this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Well, somehow keyboards are now a niche boutique industry where people spend hundreds of dollars putting together custom-made minimalist builds like they're honing a weapon in an action movie. I find that's probably dumber than a corporate logo becominmg a default key (which to be fair has been a thing since the 80s, the C64 had a Commodore key), but it does mean that if don't want it, you can get a keycap with anything you want on it instead.
There's nothing dumb about a keyboard personalized to your exact tastes and preferences that also makes your job easier and reduces RSI. But like, that's just my opinion, man.
Your user name is "dyikeyboards", I feel like we're gonna agree to disagree on this no matter what I say, and I'm fine with that.
You might be surprised. I'll be the first to tell you there's a ton of overpriced, silly hype in the keyboard space. Exotic materials, lubes, and switches that have no measurable impact on performance are common. So are extremely detailed and expensive artisan keycaps. It's a collector hobby for many. That's not my thing.
OTOH, there are also some serious gains to be had for professional computer jockeys.
My daily board is just 42 keys, and I absolutely love it. There's a learning curve for sure, but once mastered you're on a new level. For instance, I can access all my standard keys, num now, function keys, and arrows without having to move my hands off the home position. It's brilliant.
Random question for a keyboard aficionado: have you investigated the CharaChorder?
I'm aware of it, but haven't tried it. There are hobbyists using chording already (this is how stenographers type so fast, combined with shorthand) so the idea isn't new. The innovation here would be the directional movements in replacing traditional keypresses. I'd give it a go. I suspect the learning curve to be really steep though!
That was my basic assessment as well, I'm not sure the gains are worth trying to unlearn 30+ years of ingrained keyboard habits! Thanks for your take on the subject
That last paragraph would be more convincing without the typo in it.
You determine trustworthiness based on presence of typos?
When you're talking about how great your custom keyboard layout is, yes.
Ok, I reluctantly grant a point in this case, but only because it's funny.
I think they were typing on their phone. The error looks more like autocorrect than a keyboard typo
The difference is that the C64's keyboard was physically part of the C64...
I feel like that caveat holds up until you buy a laptop.
Found the membrane lover
You can still buy a cheap basic keyboard, or a decent Logitech at a reasonable price. You can totally ignore the "niche custom keyboard" market. Most people don't even know it exists.
What's annoying is that laptop will now come with that stupid key.
With a place like this on every street corner?!
(Just kidding, anyway this little place is an hour south of San Francisco in San Jose.)
That is an actual store that makes real money in U.S. dollars?
What did the commodore key do?! Launch the evil cat typing tutor?
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3045/what-was-the-purpose-and-history-of-the-c64s-special-keys
"The Commodore "C=" Key
The VIC-20 removed the numeric keypad that the PET keyboards had, combining the numeric and punctuation keys on the top row with the unshifted keystrokes giving numbers and the shifted keystrokes giving punctuation (!, ", etc.). They also added colour and assigned character codes to change the colour of the text. A good guess would be that this is the reason they added the "C=": it's a second kind of shift that now allows three PETSCII codes to be produced from each key rather than just two. This allows all the original graphics codes still to be produced and adds enough extra keystroke inputs to cover the new colours as well. The same keyboard and decoding was used on the C64, with a few extra color codes added.
Thus, while SHIFT L produced PETSCII code 204 on both the PET and the C64, SHIFT 6 produced code 182 on the PET but an ampersand & on the C64, and to get that code 182 on the C64 you'd instead use "C= L"."
Thank you. May copilot be with you.
DOS is my co-pilot.
Years ago, I invested $120 or so on a clickey-clackey Das Keyboard and it's been just fine. That is by far the most I will ever spend on a keyboard. The only thing I don't like about it is that it takes up two USB ports and it's old enough that the built-in USB ports are only USB 1.0. That's how long it's lasted me.
A decent keyboard is worth an investment if you use it all the time and want a good feel when you type, but people take it way too far.
If you can type so fast that USB 1.0 isn't fast enough, keyboards are not the interface for you.
No, the ports on the side of the keyboard that are pass-throughs.
Keyboards, gaming controllers, pens, pillows, lamps, golf clubs, tools...
You can overspend on anything and hobbyists/wealthy people do.
How is investing $120 on a keyboard that is extremely comfortable for me to use that I've kept since the USB 1.0 era overspending?
I'm far from wealthy. I bought that keyboard when I was working a $10/hour part time job.
If you had a WFH job, would you buy a $20 chair from Walmart or invest $100-$200 on a chair where you'll actually be comfortable all day and not develop back problems? And you don't have to be wealthy to work a WFH job either. My last job was a hybrid WFH/in-office job. I was paid less than what would be minimum wage in California.
Oh wow, am I beefing with Flying Squid now!? 🤩 What an honor...
But seriously, I said "overspend" when maybe I should have used your words: "people take it way too far."
I just meant enthusiasts and people with too much money buy the high-end stuff. Not even a judgement, though I would remind people of the diminishing returns the more you spend...
I don't get the hate on custom keyboards. Sure you can go overboard, but like... I spend eight hours a day using a computer for work and then when I'm done I use another computer for fun. It's not absurd to spend a few hundred bucks on a keyboard that you can expect to last 15+ years instead of the $20 ones that you throw away every year or two or as soon as one thing breaks.
There are definitely keeb elitists though, which is always shitty no matter what hobby you're talking about.
I don't hate. I like a good keyboard.
Now, do I think obsessing about the extremely specific properties of switches and keycaps and spending hours manually embedding each individual key component just to get a specific color combination makes sense as a hobby? Hell no. But then neither does collecting stamps or watching people's grocery runs on Youtube. You do what you want, and this hobby at least lets you put whatever icon you please on the Bixby button.
I'll say this, though, that justification, which I have used often to myself and others, is a terrible rabbit hole of mismanaged finances. That is true of your monitor, your PC, you laptop, your phone, your keyboard, your chair, your desk... by the time you're done you've spent a year's salary setting up your workstation with absurdly luxurious, custom gear that sometimes makes no discernible difference. By all means get whatever stuff saves you from injury and provides comfort and satisfaction, but we all know in many of those categories the quality curve flattens out way before the price curve does.
Also, I guarantee most people with a custom keyboard swap it out more often than people who are still using the crappy board that came for free with their prebuilt or was given to them at work. I have dirt cheap Dell keyboards that still work fine. I may not love how they feel or sound, but it turns out we mastered the art of making buttons a while ago and closing a circuit with a conductive pad reliably is not a particularly costly proposition. Hey, buy good keyboards for the feel or because you have a glitzy hobby, but don't lie to yourself or me about it. You're a grown person, own that superfluously expensive nerdy taste. If boomers could brag about their fountain pens you can smugly bore your friends talking about the injection molding in the keycaps matching a specific pantone that you bought.