PS: If you really want them, you can get Unicomp boards built on the original IBM tooling for about $80.
[1] Yes, I have a couple Model M's around, including a 1991 'vintage' IBM with a PS/2 connector that doesn't play nice with modern motherboards - they don't generally supply enough milliamps).
[2] I don't much care for Cherry switches either.
They're just expensive. The Realforce 104 goes for ~$250, which is about what I paid for mine 3-4 years ago.
Or...to put it another way... I think $2.5 per switch is a perfectly reasonable price for an industrial-grade component that is rated at 50 million cycles of durability.
An IBM keyboard is not meant for a typist that keeps their palms resting on desk while slumping in their chair. It’s meant for you to sit up straight and hover your palms over the keyboard.
If you type like that then it seems effortless and the keys feel light and you’ll never have any wrist issues. Reaching the numpad area is also easy because your hand is already in the air. A proper typing technique is like jiu jitsu—it leverages the weight of your entire hand and arm to assist with the key presses. Your hand is loose and mobile, so nerve compression is less likely. On a chicklet keyboard your fingers are mobile but the palms are “glued” in place. This encourages lots of “flexing” the fingers to reach farther placed keys, instead of just moving your entire hand in the “hover” typist approach. My guess is this creates ideal conditions for nerve compression.
The pain is good thing because it lets you know you’re doing something wrong. Using keyboard with low actuation force is just masking the problem. If you do something wrong with less force you will not feel any pain immediately. Same thing as people using shitload of fluffy pillows instead of fixing their sleeping posture. If you sleep on floor it might be uncomfortable at first but it also forces you into better posture, instead of making it bearable to hold a wrong one.
>A proper typing technique is like jiu jitsu—it leverages the weight of your entire hand and arm to assist with the key presses.
Given the relatively high typing frequency a decent typist reaches and the fact that you generally start typing the next key before you're done with the current one I can't really see how that would work. My palms are mostly static while I type, just hovering gently above the keyboard. They do translate a bit on the horizontal plane but I definitely don't really lower them to drive the key down. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but if you reach a somewhat decent typing speed of a few hundred keys per seconds that makes for a pretty spastic vibration with your whole hand.
Also I think it's a bit condescending to assume that every people who ends up with RSI or similar problems were "doing something wrong".
When your palms or elbows are resting all those movements are limited and your hands quickly tense up.
Here’s an explanation of the RSI issue and flat palms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pryYfH9j5o however their fix is not great and it’s not a sustainable position
EDIT: Here’s a quick sketch: http://svgur.com/s/7e6 The fingers are below the palms not at the same level, but this is only natural if your back is straight. Arm should bend at close to 90°
EDIT2: Or look at this piano posture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqmH-o1cX0 especially at 6:06 mark.
Or see this piano posture video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InqmH-o1cX0
Around 6:03–6:06 you can see the type of finger flexing chiclet keyboards and wrist pads encourage.
I don't know if this has something to do with my good fortune (so far!) of no keyboard-related RSI issues, but I was trained as a classical piano player from a very young age. It could be the posture lessons I learned - sometimes at the wrong end of a wooden ruler! - back then have transferred across to my money-making keyboard skills.
Having no win/meta keys on the IBM keyboard actually led me to try different devices but IBM felt better than all those things so I kept coming back and dealing without the keys. I was very happy with the IBM keyboard for a very long time.
Before I found the POS discard Cherrys, I think I had only heavily used the Cherry MX on a Wyse terminal, but I wasn't really thinking about it at the time. The G80-8200 with clears were a great find with only noticeable wear on the num-pad enter key. The keyboard itself stores the setup and handles all the extra keys, not software on the host, so that's especially great for me as I have some macros to control the kvm switch.
There are a lot of keyboards that some people really like but I think are terrible and preferred the IBM over them. Sun type 4, type 5; DEC LK201, LK401; Keytronic come to mind.
If anyone thinks I exaggerate: https://youtu.be/4_qA5OZFJ1I?t=80
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/265/329/e83...
That said, proper posture also relaxes your body and an upward head tilt (make sure your monitor is at an eye level) makes breathing easier, even further adding to that[1][2]. Also prevents back pain issues later in life (I hope!).
Don’t treat it as gospel but it’s a good starting place:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/12/business/soothing-back-pa...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gokhale_Method
[1] Seriously try tilting your head toward the ceiling right now and take a breath. Then do the same looking at the ground. Now consider you keep one of those postures for many daylight hours every day. It has to have a profound impact on your QoL, there’s no way around it.
[2] Also used in First Aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_tilt/Chin_lift
For me, for one, I got cats, I don't wanna trip over them. Especially not with my kid. I tend to bump my feet a lot on my kid's toys and other stuff or objects lying on the ground (even permanently or slightly moved). And I need to be careful when I walk downstairs because I am clumsy. I hate, absolutely hate, stepping into dog shit when I'm out and about. If I'd step on a slug, that'd be disgusting but dog shit is a whole different level. And its rampant here. Finally, many 'normal' people use smartphones whilst on the move (I personally generally don't). That being said, I do try to look straight, I try to look people in the eye, but that's secondary to the above examples. Which are IMO related to survival and conveniency.
As for your linked Wikipedia article, quoting from it:
"However, one of the main assumptions of the Gokhale Method, that people in less industrialized societies have less back pain,[4] is incorrect: mainstream science states back pain occurs to a similar extent in all cultures.[20][21] As of June 2015, the Gokhale method had not yet been scientifically studied."
Furthermore I encourage the reader to read up on the Feldenkrais method. This Wikipedia entry shows how controversial it is (Gokhale method seems to be based on that).
Gokhale’s techniques deal purely with posture and are immensely useful just to avoid or reduce any back pain. It’s just a way to sit or sleep while keeping straight upright posture effortlessly for long periods of time.
I can probably explain the sitting techniques to someone in about 15 minutes and ignore the other 80% of the book and still improve their life in a significant way. I recommend the book because it has decent pictures and shows historical examples of proper posture. Everything she shows looks like a natural position for a human to be in, very much unlike whatever’s going on in that picture.
Anyway like I said it’s more about where YOU are consciously. Are you in your head thinking or are you in the moment just walking and looking at the world around you. The posture etc. follows that, you don’t have to actively think about it. That’s why the meme in question selects it as a signal for confidence.
Furthermore, you have peripheral vision and your brain constantly inspects and maps your surroundings. It will not let you trip over things if you just look ahead.
EDIT:
Also I don’t know what the Wikipedia editors are smoking. The references for that “incorrect” statement are a complete joke. Gokhale actually provides ample evidence for this assertion in the book if you want to check it yourself.
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Feldenkr...
As for looking down, I found that looking at people feet makes it easier to navigate a crowd, that's the opposite it open areas.
I don’t see a lot of exceptions to this rule. Generally, I can judge someone’s state of mind by their posture and body language. The notion that body and mind are not very much connected actually seems more controversial to me if anything. Indeed, in evolutionary time scale, speech has not been the primary mode of communication for very long.
> As for looking down, I found that looking at people feet makes it easier to navigate a crowd, that's the opposite it open areas.
I find it if I look people in the eye I don’t actually have to “navigate” anything.
Although it's not empirical, I think there's a pretty big consensus that not having to bottom out on the keystroke is a pretty big benefit in terms of comfort.
I have a feeling the issue here is not the keyboard...
I'm not a younger demographic, and I was getting pain in my finger joints while typing. Switching to a mech fixed that.
It sounds like you're forced to work with some annoying people, but that doesn't make the market "commodity." That's just objectively wrong. Tell those people to get the quieter keys. Don't let them tell you it isn't possible. It is.