The Greatest Keyboard of All Time Reborn (2018) [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
If you want to buy one of the originals, https://clickykeyboards.com has them.
Also, the Model F (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_F_keyboard) is considered by many as being superior to the Model M. IBM made far fewer Model Fs compared to the Ms, so if you find one of these in the wild, it'll be really expensive. https://www.modelfkeyboards.com is trying to re-create the original Model F.
Model F was a very interesting keyboard. I was rather fond of the 24 function keys on mine. And I now regret not having taken mine with me when I moved out at age 18.
What Unicomp makes today is a mid-90s version of the model M. It's not the best ever made, but it's still pretty good. However, there are other keyboards around that are also pretty good.
I still have a few model m's, but I got tired of not having a "windows" key, so I gave it a shot and can't recommend them.
Or get a used Model M at a flea market, on eBay, or the like. They are relatively indestructible, and generally still work fine 30+ years after production.
> if you find [a Model F] in the wild, it'll be really expensive
This is a recenct phenomenon. The price e.g. on eBay has gone way up in the past 10 years. You used to be able to buy them for quite cheap. It’s absurd that people will spend >$100 for an XT keyboard with its overlong spacebar, terrible layout, and obsolete communications protocol.
There were hundreds of thousands if not millions of Model F keyboards produced (both XT and AT varieties). The keyboard being recreated in https://www.modelfkeyboards.com is something different: a very obscure banking keyboard, cf. http://kishy.ca/?p=648
I can second that. I have the pleasure of having my grandfather's Model M ('87) and I use it nearly every day. I had to clean it extensively when I first got it, since both grandparents smoked in their house. Cleaned up nicely, good as new. To think, grandma wanted to throw it out!
I've flown with it several times... Gotten a few smiles from older TSA agents. Haven't mailed it, but its gone both under the seat and in checked baggage and survives each time. (It fits snugly in my messenger bag).
I use it a lot more than my laptop's keyboard and I've had to replace the laptop's up arrow a couple of times...
Oh, and it works wonders with my father's text editor too (vi, though I prefer vim).
Yikes. Thanks for that little kick in the pants :)
Over 800 dishwasher cycles later and the keyboard still functions as if it were brand-new. All I need to do is replace the PS/2 cord which has worn out at the strain relief.
My method for cleaning my Omnikey was to fill the kitchen sink with water and clean it like one cleans a dish. After a quick towel-dry, I'd toss it in the oven for 12-or-so hours at the lowest temperature (I think about 150-200 degrees American). I did this at least 10 times during the decade and a half that I used this board (and it was sold in perfect, working condition).
I'm sure I did some damage, somewhere. There's got to be parts in that keyboard that corrode, but it always came out "like new". I haven't owned a keyboard like it since and I expect the one I use day-to-day wouldn't survive a strong gust of wind. I'm not completely, nuts, though. The first time I performed this all-day, insane, cleaning routine was after I had lost all hope of resurrecting my keyboard due to an unfortunate encounter with a full glass of Mountain Dew.
At no point did I ever consider putting it in the dish washer. That would have saved me hours!
And about a decade ago I had a crab dinner served at a friend's house. The guy knew how to cook -- easily the best crab legs I've had (helped by the fact that he knew where to get good product). After we finished the meal, he explained that he cooked them in the dishwasher. I think part of me was grossed out, but it lasted only a few seconds ... they were extraordinary.
[0] I am, but I probably shouldn't be.
When I worked for a CS department long ago, I took all the Sun Type 4 keyboards home in batches of 6 to run through my dishwasher.
I would never do it to a board unless I was really sure it was completely unpowered when disconnected, and waited days for it to dry.
There are lots of other caveats depending on the exact keyboard and exact dishwasher model.
Probably good for cooking crab legs, but would likely warp the plastic on a typical keyboard.
(Liquid does not permanently kill the membrane, it's just that liquid gets stuck between the two membranes and can't get out. You can disassemble everything, dry it, and get it working again. Probably. I haven't tried it.)
I have spilled on my Topre keyboards before and there is no fix but to take everything apart and dry the individual pieces. The keyboards are quite well made so can take many cycles of this careful cleaning. To me, that's the best you can hope for; water is not good for keyboards. Though you can probably use Hall effect keyboards under water, if the driving electronics are conformally coated.
The capacitive keyboard was the Model F. Instead of the plastic barrel frame, it uses separate plastic barrels held between two metal sheets, and the little conductive plastic flippers trigger capacitive pads on a PCB. https://deskthority.net/wiki/IBM_Model_F
There are pictures of the insides of a Model F XT keyboard here, http://vintagecomputer.ca/ibm-pc-model-f-keyboard-type-1-vs-...
Here are pictures of someone modding a 122-key Model F https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11102
Go ahead and take a Model M apart. I guarantee you’ll find a membrane sheet.
Considered picking one up when I got into mechanical keyboards last year, but I went with a WASD with Cherry MX ‘Clear’ switches. Really happy with it!
The keys are black from my fingers and some of the letters are partially worn off.
The model M is the best keyboard that I have ever used.
If you want to restore the keys -- and to be clear, I can't honestly recommend this approach -- but I used to bathe my Northgate Omnikey and clean it with dish soap, followed by a trip to the oven on the equivalent of a "keep warm" setting for a half-day. I was surprised that a lot of the discoloration on the keys wasn't the usual plastic oxidation but was from the oil and grime on my fingertips. It always came out shining and like-new -- partly because whatever they did to print the letters on the keys was very resistant to being worn off. I did it about once every 2 years during the decade and a half that I owned it and it was sold at an estate sale in perfect working condition 15 years after that.
At least one person mentioned using a dishwasher. I've never tried it, and would never do that to a modern keyboard, but I'd imagine the effects would be similar with a whole lot less effort.
https://github.com/zevv/bucklespring
"This project emulates the sound of my old faithful IBM Model-M space saver bucklespring keyboard while typing on my notebook, mainly for the purpose of annoying the hell out of my coworkers."
Enjoy!
Does anyone make a heavy mechanical keyboard with F-Keys on the left any longer? It is a whole lot easier to land on the right F-key without looking down when they're vertical on the left (just like it's easier to hit all the numbers accurately on a number-pad vs. the top row). Being able to one-hand CTRL/ALT+F-keys accurately, without looking, is somewhere between difficult and impossible on modern keyboard designs.
The keyboard I grew up on, the Northgate Omnikey, was heavy, had left-oriented F-Keys, and included replacement key caps for CTRL, ALT and CAPS LOCK (along with a tool to remove the keys!) so that you could put CTRL where CAPS LOCK typically is and ALT where CTRL typically is. It also had corresponding DIP switches that controlled whether the keyboard sent CTRL or CAPS LOCK from that position, so no monkeying around with driver software or OS configuration to make your keyboard behave the way that the key caps indicated.
Are any of you using a board like this which is either USB or PS/2 and has been manufactured in the last 5 years (or is still produced, new, today)?
It will be gloriously clickity clackety.
I've used it for a while but then decided to put it away.
Two big problems:
1. The trackpoint moves the cursor to the left just right, but it hits a key when moving to the right. Basically it's super fast to move in one direction and super-slow in the opposite. It got me crazy.
2. The keys are immensely loud. Duh. I was expecting loud keys, but I didn't expect that much loud. I am not kidding here: i decided to finally put away the keyboard when, while typing on an afternoon, I hit the Enter key a bit harder than usual and somehow I got pain in my right ear. I am not sure if this was due to some vibration traveling back through my right arm or just from noise, but man that did not feel good at all.
Oh... did I mention that thing is FUING MASSIVE? It's HEAVY. HEAVY AS FK.
One of the Model-M disadvantages (that also affects a lot of mechanical keyboards, but no one seems to care, apparenly) is that the key plane is raised from where your palm usually rests, and the angle the key forms is not negligible. One could probably get some kind of wrist strain by using it all the day everyday.
And don't even get me started on the mess I had to do to have it shipped to europe...
I have settled on an IBM SK-8845 keyboard at work and a ThinkPad USB (x220-style) keyboard at home. They're both quieter, the trackpoint works a lot better (the sk-8845 even has the touchpad), they're flatter and they both have a very comfortable palmrest.
In the end, I don't completely regret buying the endura pro but I wouldn't buy it again.
https://kono.store/products/input-club-symbolic-keyboard
For those too lazy to click, it's a project to resurrect the Space Cadet Keyboard. It's still in the planning stages.
It is great because the trackpad is in the center of the keyboard, which means you don't have to stretch your arm to use the mouse.
The keys feel nice and it is ergonomic. Sadly they stopped making these long ago. Nothing like it is available in the market today.
Today my is keyboard is a Filco Majestouch 2 Tenkeyless (Japanese). I also have the Flico "Genuine Wood" wrist rest. I ordered replacement keycaps to match MacOS vs the default Windows keys (any replaced the Caplocks with Ctrl, the way God intended it!). I have one on the desk at home and work. The feeling is not quite as good as the Model M but it works well. Switches are Cherry Brown (45g). The Model M is 70g IIRC.
If you are looking for a keyboard, Filco is worth trying. If you live in Japan any of the big tech shops (Bic, etc) will have a ton on display with different switches you can try out.
When I worked at IBM way back when, keyboards were a "green tagged" part vs. a "red tagged part". Green = order as many as you want with no accounting/reason for doing so. Red parts had to be accounted for (the $$$ stuff).
I am using a low-profile mechanical keyboard (Havit KB390L) and it's the only mechanical keyboard that is usable for me.
However, it's likely my next keyboard will be scissor switch again. I will probably go for Logitech MX Keys, seems to be the best option for premium scissor switch keyboards.
Right now, I type quickly on the keyboard, and any time I need to use the pointer all that’s required is a slight rotation of my right hand. Compare that to all the mechanical keyboard folks in my office, who also type quickly, but every cursor interaction is a movement of their entire arm. I don’t understand how they’re okay with that.
Anyone know of a nice low profile mechanical with a built in trackpad?
Looks like a good TRS-80 Model 100 replacement for writers. Although perhaps a bit too anachronistic as you can apparently only backspace!
If you work in an environment where loud keys are acceptable, you should try the Kailh/Novelkeys "thick clicks": https://novelkeys.xyz/products/novelkeys-x-kailh-box-thick-c... The sound and tactility on these switches is incredible.
I think a lot of people that are interested in mechanical keyboards think the only options available are Cherry Browns, Cherry Blues, Topre, and buckling springs... but the reality is that that is the tip of the iceberg. The new designs in the Cherry form factor are much better than anything Cherry makes or has ever made; so if you've tried those and didn't like them (I found them distractingly scratchy and not very tactile; apparently a common complaint), there are a lot of other options before you have to go to a finger-killing model M.
I currently use an Ergodox EZ with Thick Clicks (Jade on the pinky keys, Navy on everything else) and love it. It is the most tactile keyboard I have ever used, and the sound is amazing. I also have an Ergodox EZ with Healios (silent linear) switches and love those too. They are the smoothest and quietest switches I have ever touched; it is almost distracting how smooth and silent they are.
Anyway, there is a lot of good stuff out there and a lot of keyboards support swapping switches without soldering now, so you can try them all. I think most people will like a non-model-M board, simply because we can do so much better now. If you've ever used Cherry switches and said "this is terrible" and though that a model M was your only option for tactility; that's just not the case anymore. There are hundreds of switches between Cherry Brown and buckling spring now; one of them is likely to be "your thing".
Some switches I've used recently:
- Hako True - these were designed to feel like Topre switches, but they don't feel like Topre switches. They feel linear and get very heavy before activation, so they don't feel good to type on to me. It just feels like compressing a spring and maybe your key will be typed if you're lucky.
- Novelkeys Box Royal - these are very tactile, but you can very strongly feel the activation point and they feel like they want to get stuck there on the way up. I used these as pinky keys for about a year and they just got scratchier and scratchier until I felt the need to replace them. (Lube is probably the correct fix, but I am too lazy to lube keyswitches.) They are quite tactile, though. Interesting design, worth a try.
- Hako Royal Clear - these are heavier Box Royals, I think, and I used them for about a year as the non-pinky keys on the board with Box Royals. Pretty tactile, but you can definitely feel some clickiness at the activation point on the way up. They are not particularly quiet, but are a good switch to try out.
- Novelkeys Thick Clicks - very very very tactile, maybe the most tactile switch I've ever used. Super loud. The Jades really do require you to remove all force from the key to come back up; I notice this but it doesn't bother me in any way. My favorite switch family by far, if you can live with the noise. It's not "oh I can hear someone typing", it's "there is an earthquake nearby we're all going to die" loud. Similar to buckling springs, but not as heavy. Still on the heavy side, though, so if you like really light switches, they are not for you. (If you like light switches, I think you are basically dead with respect to tactile or clickiness, though; the tactile bump is always going to be heavy.)
- Healios - smoothest mechanism ever. Touching them makes you think they are exuding quality. Silent on bottom-out and upstroke. Nobody will know you're using a mechanical keyboard. They are perfect for gaming, and pretty good for typing. (I'm using them right now.) They are very very light even though they are sold as 67g switches. I had avoided linear switches because I thought I needed the tactility to avoid bottoming out, but I was wrong. Worth a look.
There are also some good switches I haven't personally used; namely the Zilents.
Anyway, my point is that you don't need to go full model M to get good keyswitches. There are better boards and good switches around. Get a board with "hot-swappable" switches and try some out, it's likely you'll be able to build the perfect keyboard. You won't be stuck with a standard layout as you are with Realforce or Model M boards, and you'll be able to use a firmware like QMK to get a perfect layout. (For example, I have ({}) on the home row activated by a thumb switch on the other hand. Must more comfortable for coding than groping for all those keys with your pinky.)
I find fatigue to be a bigger problem on most rubber dome keyboards. I know the peak force for a Model M is a bit high, but how does the total work compare? Seems to me what would matter more.
All the work that makes rubber dome keys feel tiring is done after the switch has activated, and so how much work you do on the switch is going to depend on your own technique. (Before activation, they look a lot like Topre switches, which is a very "rounded" tactile bump. It's just that the actual activation happens at the very bottom of the travel, so you can't activate the switch without a movement that applies force but moves the key ~0mm, which obviously increases total work very very quickly because of that close-to-0 denominator. But it's not strictly necessary to apply any force after the key activates.)
A lot of people using mechanical switches, especially light ones, also bottom out, so they are prone to this "infinite work" effect. So if a 90g spring saves you from bottoming out, it can reduce fatigue if you were just going to slam into the PCB at the bottom. But if you can also be trained to not bottom out with a 45g switch, you'll be doing a lot less work, which may translate to less fatigue.
I know a lot of people that type very lightly on rubber dome keyboards, so it can be done. The theory is that a good tactile bump or audible click is going to help train you from bottoming out, which gives you a very clear maximum on the total work done. But it is all about technique; the switches don't have infinite travel (which would be interesting, actually) and can't STOP you from bottoming out, all they can do is give you tools to help train yourself to spend as small amount of time compressing something that can't compress. Bumps, clicks, extreme care... all helpful, but it is up to the individual to figure out what works. There are plenty of people that do not bottom out on linear keys; and that is just about training your fingers to press the key 3mm instead of 3.5mm. Meanwhile, there are no doubt people typing on model Ms that slam the key to the bottom of the travel and get no benefit from the tactile and clicky nature of the mechanism.
Individual typing technique is always going to be crucial; tactile/clicky add-ons just help hone the technique. Rubber domes come with no training wheels and no margin of error, and thus 99% of people probably do more work than necessary to activate them. That's my theory anyway.
On the fatigue side, it might be less of an issue than you expect after you get used to it. In fact, I noticed that while my fingers are more tired when I use a "heavy-switch" keyboard, my posture is better and my wrists hurt less. I suspect that I'm positioning my wrists "more correctly" on the heavier keys because it's necessary in order to still type at the same speed on them[0].
I think the main thing is to be consistent. I used to play piano and for about two years after I moved in to my first apartment, I had to switch to a (non-weighted) electronic keyboard due to budget/space. When I returned to a regular upright, I couldn't actually play a lot of the music I had learned on the synth because I wouldn't apply enough pressure to result in a sound. After about a month of regular practice, I ended up replacing the electronic keyboard with a much more expensive one with weighted keys and never went back.
[0] And as much as I try to be really careful ... adjusting my typing posture, consistently, would be about as difficult as adjusting the way I walk, consistently. It's second-nature and burned into my brain. I'd only adjust if I received a consistent reminder, like missing keypresses.
For me, the biggest thing to make typing feel comfortable was to not use weak fingers constantly. I touch type, on qwerty, and certainly don't mind using my pinkies to press qazp;/, because they don't come up very often. But getting enter, backspace, and programming symbols off the pinkies made a huge difference for me. That is why I recommend keyboards that use QMK or similar; you have the power to move keys around and really get what's good for you. (I also like the Ergodox because of the four extra keys activated by your pointer finger, and the four big thumb keys for enter, space, and modifiers. Having said that, I think the Ergodox layout is generally not that great; the small keys around the big thumb keys are nearly impossible to press. I use them for arrow keys, insert, delete, pg up, pg down... and never press them. I use C-n/C-p/C-b/C-f for movement, don't use the delete key, and have a macro for shift-insert. If those keys were removed from the board I wouldn't be sad at all. They are just a waste of space and ~$10 worth of keyswitches.)
Edit: one other note, I'm actually using Roselios, not Healios: https://zealpc.net/collections/switches/products/roselios_sa... My understanding is that they are exactly identical except for the color of the stem. I am not sure why people care about what color their keyswitches are... I just bought what was in stock ;)
I've run into this, myself, but never thought about it being related to the resistance of the switches. However, I'm convinced that's it after thinking about it.
Related to this is the most annoying thing I run into with my basic keyboards is over-stretching for CTRL+V. I always catch myself about 1/4 of the way into pressing the key and instinctively adjust. On my mechanical with decent resistance, my finger bounces off the `B`, lands on `V`, and everything is fine. On my laptop keyboards, which have a varying degrees of "too short of a distance" between pressed and not pressed (even my Thinkpad), this almost always results in the CTRL+B being hit immediately before the CTRL+V (lovely bookmark pane, now go away!)
The downside of trying an ortholinear keyboard is that there is some significant adjustment time. I think it took me a about a month to switch from a normal staggered 60% keyboard to an Ergodox EZ, and I have a lot of trouble going back to a non-ortholinear layout. People on Reddit assure me I am an idiot, though, so maybe it's just me.
I bring it up because the layout really does help with that lower row, and if you are explicitly noticing mistyped keys there a lot, it might be worth trying it out. You will never be able to use a laptop again, though, so it might not be worth the cost.
The main problem is that noise isolating/cancelling cans won't protect you from the clackety-clack, which for a lot of people can be as infuriating as listening to someone eating loudly.
I think everyone got over sensitive about it as we all hide behind a playlist.
Remember what the alternative was back then ... a bunch of people using typewriters.
Compared to typewriters these keyboards are a massive improvement in noise.
Thanks for the link. Damn, I haven't seen a 122 key keyboard since the 80s!
His reviews are highly relevant for this thread: https://www.youtube.com/user/Chyrosran22
In the 90s, my dad and I built custom (higher-end) PCs for small businesses and individuals. We carefully weeded out parts that we didn't like and put a high priority on excellent displays[1], good keyboards and mice[2]. To this day, I'm surprised at how little thought is paid to such a critical input device. And it's not that users don't care about it, it's almost like it was forgotten.
My personal preference, in this category, though was the Northgate Omnikey[0]. It was a multi-platform keyboard that was able to be plugged in to an AT/XT, Amiga and a few others. The model I had was left-oriented F-keys (I miss that!) and included extra keys and tools so that you could put the CTRL where "Caps Lock" was, and "alt" where the left CTRL was, which was how we configured them ... no more accidental CAPS LOCK hits when aiming for "A". Unfortunately, my parents sold it in an estate sale a while back. I doubt they got anywhere near the $100-$200 that these sell for when functional (depending on condition ... most are very yellow due to the plastic oxidizing but you can still find some that maintain their gray-white/blue color). Pretty rare to find a keyboard that resells for about the price they were new (sans inflation).
I'd put the IBM at a very close second. The Northgate was easily on par as far as "feel" was concerned, but the IBM keyboards had this loud "ping" sound that sort-of rang after a key was pressed (springs), which the Omnikey lacked. I couldn't own a keyboard like that if I wanted to continue programming since, at the time, most of my programming[4] was done between midnight and 3:00 AM with fleeting parental approval (fleeting ... if I woke them up).
I feel that keyboard quality is something that manufacturers have missed the ball on -- especially on notebooks. This Christmas I picked out a Thinkpad for my parents. They love it. My Dad now wants a new desktop keyboard, though, because he really likes the Thinkpad keyboard. I was a little puzzled -- his current board feels exactly the same to my fingers. After thinking about it for a bit, I'm fairly certain I know where the problem is: despite the same feel, his desktop keyboard weighs almost nothing. Every time you touch a key, or even reach out for it, it slides a little. So every few sentences, you're re-positioning the keyboard. At my typing speed, this means repositioning the keyboard constantly.
It makes me wonder if in all of this effort to make things lighter and more portable, the industry miscalculated by applying that logic to peripheral keyboards. I'd prefer my keyboard to weight twice as much as my current laptop. To me, I'd rather have a keyboard heavier than a notebook PC. Between the two I use most regularly, one is wired, the other is wireless, both would move with a reasonable gust of wind. Why do I care if it's convenient to carry when it never leaves my desktop? There's much greater value is in it staying put while I use it. At my office, several developers I work with have purchased their own keyboards. Some of it is "cool factor", but one thing I found consistently about the boards they've chosen -- All of them weigh in at 3 times the weight of the typical $15 board and most have sticky rubber feet. About half hadn't realized the difference until I pointed it out. I even had one co-worker that got upset at the realization -- he'd narrowed the choice down to 2 keyboards and opted for the lighter one. I made him unhappy with his decision. Oops!
[0] https://deskthority.net/wiki/Northgate_OmniKey/101
[1] I can't remember the brand, but nearly every computer monitor was XGA 14"; we only sold 16+" and went with Trinitron models and models with similar technology (at the time, I think Sony had an active patent on the technology, but we had quality issues so we switched to a different brand that I assume didn't work exactly like the Trinitron, but still had the color clarity).
[2] We never found a mouse worth a damn -- we experimented with an early model of ball-free mice, but it was trash.
[3] I'm sure there's an intelligent, technical, term for that but I don't care to search for it.
[4] I was writing a BBS from scratch in Borland/Turbo Pascal after deciding to toss out the code from my Telegard hack. I've actually tried to revisit that using SSH as transport (instead of dial-up) but ran out of motivation.
[0] I tried to find the model with a quick Google Image search, and this looks familiar: https://www.recycledgoods.com/nokia-17-crt-monitor-svga-mode...