It’s an early birthday present — thank God for Amazon gift cards; I’m sure that my family does, when it comes to me — and supposedly said keyboard will arrive tonight. Or I suppose, this afternoon. I’m not sure how this works; but apparently Amazon thinks that it can same-day it to me for free, and I’m not going to argue with them.
Now, no tell truthful: what I really want is a steampunk mechanical keyboard. Or at least I think that I do. Buying a thirty-buck mechanical keyboard first and then trying it out seems to be the adult option, here. I’ve been trying to do more adulting, lately. It seems to be working out OK so far.
Everyone has dreams.
Enjoy!
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Don’t be surprised when it takes an hour or two to get used to keys that actually bounce back.
Last mechanical keyboard I had, the most obnoxious part was the “click” .. typing suddenly became a *lot* louder.
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Turns out, it was a “feature” on that model, and – obviously – couldn’t be disabled .. so before buying, *ask questions*.
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Mew
Guess what–blue keyswitches are the loudest (based on Cherry MX, who were the first widespread ones). Browns are like blues, but without the loud click.
Reds and blacks are built a bit differently and make less noise.
Expanding a mite…
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Blue switches are a feature. There is an audible and tactile “click” when they engage. The feedback significantly increases my typing speed. (Plus, there are some psychological effects to rhythm that cause me to spend less time staring at a blank screen.) If you didn’t mind the click of old keyboards, you shouldn’t mind this, since it’s really the same sort of switch.
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Brown switches are much quieter, but also much less popular. If that’s your thing, You can find them. The price point is generally higher, though, since it’s a specialty niche of a niche.
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Red switches are for competitive gaming. You can type with them, but it’s really not what they’re made for.
I don’t mind the tactile “click”, it’s the “enhanced” mechanical (audible) “click” that bugs me.
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I learned to type switching back and forth between an IBM Selectric (golf ball) and a cheap Taiwanese knock-off of an IBM Electric (power-assisted letter-levers) so am familiar with the mechanical “thwack” .. but I don’t particularly *like* it.
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I will look into keyboards with “red” and “brown” switches.
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Mew
“The price point is generally higher, though, since it’s a specialty niche of a niche”
What? Nonsense. There are all kinds of models–Corsair in particular–where the keyboard comes with your choice of blue, red, brown, or black keys, and they’re all the same price (barring the odd sale).
The Corsairs I looked at were running about $100. I wound up getting a Geezer for $30.
Amazon shows several options in the $50-$100 range.. I may look into one, at some point. .
I’d probably have to do some work on the home-office desk, turn the desk drawer into a keyboard tray maybe. Measuring and very careful cutting required.
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Alternately, I could buy a second flat panel monitor and turn the drawer into a “laptop dock” – fewer modifications that way, but the expense of a flat panel in addition to the keyboard.
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Mew
Buy an IBM model M. Sublime and Bulletproof. You’ll hand it down to your kids. No one needs Windows keys or “media” buttons.
If you don’t want to buy vintage, these guys make them brand new with the full set of modern keys https://www.pckeyboard.com/, but you’ll pay a premium.
Given that a vintage Model M means a PS/2 or even older connector and those are all getting a mite thin on the ground, I’d recommend giving Unicomp a look if the money’s not a problem and a Model M is what your heart desires.
And yeah, the steampunk keyboard is, as kids today say, “tight.”
One nice thing about the Cherry MX switches and clones, FWIW, is that there are aftermarket keycaps out and about. They can get really spendy really, really fast, unfortunately, but there are some sets about that are fairly affordable–in the range of $30-40 for a full keyboard’s worth of printed keys.
Printed? I scoff at your printed keys from my Das Keyboard ultimate.
It’s not at the office currently, because it’s a _bit_ loud for a cubicle farm, but when I’m in an environment where it’s ok it’s always fun for someone to walk up and try to use my keyboard…
While I could work with that, for the typing of letters and numbers and stuff, I do have to look at the function keys…
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Mew
Custom blanks can be had for $20-30.
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I used a Das Keyboard II with blank keys at work for about ten years. I touch-type Dvorak, FWIW.
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I replaced it a while back with a Pok3r with MX clears because it was getting intermittently flaky. The Pok3r still has the factory caps on it because it’s a tiny keyboard and all the F-keys, navigation keys, etc, are on a function layer I haven’t managed to memorize. (I intend to replace it with a tenkeyless or full-size board when things settle down enough to make the money worth spending.)
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I use a WASD Code with MX browns and ‘Modern Selectric’ keys at home. (I have a set of ‘Carbon’ keycaps to swap out on the next keyboard.) Anyway, I have printed keys on there because it’s where I game, and keymappings get weird when you’re on Dvorak.
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I used Model Ms at home and work for a while, but my last home machine didn’t have PS/2 ports.
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Anyway. I would generally say of this that one shouldn’t do as I have done, but YMMV. The keycap options with the Cherry MX are really among their best features. Lots of options, printed and not.