Hi Paul,
>....I'm a Mac guy, but I also use wintel boxen and nothing feels
>like a good, solid, cast-metal-frame IBM keyboard....
Actually, now you mention it, I really liked the old keyboards which Apple
shipped with the Mac Plus and earlier.
The only criticism I'd level at them would be that they don't "click" and
the key travel is a bit long. But nice nevertheless.
And one of the worst keyboards I've ever used is the standard ADB keyboard I
got with my "Classic II". "Yuck" just doesn't cover it....I can see why
people quickly switched to the extended keyboards.
>....My left hand knew what functions I needed without even
>looking....
Absolutely, I can operate the function keys on my 84 key keyboard with my
left hand without even thinking about it. With them arranged along the top I
have to make a concious decision to use the apt key, and then take my hand
off the main part of the keyboard to operate the keys....which REALLY
disturbs my rhythm when I'm using the machine.
I also dislike IBM's (and most other manufacturer's) practice of putting the
"Caps Lock" key where "Ctrl" belongs on these keyboards - personally, I can
live without "Caps Lock" at all thankyou. Not to mention their insistance on
putting "Esc" on the same row as the "F" keys, sigh, "Esc" lives next to the
"1" key or, at worst, in the top left corner of the numeric keypad.... :-(
Not that I'm fussy or anything. ;-)
> And for laptops, my vote is for ThinkPads....
I've not used very many laptop keyboards. I do like the keyboard on my
Toshiba T3100SX (for which I need a working power controller PCB) and the
one on the Tandy 1400LT I used to own was "OK".
>....The keyboard on the NEC Versa 4230 I used to used was
>probably the worst one ever made....
My vote would go for the keyboard on my Olivetti M15....foul, the only good
thing about it is that you can take it out of the main unit and position it
where/how you like.
>....Almost made typing on an Atari 400 fun....
Yes, less than a month after I got it my Atari 400 was sporting an "InHome"
replacement keyboard....and it still works fine today (despite having coffee
spilt in it some 14 years ago).
TTFN - Pete.
--
Hardware & Software Engineer. Sound Engineer.
Collector of Arcade Machines, Games Consoles & Obsolete Computers (esp DEC)
peter.pachla_at_wintermute.org.uk | www.wintermute.org.uk
--
Received on Tue Feb 22 2000 - 10:55:05 GMT