if the IBM Model M is the Cadillac of keyboards, then what’s the Ford Pinto of keyboards?
@foone@digipres.club the Atari 400 keyboard.
@foone@digipres.club
The PCjr infrared keyboard.
@foone@digipres.club I want to say the 2017-era macbook pro keyboards, but, really, the Atari 400 took the cake for me. Such a bad keyboard.
@foone@digipres.club that butterfly laptop keyboard that Apple put in laptops?
@foone@digipres.club the v1 USB Kinesis Advantage. glitchy firmware with modifiers that stick, also was ported to USB by whacking a PS2 converter on top
@foone@digipres.club, these. They are made of hate.
@foone@digipres.club The original IBM chicklet keyboard. IBM recalled those, iirc
it took TWO MINUTES for someone (@Loosf@yiff.life) to nominate the keyboard I was thinking of
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life not a blister-board. But the switches in the ti99-4a at least the one I still have feel fucking awful even after i clean the hell out of them and re-lubbed them.
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life To be fair, that’s actually the Sinclair C5 (not Ford Pinto) of keyboards. 🙂
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life Now you’re just harshing on the Pinto.
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life Hey now that’s my childhood there
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life unsafe at any baud rate?
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life Or this modern iteration of it.
Hits all the same notes:
- impossibility of touch typing
- lack of tactile feedback
- vagueness of active areas
- fingertip nerve damage
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life
if you had the 16KB RAM pack attached (in the back) and pressed the keyboard too hard, the computer could wobble and momentarily disconnect from the RAM pack – all your code&data could be gone in an instant.
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life That and the Atari 400 are definitely worthy nominees, but my vote has to go to the TRS-80 Model 1 keyboard wwwittthouutt tttthhhee deeebouuuncccee ccccirrccuuiitt.
@foone@digipres.club @Loosf@yiff.life oh yeah. first computer I owned. that keyboard was so bad and eventually died.
@foone@digipres.club when I was a kid, there was a guy in my home town who’d dropped a V8 into a Pinto. It was an infamous sleeper that nobody ever wanted to race against twice. Tiny car, huge engine. Unsafe at any speed, but especially at extreme speeds. I know this wasn’t the assignment, but I can’t see “Pinto” without thinking of that ugly little rocket bean.
@foone@digipres.club The Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic has something like 2.5 key rollover, on a good day. It drops keypresses when I try to type something like “df -h” too quickly.
I guess rollover problems make it the 1990s Ford Explorer with Firestone tires, of keyboards?
@foone@digipres.club early butterfly keyboard mechanisms on Macbooks, slight grime and it is not registering key presses
@foone@digipres.club Dell Quietkey keyboard
@foone@digipres.club EVERY KEYBOARD MASS PRODUCED TODAY.
@foone@digipres.club this https://www.amazon.com/Silicone-Keyboard-Lightweight-Portable-Waterproof/dp/B09MTP34BP
@foone@digipres.club the harpsichord?
