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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

I've got one of these. It's difficult to beat the feel of those keys, that is for sure. But at full tilt I think the neighbors across the street can hear me typing. So it primarily sits in my closet these days, while I use a much quieter (but far from silent) CODE mechanical keyboard.

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Yeah, it's loud. My wife complains about it. (I didn't realize how loud until I got hearing aids.)

Fortunately, we have offices far apart from each other.

I've had complaints that a burst of typing sounded like a spray paint can being shaken.

I beat other kinds of keyboards to death in months. My unicomp is into year 4.

I had a stack of real Model M's from 87 to 93, that I got from a school system and refurbished in '97. Those lasted me an average of 3 years each. I got the unicomp after trying a few of the other brands in the gap after pounding the last of that stack into dysfunction.

That sounds like a you problem, not a keyboard problem. A good mechanical keyboard should last better than that. Excessive force doesn't code faster.

I have skin problems, and shed enormous amounts of dead skin dust. Often with blood. Its unusually corrosive, just to add fun.

I wear cotton gloves (very simple ones) for computer'ing because my hands are abnormally sweaty and I quite literally can't grasp the mouse or feel the keyboard properly otherwise. Just gallons of sweat everywhere.

Before I would make mice shiny and keyboards grimy very quickly, but since I started gloving up I've not had a single mice or keyboard die on me.

What about those little USB fans pointed at your hands?

They all died, those dinky things are not made for continuous, long-term operation. I'm pretty sure some of them fried a few ports/controllers, too.

Noctua sells 5v variants of their fans, they come with a USB adapter.

You may need to rig something to keep it upright (or at least finger safe?)

Are they louder than blue switches???

Yeah, it’s a whole different kind of noise. Rather than a monotonic chorus of clicks, it’s a polyphonic cacophony of clicks, clacks, plonks thunks, rattles and the occasional twang, like only a buckling spring switch can offer.

I love mine. But I also heavily rely on noise-cancellation when I’m screen sharing or video calling.

> plonks thunks

It's been like 15 years since I operated one yet the sound and weight of that spacebar is still eerily vivid in my mind.

> Yeah, it’s a whole different kind of noise.

Totally, I have a Keychron right now and its sound is comparatively heavily muffled.

If I'm ever to be coerced to RTO my devilish secret plan is to bring a Model M to drive the point home.

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