Re: IBM Model M keyboards

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Rafe:


The secret to the hard-to-see key-inscriptions is to use a label-maker to
print out what you need. I mean a label maker like the Brother, that
prints out on a sticky tape that you can cut out a square of and stick on
the key cap. Surprisingly, I don't feel them really when I hit the keys I
thus label. For instance, I have a big U2 label on my .
And, having remapped CapsLock to be Control, and Ctrl to be Alt, I have
them labeled.


Thanks for your congratulations on my new Forbes position. The pay is
small, and I have to do 5 columns a month, which is a difficult
schedule.


--Harry


On 01/07/2014 05:29 PM, Harry
Binswanger wrote:

A relative gave me a Rosewill
9000 which has a good, springy feel and is a little less expensive (and
smaller) than the Das Keyboard.


http://www.rosewill.com/landingpage/pk9000/rk_9000.html
http://www.rosewill.com/landingpage/pk9000/rk_9000.html


unfortunately, Rosewills are hard to locate at the moment -- sold out at
most of the big vendors, as far as I can see.


I am typing this, Harry, on a Das DASK3MKPROCLI from Amazon that arrived
early this evening. here's the scoop for the curious:


until the end of last week I had been looking in desultory fashion for an
Adesso M135B to replace the one that had gone south, which is unusually
low-priced for a clicky keyboard -- I had actually come across it quite
by accident at a Staples a few years ago for something like 60 bucks -- I
only later discovered that the secret to its solid feel was the MX Cherry
switches. it seemed to me reasonably well-built, and if I could have
found one on short notice, I might have bought another.


the original reason for replacing it was the M key somehow lost its click
-- the key would register when pressed, but without the feedback before
recoil. for 2-3 weeks, it was a minor nuisance -- then last Friday I felt
a twinge in my right elbow, a disturbing discovery, and I switched to the
Lenovo netbook and went to work finding a replacement.


the fruits of an hour and a half's research: although half a dozen
hardware OEMs catering to gamers/custom systems produce MX Cherry Blue
keyboards, finding one without extra geegaws on it (backlighting,
trackball, exploding scoreboard) turned out to be difficult, and I
couldn't do without one for more than a couple days. since I couldn't
find anything else, I focused on Das -- although their site lists a
handful of retailers, the only one with a Cherry Blue MX keyboard in
stock was Amazon, naturally, $150 all told. (I wonder if the
Apple-powered fashion of chiclet keyboards -- to my fingers they are an
improvement on the weak-sprung cheap generic $20 keyboards I used to have
to use when I was temping, but only just -- has something to do with the
scarcity.)


I like the feel of the Das, which not surprisingly is the same as the
Adesso, and hopefully if I treat it a little more kindly it will last a
little longer. this one is far from perfect: the labels on this model's
keys are a miniscule, rather pretentious square font, which isn't
particularly appealing -- though I don't often need them, I do sometimes
need to see the labels on the function keys, which are a quarter of the
size the letter labels, presumably to make room for the blue FN labels
which correspond to laptop FN functions.


slightly more annoying is the placement of the Windows key, which is
where I am accustomed to finding the Alt key. I guess I could reprogram
but for the nonce it's easier to reprogram my index fingers.


congratulations on the Forbes gig, by the way -- I did some golf stuff
for them a few years ago, they pay on time!


-rafe