speed up your typing and now I type fast enough that occasionally there are complaints for me to SLOW DOWN if I am trying to chat via text. So far no skipped letters on the Cherry as I run along. But I didn't get into the skipped letters until another half a paragraph on the HHKB so let's keep going here and maybe I will speed up. La la la what do I type about. Blue's cat is watching me. MRAO. The spacebar on this typical format feels much better to me. It is really weird how much of this is muscle memory, as it were. My new Alps keyboard has layers to get to the up/down/side arrows, which I use a ton, and sometimes when I go back to a regular keyboard I get confused now. Still no mushing together of letters on the Cherry. Maybe this has somewhat to do with typing style, although there's really no reason why Blue and I would have similar typing styles I think (and I think similar words per minute). Okay, switching back to see what happens.
Back to the topre: I do not like the plasticky sound as I set this keyboard back down. It is just not my thing. I get really disoriented by the delete/backspace location for my own typos, but my rate of skipped or doubled keypresses seems to be much less than foBlue. Though I just sed to ... oh, there it happened. I am laely not sure what's up withat. I am missing r, spaces, and then t and h. Weird. So I would get prty frustrated if I had to use this keyboard on the regular. Back to my nice clicky little traveling thinkpad keyboard. Blue girlfriend out.
Thanks to the girl for her kind input. Also, she might lend some support to my claims that I'm not crazy. The skipping seems to happen for her too, although not as often. Based on her description, she may not be bottoming out like I do until later. According to her, she tends to make stronger keystrokes (bottoming out) after she gets into the zone. Watching her type on her laptop confirms this suspicion.
I am inclined to believe what keshley stated:
If people are trying to type on a HHKB without bottoming out, I wonder if its the same principle as boxing? With cherry, you can type without bottoming out without fatiguing your fingers, but the resistance on a Topre board is completely different.
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Now that I have had some time with the board, my opinions are mostly the same. I think the thing is cute, and it has a place. I feel like these switches are rather inferior to some of the options out there. The physical sensation has not grown on me. The tactile response is muddled at best, and the click sound (are these silent or regular?) is not pronounced. The biggest issue I have with this board is the odd response of the switches to my typing. I am making an effort here to type with very gentle touches, and the incorrect responses I was experiencing earlier is much less pronounced. I would even guess that it has disappeared completely. Maybe I'm too hard on these switches. My fingers are ripped full of muscle, and they can't help but beat up switches like they had my lunch money. My WPM are noticeably lower typing this way though. Typing with these gentle strokes is like trying to swim without using your legs. All of my power is gone, and I can't build up any momentum.
There isn't any other way to look at it, I just don't like this board. Others will, and more power to them. But me? I'll keep clicking away with my old tactile switches.
