4 ms·
The problem is the open office, not the mechanical keyboards (which are awesome, btw).
by jcadam 9y ago
The problem is the open office, not the mechanical keyboards (which are awesome, btw).
- cdegroot 9y agoI'm a nice guy, I paid the extra $$ for silent mechanical keys (http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/ http://matias.ca/switches/quiet/) ;-)
- busterarm 9y agoYeah, but then you have to have those terrible, bastard ALPS switches. Sorry, strong personal preference here. I use Topre anyway.
- mark-r 9y agoThe switches are their own, they only use ALPS for the keytops. Unless they contract out to ALPS for manufacturing and I missed it.
- busterarm 9y agoSorry, you're absolutely correct. Still, pain in the arse to get decent keysets for and I've always found the ALPS design to be 'wobbly'. Something about them is extremely uncomfortable to me.
- mark-r 9y agoThank you! I've been looking for a keyboard like that for years, ever since I had to get rid of my old Zeos mechanical to keep my wife from going insane in our shared office space. The Quiet Pro PC looks absolutely perfect.
- throwanem 9y agoThe noise is from bottoming out. Put spacers on the keycap stems, and it stops being a problem, no matter what kind of switch you use. This is easy to do and only a little time-consuming. It's easier and faster when you take a cheap Bic pen, pull out the tip and ink tube, and use the body tube to press the spacers down on the stems - it's just the right diameter, and makes the job much faster. The spacers are cheap, too, being simple silicone rubber O-rings, and as an extra benefit, the rubber eats up a lot of the bottoming-out force that'd otherwise be transmitted up the key into your fingers, which means you type more comfortably as well as more quietly.
- abritinthebay 9y agoOr people could just type with less force? I'm not sure where the cultural norm of beating up a keyboard comes from but it's a very inefficient way to type.
- throwanem 9y agoBeats me, but if it comes down to a choice between reengineering people's behavior or reengineering their tools so they can do the same thing they've always done but not get such a poor result, I know which one I've seen to work and which one I haven't.
- cr0sh 9y ago> The noise is from bottoming out. Not with my Model M! /buckling springs ftw...
- throwanem 9y agoI remember my Model Ms with fond nostalgia. I have no desire whatsoever to give up my MX Blues and return to them.
- nilkn 9y agoIn my opinion, if you know you're going to be working in an open office setting, you should try to be courteous and minimize the negative impact you have on your coworkers. I think you should be willing to make the choice to use a quieter keyboard that isn't necessarily your favorite. So I'd say the problem is with both. The open office is the ultimate source of the issue, but it can be compounded by workers who make choices that exacerbate the situation. The reality is that an open office can be quite pleasant if the people working in it collectively make effective choices that take into account the well-being of the group.