5 ms·

Care more about the stabilizers in your mechanical keyboard–here's why

20 points by LorenDB 1y ago

slowmovintarget 1y ago
Relevant to my interests, but this seems an awful lot like submarine marketing. (The article, not the submission here.)
- pstadler 1y ago
  What is submarine marketing? Asking as a non-native English speaker.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - gs17 1y ago
    It means it's an article paid for by a PR firm and subtly benefits one of their clients (while the topic of the article is true, or at least not an outright lie, and not obviously an ad). https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
ChuckMcM 1y ago
I ended up switching to Keychron keyboards and found that the stabilizers do make a big difference in feel and in my own accuracy. I'm still looking for a good design that lets me put a drop-cap key where the Capslock (I've got Control there) key goes.
Animats 1y ago
"Mechanical keyboards" like these are not very mechanical. I've overhauled Teletype machines with real mechanical keyboards. You can only press one key at a time, because the encoding mechanism pushes back if you push two keys at once. When you press a key, it briefly locks down during the scan cycle, then releases. Typing is speed limited, and it's like playing a piano at a constant rate. An original IBM Selectric keyboard has the same lock-down properties, but allows one-key rollover. Nobody replicates that, although the Selectric was once held up as the gold standard of keyboards.
inopinatus 1y ago
Rattles off a bunch of products, says “these are better”, doesn’t go into any electromechanical, acoustic, or ergonomic discussion of why this may be so. Then blames the reader for installing them incorrectly if there’s no obvious improvement. Never actually delivers on the premise on the headline. Seems like snake oil
- GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
  > Seems like snake oil snake oil? in the mechanical keyboards fandom? couldn't be true!
  - jerlam 1y ago
    I think you're supposed to use the snake oil to lubricate the switches.
piinbinary 1y ago
I saw a video from Adam Savage about someone who went really overboard with spacebar stabilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3FEv1qw4_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3FEv1qw4_w
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

20 points by LorenDB 1y ago

slowmovintarget 1y ago

Relevant to my interests, but this seems an awful lot like submarine marketing. (The article, not the submission here.)

pstadler 1y ago
What is submarine marketing? Asking as a non-native English speaker.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- gs17 1y ago
  It means it's an article paid for by a PR firm and subtly benefits one of their clients (while the topic of the article is true, or at least not an outright lie, and not obviously an ad). https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

ChuckMcM 1y ago

I ended up switching to Keychron keyboards and found that the stabilizers do make a big difference in feel and in my own accuracy. I'm still looking for a good design that lets me put a drop-cap key where the Capslock (I've got Control there) key goes.

Animats 1y ago

"Mechanical keyboards" like these are not very mechanical. I've overhauled Teletype machines with real mechanical keyboards. You can only press one key at a time, because the encoding mechanism pushes back if you push two keys at once. When you press a key, it briefly locks down during the scan cycle, then releases. Typing is speed limited, and it's like playing a piano at a constant rate. An original IBM Selectric keyboard has the same lock-down properties, but allows one-key rollover. Nobody replicates that, although the Selectric was once held up as the gold standard of keyboards.

inopinatus 1y ago

Rattles off a bunch of products, says “these are better”, doesn’t go into any electromechanical, acoustic, or ergonomic discussion of why this may be so. Then blames the reader for installing them incorrectly if there’s no obvious improvement. Never actually delivers on the premise on the headline. Seems like snake oil

GuinansEyebrows 1y ago
> Seems like snake oil snake oil? in the mechanical keyboards fandom? couldn't be true!
- jerlam 1y ago
  I think you're supposed to use the snake oil to lubricate the switches.

piinbinary 1y ago

I saw a video from Adam Savage about someone who went really overboard with spacebar stabilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3FEv1qw4_w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3FEv1qw4_w

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]