Re: Pining away for your old Northgate keyboard?

[Pamela Upton upton1@xxxxxxxx]

Judging from the response to this thread and the similar one that ran
several months ago, lefthand function key users are not the dead or dying
breed most keyboard manufacturers would lead us to believe.

I'm carefully nurturing and cosseting my 7-year-old Northgate keyboard at
my office (it's outlived three computers of varying brands) and would love
to have an extra or two lying around as backups. But when I tried to find
a new keyboard for my home computer recently, I had no luck at all with
either Northgate (presumably out of business) or KeyPro (ditto as far as I
could find out). I finally purchased a Gateway with the duplicate function
key sets (left side and top) and have been pretty happy with it. The Ctrl,
Alt, and Caps Lock keys were all in the "wrong" places (i.e., not
Northgate layout), but they're easy to reprogram. The catch is that
Gateway won't sell a keyboard to someone who hasn't purchased a Gateway
computer. A colleague and I managed to get ours through his
brother-in-law, who has a Gateway. Also, the sales rep I talked to at
Gateway seemed dubious that they'd continue to manufacture the keyboard
with left function keys for much longer--she said there just wasn't much
demand. (Obviously we're all suffering in silence!)

Oh, and as for cleaning my Northgate, I've found that just a little plain
rubbing alcohol, rubbed on lightly and carefully with a moist (not drippy)
Q-tip, works just fine--you can even clean down the sides of the keys.

*************************
Pam Upton
Assistant Managing Editor
Univ. of N.C. Press
*************************