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It’s interesting how we play the most advanced video games on a peripheral from 1870. Zero innovation on that front, and worse, we’re going even further backwar

It’s interesting how we play the most advanced video games on a peripheral from 1870. Zero innovation on that front, and worse, we’re going even further backward with the mechanical keyboard obsession.

Phrodo_00 3y ago
The reason we had to go backwards to mechanical keyboards is that modern keyboards were being built just for lower prices with no regard to feel or longevity. Sometimes things don't need innovation. If you don't want to play with a keyboard there's always controllers (that also seem to have found a pretty stable form the last years)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 3y ago
  I have a mechanical keyboard on my main desktop system. But I have to admit that, given the amount of typing I do on short-throw (non-butterfly) MacBook keyboards, I'm not sure I really have a clear preference at this point. (And there's something to be said more generally for the keyboards you use day to day not being radically different from most other keyboards you'll encounter.)
qball 3y ago
>we’re going even further backward with the mechanical keyboard obsession Well, not quite; single-stage/two-stage trigger technology, as well as progressive triggers, have some benefits when applied to keyboards. First, single-stage/two-stage triggers give you (with single-stage) a single smooth press with activation point somewhere in the middle, or (with two-stage) a consistent amount of takeup then a wall that you have to break through to activate the mechanism. So you can have the key pressed and resting on the activation point, and then press it the rest of the way when you want the input to register (for instance, if you're in a game and are waiting for someone to peek around the corner). Second, progressive triggers, where pressing a little way registers a single input and pressing it all the way down/back types something fully-automatically. They're still mostly useless because the manufacturers refuse to put properly heavy springs in the switches, but the technology itself is ready for this. It's certainly strange that it took 70 years from the implementations of these ideas in firearms to today's keyboards given the advantages of each mechanism are equally applicable to both, but that's the way it happened.
- lsmeducation 3y ago
  First, single-stage/two-stage triggers give you (with single-stage) a single smooth press with activation point somewhere in the middle, or (with two-stage) a consistent amount of takeup then a wall that you have to break through to activate the mechanism. So you can have the key pressed and resting on the activation point, and then press it the rest of the way when you want the input to register (for instance, if you're in a game and are waiting for someone to peek around the corner). This is a cool thing, I’d want that on my mouse triggers also. The problem is that in practice it’ll never be what we want it to be because the distance of switches is too small to make that two stage thing be a thing (we’d need super heavy switches for this to be a thing). Now imagine mouse clicks which are supposed to represent a trigger (we operate as if everything is a hair trigger). Burst/Single burst is mostly a timing thing at this point. Would be interesting to see it become a force based thing. Fun ideas though.
  - qball 3y ago
    >Now imagine mouse clicks which are supposed to represent a trigger. Interestingly, some consoles already do this- the PS5 in particular will vary the weight of its shoulder triggers to match what you're doing on screen. >we’d need super heavy switches for this to be a thing It continuously surprises me that none of the Hall effect keyboard makers (Wooting, Drunkdeer, and... I think Steelseries and Corsair have some as well) don't offer ultra-high-weight springs as at least an option for this reason. Interestingly, there's another keyboard manufacturer, Roli, who makes a board that has some very interesting modes of input (as they accept inputs of variable pressure, give you the ability to slide smoothly between keys, and vary the kind of input from each key by shaking your fingers). Of course, that's not a computer keyboard, but it's still a glimpse into the kinds of interesting input devices we could make if only we bothered to do so.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
asoneth 3y ago
> even further backward with the mechanical keyboard obsession My impression has been that, along with 3D printing, the mechanical keyboard obsession has has spurred a renaissance of keyboard innovation in the last decade or so. You can now buy keyboards or kits with ortholinear/columnar keys, split hands, built-in displays, modes/layers, non-QWERTY layouts, Hall effect keys, non-uniform resistance, and more. I haven't seen this degree of keyboard innovation in a long time. The best part is that they're an order of magnitude cheaper than the wacky keyboards of the 1980s and 1990s, many of which cost thousands of dollars. These days you can try something innovative out for just a few hundred bucks and even less if you're willing to solder it yourself.
weinzierl 3y ago
In the home computer era we rarely played on the keyboard, Joysticks were ubiquitous. Playing action games on the keyboard gained only in popularity with the rise of the PC and roughly at the same time game pads displaced the Joystick, which was relegated to the flight similator niche.
- ghaff 3y ago
  And the serious simulator niche, including flight, became really niche to the point where the controllers (joysticks, wheels) used for that niche largely went away.
- wruza 3y ago
  My memory is pre-PC keyboards were such crap to play on. And to type on too. It’s hard to tell now if PCs started the keyboard era or PC keyboards started the PC era in this regard.
  - weinzierl 3y ago
    Yes, I think this is the main reason. I wouldn't call the keyboards bad per se, though. Of course there were some terrible ones, like the one on the ZX Spectrum, but most of them (like Commodore and Atari) were quite good even by todays standards. Especially build quality and materials were better than in the majority of keyboards today. Many of these old keyboards don't cause problems even after more than 40 years. They were not suitable for gaming because they were not made for it. I'd even say they were not particularly suited for typing either. In the 80s many people still learned typing on real typewriters which had crazy long key travel, considerable force required to press and bottoming out was part of the whole idea. Instead of doing what is ergonomically right, early keyboards chose to mimic typewriters to avoid alienating early users. That is in my opinion the main reason why they were not used for action games.
somat 3y ago
The keyboard... in some ways it sucks, but in other ways. the thing has 100 buttons. that kind of kicks ass, but what I want to talk about is the mouse. The mouse for first person games was stroke of genius.... no wait what am I talking about it was a huge fluke. if you asked any one to design a controller for a first person game. absolutely no one would design a mouse. the fact that a thing designed as a proxy for touch screens due to hardware limitations works so well at the task is amazing. Actually come to think about it the mouse is in many ways better than touch screens. The big disadvantage is that you have to work remotely, but this is easily learned. but now not only do you not have anything(your huge mitt) obscuring the screen, the touch zone can become very precise and it allow for much more touch dexterity with multiple buttons. touch screens do allow for multi finger gestures but these are area not point controls. On the whole I would say the mouse wins, that is. in the cases where you can put a mouse down. Perhaps if they put the touch screen on the back of the phone, and added a few side buttons for touch dexterity. And we might have unicorns. It would be too hard a sell, to the wrong audience. touch screens work well enough... but they could be so much better.
- wruza 3y ago
  Touch screens are okay when under a thumb. But imagine raising your hand whole day to poke a screen, how disproportional your shoulders would grow and how early you’d become orthopedists regular. But on the bright side, we’d use CLIs and cursor based UIs much more.
  - somat 3y ago
    I hate touch screens as much, if not more, than the next guy. But gorilla arm is the stupidest, weakest argument against them. Think of people who have jobs where they have to work for hours in front of them. the human body is good at this, it does not turn out to be super tiring. It is a made up problem.
    - wruza 3y ago
      Do you know any examples of such jobs? I mean the same operational intensity.

Phrodo_00 3y ago

The reason we had to go backwards to mechanical keyboards is that modern keyboards were being built just for lower prices with no regard to feel or longevity. Sometimes things don't need innovation. If you don't want to play with a keyboard there's always controllers (that also seem to have found a pretty stable form the last years)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ghaff 3y ago
I have a mechanical keyboard on my main desktop system. But I have to admit that, given the amount of typing I do on short-throw (non-butterfly) MacBook keyboards, I'm not sure I really have a clear preference at this point. (And there's something to be said more generally for the keyboards you use day to day not being radically different from most other keyboards you'll encounter.)

qball 3y ago

>we’re going even further backward with the mechanical keyboard obsession Well, not quite; single-stage/two-stage trigger technology, as well as progressive triggers, have some benefits when applied to keyboards. First, single-stage/two-stage triggers give you (with single-stage) a single smooth press with activation point somewhere in the middle, or (with two-stage) a consistent amount of takeup then a wall that you have to break through to activate the mechanism. So you can have the key pressed and resting on the activation point, and then press it the rest of the way when you want the input to register (for instance, if you're in a game and are waiting for someone to peek around the corner). Second, progressive triggers, where pressing a little way registers a single input and pressing it all the way down/back types something fully-automatically. They're still mostly useless because the manufacturers refuse to put properly heavy springs in the switches, but the technology itself is ready for this. It's certainly strange that it took 70 years from the implementations of these ideas in firearms to today's keyboards given the advantages of each mechanism are equally applicable to both, but that's the way it happened.

lsmeducation 3y ago
First, single-stage/two-stage triggers give you (with single-stage) a single smooth press with activation point somewhere in the middle, or (with two-stage) a consistent amount of takeup then a wall that you have to break through to activate the mechanism. So you can have the key pressed and resting on the activation point, and then press it the rest of the way when you want the input to register (for instance, if you're in a game and are waiting for someone to peek around the corner). This is a cool thing, I’d want that on my mouse triggers also. The problem is that in practice it’ll never be what we want it to be because the distance of switches is too small to make that two stage thing be a thing (we’d need super heavy switches for this to be a thing). Now imagine mouse clicks which are supposed to represent a trigger (we operate as if everything is a hair trigger). Burst/Single burst is mostly a timing thing at this point. Would be interesting to see it become a force based thing. Fun ideas though.
- qball 3y ago
  >Now imagine mouse clicks which are supposed to represent a trigger. Interestingly, some consoles already do this- the PS5 in particular will vary the weight of its shoulder triggers to match what you're doing on screen. >we’d need super heavy switches for this to be a thing It continuously surprises me that none of the Hall effect keyboard makers (Wooting, Drunkdeer, and... I think Steelseries and Corsair have some as well) don't offer ultra-high-weight springs as at least an option for this reason. Interestingly, there's another keyboard manufacturer, Roli, who makes a board that has some very interesting modes of input (as they accept inputs of variable pressure, give you the ability to slide smoothly between keys, and vary the kind of input from each key by shaking your fingers). Of course, that's not a computer keyboard, but it's still a glimpse into the kinds of interesting input devices we could make if only we bothered to do so.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

asoneth 3y ago

> even further backward with the mechanical keyboard obsession My impression has been that, along with 3D printing, the mechanical keyboard obsession has has spurred a renaissance of keyboard innovation in the last decade or so. You can now buy keyboards or kits with ortholinear/columnar keys, split hands, built-in displays, modes/layers, non-QWERTY layouts, Hall effect keys, non-uniform resistance, and more. I haven't seen this degree of keyboard innovation in a long time. The best part is that they're an order of magnitude cheaper than the wacky keyboards of the 1980s and 1990s, many of which cost thousands of dollars. These days you can try something innovative out for just a few hundred bucks and even less if you're willing to solder it yourself.

weinzierl 3y ago

In the home computer era we rarely played on the keyboard, Joysticks were ubiquitous. Playing action games on the keyboard gained only in popularity with the rise of the PC and roughly at the same time game pads displaced the Joystick, which was relegated to the flight similator niche.

ghaff 3y ago
And the serious simulator niche, including flight, became really niche to the point where the controllers (joysticks, wheels) used for that niche largely went away.
wruza 3y ago
My memory is pre-PC keyboards were such crap to play on. And to type on too. It’s hard to tell now if PCs started the keyboard era or PC keyboards started the PC era in this regard.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  Yes, I think this is the main reason. I wouldn't call the keyboards bad per se, though. Of course there were some terrible ones, like the one on the ZX Spectrum, but most of them (like Commodore and Atari) were quite good even by todays standards. Especially build quality and materials were better than in the majority of keyboards today. Many of these old keyboards don't cause problems even after more than 40 years. They were not suitable for gaming because they were not made for it. I'd even say they were not particularly suited for typing either. In the 80s many people still learned typing on real typewriters which had crazy long key travel, considerable force required to press and bottoming out was part of the whole idea. Instead of doing what is ergonomically right, early keyboards chose to mimic typewriters to avoid alienating early users. That is in my opinion the main reason why they were not used for action games.

somat 3y ago

The keyboard... in some ways it sucks, but in other ways. the thing has 100 buttons. that kind of kicks ass, but what I want to talk about is the mouse. The mouse for first person games was stroke of genius.... no wait what am I talking about it was a huge fluke. if you asked any one to design a controller for a first person game. absolutely no one would design a mouse. the fact that a thing designed as a proxy for touch screens due to hardware limitations works so well at the task is amazing. Actually come to think about it the mouse is in many ways better than touch screens. The big disadvantage is that you have to work remotely, but this is easily learned. but now not only do you not have anything(your huge mitt) obscuring the screen, the touch zone can become very precise and it allow for much more touch dexterity with multiple buttons. touch screens do allow for multi finger gestures but these are area not point controls. On the whole I would say the mouse wins, that is. in the cases where you can put a mouse down. Perhaps if they put the touch screen on the back of the phone, and added a few side buttons for touch dexterity. And we might have unicorns. It would be too hard a sell, to the wrong audience. touch screens work well enough... but they could be so much better.

wruza 3y ago
Touch screens are okay when under a thumb. But imagine raising your hand whole day to poke a screen, how disproportional your shoulders would grow and how early you’d become orthopedists regular. But on the bright side, we’d use CLIs and cursor based UIs much more.
- somat 3y ago
  I hate touch screens as much, if not more, than the next guy. But gorilla arm is the stupidest, weakest argument against them. Think of people who have jobs where they have to work for hours in front of them. the human body is good at this, it does not turn out to be super tiring. It is a made up problem.
  - wruza 3y ago
    Do you know any examples of such jobs? I mean the same operational intensity.