Quoting rlhar...@oplink.net (rlhar...@oplink.net): > On Sun, August 30, 2015 8:49 pm, Martin Read wrote: > > Cherry still *are* (or at some point resumed) making mechanical > > keyswitches with a rated life in the tens of millions, and the Internet is > > full of mail-order vendors selling keyboards (from several different > > manufacturers) built with those Cherry keyswitches. > > How much do those things cost? Now that a keyboard can be had for $10 or > $15, is it better to pay $150 or even $250 for a quality keyboard, or > replace a $15 keyboard every year or even every six months?
Well it's not really possible to buy my favourite keyboard any more. My second favourite is the IBM clicky which I still use, but with greater headaches as it has a PS/2 connector. I'm not a blind-typing person; I type mainly with four fingers and the left thumb (it appears, when I try to watch myself at the same time as typing). So the truncated LShift doesn't bother me. As it's a UK keyboard, it would be difficult to replace. I like the positive feel, and no keyboard had a longer cable. I do not like the US placement of # and ~. My favourite keyboard of all time was the VT220 (which was attached to a mighty VT241 display). The incomparable feature was the key-click because it was not passively generated. The click came back with the character reflection, so it gave you *truly* active feedback. With my EVE (Extensible Vax Editor) redefining the numeric keypad, it was my most comfortable editing platform. My wife (who is a true touch-typist) was also a VT220/EVE addict; so much so that when she went to sea one time, I had to use the crude shore-ship email system to get my 1150-line customisation file out to her. (This was the days of Greybook Mail over X25 with gateways to Bitnet and Arpanet, but fortunately post- the time when I could only email ships through BT Gold, which cost real money.) > And in our present Window$-dominated, rodent-oriented, game-addicted and > generally-lliterate society, is there anyone who types more than a few > dozen keystrokes a day for the purpose of intelligent conversation -- > other than subscribers to a mail list such as this, and the authors of > pulp fiction? (And no, I do not consider messages transmitted by > "texting" or "twitter" to be intelligent conversation.) Plenty of people originate and edit material with their keyboards. (I assume you don't class scientific literature as pulp fiction!) Cheers, David.
