Mechanical Keyboards

[Neostarwcc]

Yeah I posted in another thread I still have parts from when I first got into computers. I've kept them for nearly 30 years. Cheap is good when you don't want something expensive.

Or another thing that happens with keyboards. After a few years of use the keys rub off and you can't see what key you're pressing. Doesn't effect me because I've known how to type since I was seven and I know where every key on the keyboard is automatically without looking at it.

But my wife is not so lucky. She gets me to replace keyboards every few years anyway. So even if I had a mechanical keyboard and it lasted us, it would eventually do that and I'd have to replace it anyway.

I'd rather buy a good motherboard tbch or some other part for the money. Motherboards can last you forever, hence why I have so many parts in the back. Most of it is motherboards from the 90s and when I was in highschool.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Yeah I posted in another thread I still have parts from when I first got into computers. I've kept them for nearly 30 years. Cheap is good when you don't want something expensive.

Or another thing that happens with keyboards. After a few years of use the keys rub off and you can't see what key you're pressing. Doesn't effect me because I've known how to type since I was seven and I know where every key on the keyboard is automatically without looking at it.

But my wife is not so lucky. She gets me to replace keyboards every few years anyway. So even if I had a mechanical keyboard and it lasted us, it would eventually do that and I'd have to replace it anyway.

I'd rather buy a good motherboard tbch or some other part for the money. Motherboards can last you forever, hence why I have so many parts in the back. Most of it is motherboards from the 90s and when I was in highschool.

My Keytronics keyboard has absolutely NO text worn on any key at all... some are very shiny from my fingers on them sort of polishing them I guess.

I occasionally toss out computer stuff as they are so obsolete and slow not worth bothering with. I tossed out some old ISA 386/486 stuff and hard drives under 4GB. I inherited a few computers
and need to toss them also as they are just too slow with too little memory and don't support larger hard drives.
I have 5 "extra" old computers with one ready to use as a backup the other 4 are sitting in a room waiting to be scrapped. I've scrapped a half dozen hard drives if you pull all the steel in them out the platters are aluminum and you can sell that for scrap. The boards are worth something but only when you have a truckload I will probably check the systems and take them to a computer recycler. With SSD and Flash memory cards and USB sticks hard drives under about 500GB aren't worth bothering with as "extras" these days as flash memory prices keep dropping.

 

[Neostarwcc]

My Keytronics keyboard has absolutely NO text worn on any key at all... some are very shiny from my fingers on them sort of polishing them I guess.

I occasionally toss out computer stuff as they are so obsolete and slow not worth bothering with. I tossed out some old ISA 386/486 stuff and hard drives under 4GB. I inherited a few computers
and need to toss them also as they are just too slow with too little memory and don't support larger hard drives.
I have 5 "extra" old computers with one ready to use as a backup the other 4 are sitting in a room waiting to be scrapped. I've scrapped a half dozen hard drives if you pull all the steel in them out the platters are aluminum and you can sell that for scrap. The boards are worth something but only when you have a truckload I will probably check the systems and take them to a computer recycler. With SSD and Flash memory cards and USB sticks hard drives under about 500GB aren't worth bothering with as "extras" these days as flash memory prices keep dropping.

Maybe it's all the typing I've been doing over the years? When I was a kid I sadly did nothing but play computer games all day from morning until I had to go to school and then when I came home from school until I went to bed. Half the time I never even did my homework and my mom had to harass me to get it done lol. But, yeah My parents never really set curfews on my sister or I so my sister would talk on the phone for God knows how long and I would be on the computer using up our telephone line using the internet lol. It wasn't until about eight years ago that I cut down a bit. Then I met my wife and all she wants to do is play games all day too. *sigh*. I can't win lol. I put curfews on us though because I don't want to go into the same lifestyle. There's time for God and Bible study too. And church for sure.

I have an extra computer sitting in back too. I built myself something a few years back (2019 I think?) I gave that to my wife about eight months ago and built myself something new. When PCI-E 5.0 comes out at the end of this year I'm probably going to do some revisions to my computer too. I like doing it, its a fun hobby.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Maybe it's all the typing I've been doing over the years? When I was a kid I sadly did nothing but play computer games all day from morning until I had to go to school and then when I came home from school until I went to bed. Half the time I never even did my homework and my mom had to harass me to get it done lol. But, yeah My parents never really set curfews on my sister or I so my sister would talk on the phone for God knows how long and I would be on the computer using up our telephone line using the internet lol. It wasn't until about eight years ago that I cut down a bit. Then I met my wife and all she wants to do is play games all day too. *sigh*. I can't win lol. I put curfews on us though because I don't want to go into the same lifestyle. There's time for God and Bible study too. And church for sure.

I have an extra computer sitting in back too. I built myself something a few years back (2019 I think?) I gave that to my wife about eight months ago and built myself something new. When PCI-E 5.0 comes out at the end of this year I'm probably going to do some revisions to my computer too. I like doing it, its a fun hobby.

I typed a lot of the past 30 years which is how old my keyboard is. I have two adapters on it a din5 to ps/2 and ps/2 to USB. My keyboard doesn't even have a "windows" key on it. I find the talk about women liking to play computer games funny. I remember when I built my first PC I had a commodore 128 and when I was living at home mom would sneak up at night and play pacman and bubble bobble on it. When I built my second pc I upgraded my first one and passed down parts to the second one and then I built my dad a computer and he said to me " I didn't buy this to play games on". Mom would get on his computer at night and I put games on it for her and she would play all night while he was asleep. About 8 months later after I upgraded his computer some he decided he would "try" a game and he got hooked and mom would complain that all he did was play games... LOL
I built my computers to play games up till this one then I came on hard times and haven't upgraded in a long time this one is way overdo to be retired but I cannot afford to do it and it is so old it isn't worth upgrading parts on it at all. I could probably run win10 on it but would want to consider adding 4 more GB of ram (max is 8GB).
I will probably have to either buy one that is made to my specs or research for about 3-6 months to catch up on the latest tech there is like SSD and PCI-E hard drives and the latest I/O busses etc. plus which parts are the best for me. I go for performance AND rock solid reliability usually I got about 1 notch below the top of the charts so I don't have to upgrade for at least 5-8 years.

 

[Sketcher]

Or another thing that happens with keyboards. After a few years of use the keys rub off and you can't see what key you're pressing. Doesn't effect me because I've known how to type since I was seven and I know where every key on the keyboard is automatically without looking at it.

But my wife is not so lucky. She gets me to replace keyboards every few years anyway. So even if I had a mechanical keyboard and it lasted us, it would eventually do that and I'd have to replace it anyway.

Not if you got one with double-shot keycaps. Let's say you have a black keycap with a white letter. With double-shot, there is a white component with the letter raised up, and a black component with a hole for the letter, and they are bonded together. The letter will not naturally rub off, and the top of the keycap is so smooth, you wouldn't know that it's two pieces.

 

[Neostarwcc]

I typed a lot of the past 30 years which is how old my keyboard is. I have two adapters on it a din5 to ps/2 and ps/2 to USB. My keyboard doesn't even have a "windows" key on it. I find the talk about women liking to play computer games funny. I remember when I built my first PC I had a commodore 128 and when I was living at home mom would sneak up at night and play pacman and bubble bobble on it. When I built my second pc I upgraded my first one and passed down parts to the second one and then I built my dad a computer and he said to me " I didn't buy this to play games on". Mom would get on his computer at night and I put games on it for her and she would play all night while he was asleep. About 8 months later after I upgraded his computer some he decided he would "try" a game and he got hooked and mom would complain that all he did was play games... LOL
I built my computers to play games up till this one then I came on hard times and haven't upgraded in a long time this one is way overdo to be retired but I cannot afford to do it and it is so old it isn't worth upgrading parts on it at all. I could probably run win10 on it but would want to consider adding 4 more GB of ram (max is 8GB).
I will probably have to either buy one that is made to my specs or research for about 3-6 months to catch up on the latest tech there is like SSD and PCI-E hard drives and the latest I/O busses etc. plus which parts are the best for me. I go for performance AND rock solid reliability usually I got about 1 notch below the top of the charts so I don't have to upgrade for at least 5-8 years.

Wow yeah that is old I think my windows 3.1 keyboard had a windows key on it, I cannot remember it was so many years ago. I have no clue then.

 

[Neostarwcc]

Not if you got one with double-shot keycaps. Let's say you have a black keycap with a white letter. With double-shot, there is a white component with the letter raised up, and a black component with a hole for the letter, and they are bonded together. The letter will not naturally rub off, and the top of the keycap is so smooth, you wouldn't know that it's two pieces.

Oh didn't know those existed.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Oh didn't know those existed.

Me neither. I'm not sure why the text on my keyboard has never worn at all and I've got 30 years of use from it
and I type up to 60wpm so it has probably had 10s of millions of letters typed on it.

 

[Tom 1]

I used one a few times. My first one lasted me about a year because it was getting messy so I destroyed it by trying to clean it. Sadly, I thought it was a good idea that buy another $149.99 keyboard and I forget what happened to that one but it didn't last very long as well. I didn't really understand why I was sinking so much money into a popular fad that to me, made virtually no difference at all. I think they were Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2013 Stealth edition keyboards. If I ever want to buy a mechanical keyboard again, I like ASUS's new Mechanical Keyboard, it looks nice and looks like it'd last a long time.


I'll buy a $60 mouse, or an expensive motherboard or anything practical but I won't buy an expensive keyboard. A lot of times the cheap $5 keyboards that I use last me for 3-4 years before I have to replace them anyway. And I have over 50 of them in the back of my trailer (I paid $300 or so for over 100 keyboards and mouses and I bought them to resale, sold all the mouses and about 60 keyboards made about four hundred bucks off of them or so and stuck the rest in storage so that I'll have keyboards for as long as USB exists. Sometimes my parents or my sister need a keyboard or a mouse too and that way I just have one in the back for them.)

Were there any real advantages to using a mechanical keyboard? What are they like for high volume typing? Thanks.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Were there any real advantages to using a mechanical keyboard? What are they like for high volume typing? Thanks.

I've used some in the past long ago when there were no PCs typing on terminals. Most of the mechanical keyboards I used were clicky (noise) models and they all had sort of positive feedback, that is when you pressed a key you felt it "clunk" when it was pressed far enough to transmit the letter to the keyboard buffer.
I think that for those who are used to them they are fine, but non mechanical keyboards differ in the "feel" and feedback, some have clicking keys some not and some have lighter action.
The huge advantage to mechanical keyboards is reliability and also (I think) you can repair them while most keyboards when one key goes bad you end up tossing it.
I think the action on a mechanical keyboard is likely easier than a lot of electronic typewriters of the time they were king and people did fine with both. My keyboard isn't mechanical but the construction is such that it may outlast me as the action hasn't changed over the decades all of the keys that I've used more often seem no less easy to press than those keys I rarely use unlike cheaper keyboards that over time some keys get softer and you have to press harder to get the worn out keys to work.
I think that it likely is easier to find a working mechanical keyboard than an old one like mine. I have an updated model of my keyboard that is programmable to a certain extent using a windows 3 driver that feels spongy compared to the one I use. I also have newer made in Mexico keyboards that don't have the heavy metal plate in them that feel cheaper (action). I think the major problem is people that get into what I call disposable keyboards end up with inconsistent quality and action from them as they work good when new and in time start to "feel" worn out and that each new generation made that is cheap, gets no better. I paid $50 for my keyboard and it retailed for about $79 back at that time, few carried the brand locally you had to either mail order it and pay shipping and fees for payment on delivery (back then credit cards were hard to get).
If this keyboard ever goes south I would probably use one of my cheaper ones instead of buying a new cheap one as likely the quality of them is higher than todays throwaway keyboards.
I don't think that I (personally) would want to spend over $100 for a mechanical keyboard but I don't use my keyboard for a living, if I were using my keyboard for a living investing in a nicer one would be justified.

 

[Tom 1]

I've used some in the past long ago when there were no PCs typing on terminals. Most of the mechanical keyboards I used were clicky (noise) models and they all had sort of positive feedback, that is when you pressed a key you felt it "clunk" when it was pressed far enough to transmit the letter to the keyboard buffer.
I think that for those who are used to them they are fine, but non mechanical keyboards differ in the "feel" and feedback, some have clicking keys some not and some have lighter action.
The huge advantage to mechanical keyboards is reliability and also (I think) you can repair them while most keyboards when one key goes bad you end up tossing it.
I think the action on a mechanical keyboard is likely easier than a lot of electronic typewriters of the time they were king and people did fine with both. My keyboard isn't mechanical but the construction is such that it may outlast me as the action hasn't changed over the decades all of the keys that I've used more often seem no less easy to press than those keys I rarely use unlike cheaper keyboards that over time some keys get softer and you have to press harder to get the worn out keys to work.
I think that it likely is easier to find a working mechanical keyboard than an old one like mine. I have an updated model of my keyboard that is programmable to a certain extent using a windows 3 driver that feels spongy compared to the one I use. I also have newer made in Mexico keyboards that don't have the heavy metal plate in them that feel cheaper (action). I think the major problem is people that get into what I call disposable keyboards end up with inconsistent quality and action from them as they work good when new and in time start to "feel" worn out and that each new generation made that is cheap, gets no better. I paid $50 for my keyboard and it retailed for about $79 back at that time, few carried the brand locally you had to either mail order it and pay shipping and fees for payment on delivery (back then credit cards were hard to get).
If this keyboard ever goes south I would probably use one of my cheaper ones instead of buying a new cheap one as likely the quality of them is higher than todays throwaway keyboards.
I don't think that I (personally) would want to spend over $100 for a mechanical keyboard but I don't use my keyboard for a living, if I were using my keyboard for a living investing in a nicer one would be justified.

I have a mini Mac keyboard and a couple of Logitech/Dell ones. I’ve had all of them for years. I did try out a mechanical one but there was something wrong with it so it went back. I don’t think I’ll bother with another one, I just wondered if there was anything particularly great about using one. Thanks for the info.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I have a mini Mac keyboard and a couple of Logitech/Dell ones. I’ve had all of them for years. I did try out a mechanical one but there was something wrong with it so it went back. I don’t think I’ll bother with another one, I just wondered if there was anything particularly great about using one. Thanks for the info.

Nothing great about them other than reliable consistent action. If you have a keyboard that is decent quality that you can count on for the next 5-10 years I wouldn't bother with one. Those who can type in excess of 100wpm may profit more off a mechanical one that someone that types half that rate and not excessively.
Most of the mechanical keyboards I've ever used were all clicky ones and after awhile the noise irritates me. I prefer non clicky keyboards, I even turn off the beep key noise on my microwave oven and other devices as at times I want quiet not.... CLICKETY CLACK CLUCK or BEEPITY BOOP BOP

 

[Lost4words]

Mine must be a mechanical keyboard as the keys just fit my paws!

 

[Sophrosyne]

View attachment 297162
Mine must be a mechanical keyboard as the keys just fit my paws!

Must be a media player keyboard as it has a paws key on it.

 

[Lost4words]

Must be a media player keyboard as it has a paws key on it.

Took me quite some time to stop typing woof!

 

[Sketcher]

Were there any real advantages to using a mechanical keyboard? What are they like for high volume typing? Thanks.

I haven't used the new one I helped obtain at length, it was just a quick test. Based on that quick test, I would say that even with the heavier Cherry MX Black switches, you need a lighter touch because they register the letters well before they bottom out. That's one thing that trying out the switch tester didn't simulate too well, you know how the key feels, but you don't know when the keystroke will register when you are testing a linear switch like the Black or the Red (also from Cherry).

If you do a search for "Cherry MX switch comparison" you should get some decent articles comparing linear, tactile, and clicky switches. They're all different. I did the smart thing and got a switch tester for Cherry switches before I got the keyboard, so those who would be using it would find out what's best for them before we committed to buying a $100+ keyboard. Good thing I did too, because people hype the Brown switches but I turned out to not be very impressed with them. Every person is different, so trying before buying is a good idea.

 

[Sophrosyne]

Took me quite some time to stop typing woof!

Use your nose instead of your paws, that way instead of touch typing you can smell type.

 

[Sophrosyne]

I haven't used the new one I helped obtain at length, it was just a quick test. Based on that quick test, I would say that even with the heavier Cherry MX Black switches, you need a lighter touch because they register the letters well before they bottom out. That's one thing that trying out the switch tester didn't simulate too well, you know how the key feels, but you don't know when the keystroke will register when you are testing a linear switch like the Black or the Red (also from Cherry).

If you do a search for "Cherry MX switch comparison" you should get some decent articles comparing linear, tactile, and clicky switches. They're all different. I did the smart thing and got a switch tester for Cherry switches before I got the keyboard, so those who would be using it would find out what's best for them before we committed to buying a $100+ keyboard. Good thing I did too, because people hype the Brown switches but I turned out to not be very impressed with them. Every person is different, so trying before buying is a good idea.

Yeah I forgot about that mention of pressure switch differences on mechanical keyboards but my guess is that most experienced typists can adjust to it although it may take some time to do so.
I think my keyboard requires more pressure than cheap throwaway keyboards do, perhaps that is why it has lasted this long without the keys going "soft.

 

[Lost4words]

Use your nose instead of your paws, that way instead of touch typing you can smell type.

I tried that but, the keys ended up all gooey

 

[Sophrosyne]

I tried that but, the keys ended up all gooey

you need to get a keyboard cover then