“Computer makers, and makers of computer upgrades, go to a lot
of trouble to produce very high quality monitors, some really nifty
trackballs (which would be even better if they’d bother to produce
Linux-specific drivers; for instance, my Kensington Expert Mouse
would be a lot cooler if its programmable buttons were programmable
under Linux), and all sorts of other wonderful stuff. But the area
that’s largely left behind is the one most in need of attention,
because it is the one thing with which we all must deal: The
keyboard.”
“And that’s a shame. Keyboards are probably replaced more
frequently than any other piece of hardware. They get full of all
kinds of crud and corruption — it takes a strong stomach,
sometimes, do disassemble and clean one of the things — and none
is really happy for long if swimming in Coca Cola or coffee. No,
those keyboard condom things aren’t the answer — they destroy the
sensation. Face it: Keyboard replacement is something that happens
and is going to happen. And face, too, the fact that the
aftermarket keyboard supply is just terrible, unless you want to go
hunting in extraobvious places. The standard replacement keyboard
at local clone shops or computer stores is so flimsy that you can
grab each end and by applying just a little torsional force reduce
it to shards of flimsy plastic usually found elsewhere only in
packaging materials. (Yes, there are now weirdly-shaped keyboards,
and “Internet” keyboards; a few years ago there was a thing that
looked like a mouse or a flight simulator throttle quadrant that
had a few buttons, the idea being that by properly chording the
buttons you could do everything you could do with a regular
keyboard. All of these are [and were] relatively expensive,
gimmicky, and in the final analysis beside the point.)”
“In the early days, keyboards were solid pieces of machinery.
The original IBM-PC keyboard was a heavy and serious thing, albeit
with just 84 keys. I have one in the other room, awaiting discovery
of a cable that will attach it to a machine that wants an AT
keyboard. You can find IBM PC-ATs all over the place, but one with
its original keyboard will bring three times the price, because
they keyboards themselves are so good that people have lovingly
maintained them and have kept them when upgrading their other
hardware. The IBM mainframe keyboards were even better — also in
the other room I have a huge and wonderful keyboard for an IBM
terminal. This thing has all kinds of special-purpose keys, each
sitting atop a switch that appears designed to survive nuclear
attack. This Mighty Wurlitzer of a keyboard, alas, has defied all
efforts to hook it up to a plain old PC.”