6 ms·

For me the hesitation is that it's a lot of money for something I don't know if I'm going to like it or if it's going to make me more productive. It's an expen

by Osiris 7y ago

For me the hesitation is that it's a lot of money for something I don't know if I'm going to like it or if it's going to make me more productive. It's an expensive experiment, especially considering the vast variety of different styles, layouts, pressure sensitivity, etc, etc.

tracker1 7y ago
It's one of those situations where a store front or a friend with the item you're considering helps a lot. My favorite keyboard ever was a Model-M buckling spring keyboard... one year I broke a retainer clip for the spacebar while taking the key caps off to clean it... I decided to toss it, it was probably close to a decade old at that point. After that for about another decade, I bought a new keyboard each year, often anywhere from $20-50, and it was always disappointing... I'd put up with it for the better part of a year and move on. I'd tried several of the more popular mechanical keyboards, never quite the same. I then found Unicomp was still making them... though not exactly the same, still really nice imho. I use one of the 103 key models at home. I've since switch to a cherry mx brown das keyboard at work to spare my coworkers the noise. In the end, the $120 or so I spent for a keyboard that's lasted me years is far better than one I've swapped out at least once a year. I'd probably consider it if I had any signs of RSA or actually liked split keyboards at all. Ironically, moving to a mechanical keyboard with a tactile feel, the RSA symptoms I did have have since gone away. I've still tried several other KBs and styles since then, my only suggestion is stay away from mechanical keyboards under around $80 as they're often knockoff switches that are not as good and don't feel the same.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  I have a Type M that I really must get a usb adaptor sorted out for. The Type M is the original IBM PC keyboard even better than the type F AT keyboards.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    I have a Unicomp (which is based on the IBM Model M) Sun Unix Spacesaver USB keyboard: https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40PSA https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40PSA It's great, and what's not to love if you're a POSIX guy? The Ctrl and Caps Lock keys are swapped, so the Ctrl key is on the home row like God intended. It has buckling spring, positive keyclick action and it's so good if you do a lot of keyboard input or use Vim and/or Emacs. The bottom plate is steel and it's heavy, it won't slide around on my desk. Sure, for custom mechanical keyboard snobs, the keycaps aren't anything to write home about because sometimes the key characters aren't properly centered on the key surface. But my keycaps look OK, maybe I just happened to get a good one. And it doesn't bother me anyway because I never look at the keys when typing.
    - tracker1 7y ago
      Kind of wish I'd started with a keyboard that had the ctrl where the caps lock is... I can see the appeal. One thing I've found from some bad keyboards is I really favor the left ctrl and the right shift, when either of those are out of position it's truly a painful experience for me (notably on many laptops).
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    Just ordered one of these for my type M https://www.hagstromelectronics.com/ke-xtusb-keyboard-encoder-shp.html https://www.hagstromelectronics.com/ke-xtusb-keyboard-encode...
samatman 7y ago
You can hop on reddit and resell it on for 50-100 less than you paid for it. This makes the experiment less expensive, and if you're trying to pinch that last penny and have some patience, you could cruise those same forums until one comes up on sale, and sell it off for what you paid for it.

by Osiris 7y ago

tracker1 7y ago

It's one of those situations where a store front or a friend with the item you're considering helps a lot. My favorite keyboard ever was a Model-M buckling spring keyboard... one year I broke a retainer clip for the spacebar while taking the key caps off to clean it... I decided to toss it, it was probably close to a decade old at that point. After that for about another decade, I bought a new keyboard each year, often anywhere from $20-50, and it was always disappointing... I'd put up with it for the better part of a year and move on. I'd tried several of the more popular mechanical keyboards, never quite the same. I then found Unicomp was still making them... though not exactly the same, still really nice imho. I use one of the 103 key models at home. I've since switch to a cherry mx brown das keyboard at work to spare my coworkers the noise. In the end, the $120 or so I spent for a keyboard that's lasted me years is far better than one I've swapped out at least once a year. I'd probably consider it if I had any signs of RSA or actually liked split keyboards at all. Ironically, moving to a mechanical keyboard with a tactile feel, the RSA symptoms I did have have since gone away. I've still tried several other KBs and styles since then, my only suggestion is stay away from mechanical keyboards under around $80 as they're often knockoff switches that are not as good and don't feel the same.

C1sc0cat 7y ago
I have a Type M that I really must get a usb adaptor sorted out for. The Type M is the original IBM PC keyboard even better than the type F AT keyboards.
- wyclif 7y ago
  I have a Unicomp (which is based on the IBM Model M) Sun Unix Spacesaver USB keyboard: https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40PSA https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/40PSA It's great, and what's not to love if you're a POSIX guy? The Ctrl and Caps Lock keys are swapped, so the Ctrl key is on the home row like God intended. It has buckling spring, positive keyclick action and it's so good if you do a lot of keyboard input or use Vim and/or Emacs. The bottom plate is steel and it's heavy, it won't slide around on my desk. Sure, for custom mechanical keyboard snobs, the keycaps aren't anything to write home about because sometimes the key characters aren't properly centered on the key surface. But my keycaps look OK, maybe I just happened to get a good one. And it doesn't bother me anyway because I never look at the keys when typing.
  - tracker1 7y ago
    Kind of wish I'd started with a keyboard that had the ctrl where the caps lock is... I can see the appeal. One thing I've found from some bad keyboards is I really favor the left ctrl and the right shift, when either of those are out of position it's truly a painful experience for me (notably on many laptops).
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  Just ordered one of these for my type M https://www.hagstromelectronics.com/ke-xtusb-keyboard-encoder-shp.html https://www.hagstromelectronics.com/ke-xtusb-keyboard-encode...

samatman 7y ago

You can hop on reddit and resell it on for 50-100 less than you paid for it. This makes the experiment less expensive, and if you're trying to pinch that last penny and have some patience, you could cruise those same forums until one comes up on sale, and sell it off for what you paid for it.