[Info-vax] Keyboards

[Scott Dorsey]

Dave Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>On 12/28/2018 3:49 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Dave Froble  <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>>> I've never used one of the latest (sic) USB LK keyboards.  So I'll ask,
>>> were they still as ergonomically user friendly as previous LK keyboards?
>>
>> Yes, they use proper Cherry switches and feel like real keyboards.
>
>Don't rightly know what a cherry switch is.

In the seventies, a lot of companies made mechanical switches for computer
keyboards.  IBM made the best ones, but AMP and a company called Cherry in
Japan were also very big players in the market.  As crappy dome switch 
keyboards began to take over, fewer and fewer companies stayed in that 
business.  Cherry is still there, and they are probably making the most
reliable switches although there are a couple smaller Chinese companies
doing okay ones.

>The few I clean periodically have some rubber/vynal/??? film, and 
>several layers of a mylar type of film.  Works for me.

That could describe several different crappy keyboard technologies.  The 
ones you are looking for have a PC board with switches soldered to it,
not metal domes held in place by mylar or a dimpled rubber pad with contacts
on it.

>> So spend $150 for a gamer keyboard with proper Cherry switches.  You may
>> or may not like the PC layout (although I finally got used to the control
>> key position after 25 years), but it feels like a real keyboard.
>
>I've thought about this.  Would really want to try one first.  It's not 
>all about the feel of the keys, it's also about finger reach and such.

You definitely should do this.  It's like having a real keyboard, because
it is.
--scott

-- 
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."