Detailed guide to mechanical keyboards (switch types, hysteresis graphs, etc) | Hacker News Reader

Detailed guide to mechanical keyboards (switch types, hysteresis graphs, etc)

overclock.net

56 pointsrw17 comments

Don't skimp on your peripherals!

I see many fellow programmers buy and use the cheapest peripherals they find, and it bothers me. They are tools of our trade, and we will spend thousands of hours glued to our peripherals.

Getting a decent keyboard/mouse/headphones/monitor will make life a little more pleasant for a very small upfront investment.

I know a lot of people like this. I am a major keyboard geek; I started with a Model M, and moved to a HHKB professional. Then I bought a Realforce (same keyswitches as the HHKB, but different weighting depending on the strength of the finger that presses the key. great design.)

I showed my coworkers these, and they agreed that the keyboards were significantly nicer than any they had used. And at around $250 for either, they were pricey, but that could be gotten over.

The end result was that one coworker bought a Cherry Brown-based keyboard that was $120 cheaper. "I don't really like it very much. It's not as good as yours." Well, yeah. Another coworker decided, "I am definitely going to get a HHKB", and ended up with a $30 Sun type-7. Acceptable layout, $1 keyboard level "keyswitches". "I don't like it very much." Well, yeah, it's a $1 keyboard that you paid $30 for.

Topre keyboards cost $250 because they are worth $250. When you make that in a few hours of typing on one, it's silly to try and save a few bucks. My only regret is that I can't get the Realforce keys in a HHKB form factor :)

I also wish that people would learn where the keys are without looking, and how to press them with the correct finger. I did that, and it has improved my comfort greatly. (Actually, it made my left pinky hurt, since it is responsible for a metric fuckton of keys. Hence the Realforce.)

Sadly, the best keyboards ever made by mankind were the MIT AI Lab (about the same as the Stanford AI Lab) keyboards, custom manufactured by the now-defunct Microswitch corporation. The second-generation versions (LLL and Sun/Symbolics keyboards) were not up to snuff, but were still pretty spectacular.

It's hard to describe the feel of the original AI Lab (Tom Knight) keyboards--even though they had a fairly long throw, the action was so smooth and natural as to defy imagination.

I even bought into a custom run of the LLL keyboards (second or third generation), at $600 each, and jerry-rigged a little home-made 68K processor board to translate the up/down signals into standard ASCII serial keycodes using a UART.

Oh well...

Hmm... I just ordered a Happy Hacking Lite 2 keyboard, which uses a membrane switch. The HH Professional uses a mechanical switch, but the ~$250 price scared me away. I also looked at the Das Keyboard and the Unicomp Customizer, which are both mechanical.

Has anyone used both versions of the Happy Hacking keyboard? Is there really a huge difference in the feel of the membrane version and the mechanical version?

I switched from a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard to a relatively basic Mechanical Keyboard with Blue Cherry keycaps. My typing experience has never been better, and I really recommend investing in a good mechanical keyboard for everyone.

If you're in India and need a good keyboard - I recommend the TVS Gold, an unlikely name which actually is somewhat comparable to a Das Keyboard.

I live in India and am a proud owner of a TVS Gold.

I got it for the equivalent of around $30 USD.

A mechanical switch keyboard is completely worth it, if you're like me, and want to feel pampered when typing. It also boosted my untrained typist- WPM by 10 instantly. Its that smooth.

I believe it uses 'Cherry Blue' switches, and the key surfaces have an concave curve that invites your fingers to caress them. For hacker folk, stuck using membranes for whatever reason: you don't know what you are missing; Seriously.

Get a good mechanical keyboard today! Don't pinch pennies and stress your bread-and-butter body-parts. Lots of folk smuggle these back to the States. Ask your mates with family in India to help you out.

Some TVS Gold Pr0n: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7268&do=co... (warning: around 2MB of image content)

+1 for a very detailed summary of various mechanical switches and boards. A pity they glossed over the Alps switches, but few people know anything about them in detail. You owe it to yourself to get a good keyboard! Not all mechanical switches are noisy, so it's possible to use one without annoying your cube mates.

Does anyone know of a natural mechanical keyboard, something similar to the MS Natural 4000 perhaps? I have and like the 4000, but nothing replaces the mechanical "bounciness," if I may invent a word.

I use the Kinesis Advantage: http://jseliger.com/2009/07/20/kinesis-advantage/ , which is probably as close as you're going to get to what you're looking for. The keys are Cherry Browns, per the picture in my review.

A friend of mine struck gold and found a pile of Model M's in hard rubbish. Its pretty easy to tell who now has them when using skype/vent/etc.

Personally, I use an ultra flat logitech illuminated keyboard, mostly for the shape and feel and not the illuminated keys which is a bit redundant unless one is hunting and pecking. Really don't like the way the wrist has to arch up for the more conventional keyboards, and i'd rather not have a wrist rest when I can just have a keyboard with a similar profile to my desk.

If you really want to obsess about this stuff, this is a good forum: http://geekhack.org/

I have a collection of Model Ms and I love them. However, as my main home and work computers are Macs, and the Ms are missing one of the control keys, I'm out of luck.

I have a das keyboard at work, which is pretty good, but not as nice as the M. I always thought that it had the same mechanism as the M but this article says not.

Time to try a Unicomp.

I'm out of luck.

I remapped the Keys:

  Caps lock -> Control
  Control   -> Option
  Alt       -> Command

I remap CapsLock -> Option and have gotten in the habit of doing that for all of my non-Model-M keyboards as well.

What's the easiest way to remap keys on a Mac, if I'm using Synergy to send the key events from my Linux/Windows PC?

Sorry to respond to myself, but I thought of an analogy:

Model M = crunchy like cheerios das = crunchy like rice krispies

If you get the Unicomp, make sure you get the Mac keys with it, as described here: http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-custom... .

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