Stop what you're doing, and look down ....
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Acer laptop keyboard. It's seen me through ancient Egypt, Mexico, Persia, and Europe, in Serious Sam, it's been with me through 3 grades of high school, it helped me fight the Combine, and helped me blow some shit up. Wonderful, and quiet.
EDIT: Oh, and a broken down key. Yep. Too much wikipedia reading.
EDIT: Oh, and a broken down key. Yep. Too much wikipedia reading.
I'm on my trusty Acer Aspire, the first laptop I've ever bought for myself. I've nicknamed her Elizabeth. She's gotten me through rough times, and hopefully, she will continue to do so until she becomes entirely useless or obsolete.
Her keyboard is soft, but very tactile, a cross between a standard keyboard and a chiclet affair you'd find on a MacBook. Very comfortable to type, and even more so since they keys are all worn in. Very little flex, and they keys make just the right amount of noise when you strike them. She's been with me through many a night of Team Fortress 2, so many days upon days of Minecraft, and she's even helped me to write several important papers for school. In between sessions of StarCraft II. Plus it has a number pad!
No, for serious though, it's something that a lot of us take for granted. There will come a day when physical keyboards no longer exist, or our current keyboards are no longer compatible with the next generation of computers. That will be a sad day.
Her keyboard is soft, but very tactile, a cross between a standard keyboard and a chiclet affair you'd find on a MacBook. Very comfortable to type, and even more so since they keys are all worn in. Very little flex, and they keys make just the right amount of noise when you strike them. She's been with me through many a night of Team Fortress 2, so many days upon days of Minecraft, and she's even helped me to write several important papers for school. In between sessions of StarCraft II. Plus it has a number pad!
No, for serious though, it's something that a lot of us take for granted. There will come a day when physical keyboards no longer exist, or our current keyboards are no longer compatible with the next generation of computers. That will be a sad day.
Laptop. No numberpad.
And to use the function keys, I have to hold down the Fn button as well...which makes Ctrl+F8, say, a pain.
And to use the function keys, I have to hold down the Fn button as well...which makes Ctrl+F8, say, a pain.
It's just the one that came with my computer when I bought it last year. It's an HP Haventgotafuckenclue. I am thinking about getting the Old Republic keyboard [http://www.razerzone.com/swtor/keyboard] later on. It does look pretty sweet. I probably won't though. And yes, I am getting that game which is why I am thinking about it. Gonna get my first hands on experience with it tomorrow.
Wow. A tribute to your keyboard. That's definitely a new one lol!
Right now I'm on the Logitech Easycall wireless mouse and keyboard, at work. Used them at home till I bought a Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard - which is freaking awesome! I highly recommend it as a very good and inexpensive gaming keyboard. It has amazing feel and programmable macros, and a removable numpad which can double as a huge macro pad. I also replaced the mouse with a Cooler Master Sentinel Z3RO-G, which is also bad ass and inexpensive
I'm not a fan of putting stickers on my stuff. Only stickers I really have are my hardware ones like Intel, Sapphire, Corsair, etc, on my case.
Right now I'm on the Logitech Easycall wireless mouse and keyboard, at work. Used them at home till I bought a Microsoft Sidewinder X6 keyboard - which is freaking awesome! I highly recommend it as a very good and inexpensive gaming keyboard. It has amazing feel and programmable macros, and a removable numpad which can double as a huge macro pad. I also replaced the mouse with a Cooler Master Sentinel Z3RO-G, which is also bad ass and inexpensive
I'm not a fan of putting stickers on my stuff. Only stickers I really have are my hardware ones like Intel, Sapphire, Corsair, etc, on my case.
My 8 year-old Logitech wireless Elite; I can't wait to get rid of it, and yet I can't find a suitable substitute. What the fuck is with keyboard design, anyway? Media keys are supposed to be EASIER and QUICKER to use than doing things normally, so why does everyone make the useful ones tiny and put them on the wrong side of the board? Or do retarded things like Saitek using buttons for volume control and an analog dial to adjust the coloured backlight. My Logitech has four enormous Play/Pause, Skip and Stop buttons with a volume dial and a mute button right in the middle, friggin' perfect.
Screw this, I'm getting a mechanical with MX Browns, if I can find one.
Screw this, I'm getting a mechanical with MX Browns, if I can find one.
A Model M? I miss my parents' old one.The Floating Nose said:
Well, this is my HP laptop keyboard.
We only met a few months ago, but we're getting along quite well, and we make a great team together in TF2.
We only met a few months ago, but we're getting along quite well, and we make a great team together in TF2.
Mine is just a fresh friendship. Somewhat filled with jealousy.
My older laptop broke and thus this new friend entered my life, but he and I both know that there is another keyboard I spend time on.
More time, in fact, then on my newest friend.
He says he's okay with it, but I still sense a feeling of distrust towards my desktop keyboard.
I hope they get along in the future.
My older laptop broke and thus this new friend entered my life, but he and I both know that there is another keyboard I spend time on.
More time, in fact, then on my newest friend.
He says he's okay with it, but I still sense a feeling of distrust towards my desktop keyboard.
I hope they get along in the future.
Right now I'm on a work computer. The keyboard is a standard qwerty from Dell. Functional, no sense of ergonomics at all, and lacking almost entirely in grace or style. We have not crossed expanses together, nor have we battled armies or fought for our souls.
We have pounded out reports, examined statistics, marketed students.
And skived off to post on the Escapist.
We have pounded out reports, examined statistics, marketed students.
And skived off to post on the Escapist.
Yes, the keyboard. It helps us type our hearts and souls out to the internet which will promptly be shut down by a casual 'lol noob.' I love keyboards of all kinds, even the ones with the rubber mats over them so nothing can be spilled into it, but you have to press down much harder for the key to respond and it doesn't do the clicky noises I so love in computers.
I have a Logitech Classic 200, which is pretty good for something you can find for $20. But after a few years, it's not really in the greatest shape.
So I am thinking of getting something more high-end next, like an Unicomp. Nothing full of extra buttons and LCD screens or whatever, I don't want any of that junk. Unicomp's babies are the successors to IBM's renowned Model M line: they're built like tanks, and the buckling spring mechanism means that typing on them feels like using an electric typewriter.
So I am thinking of getting something more high-end next, like an Unicomp. Nothing full of extra buttons and LCD screens or whatever, I don't want any of that junk. Unicomp's babies are the successors to IBM's renowned Model M line: they're built like tanks, and the buckling spring mechanism means that typing on them feels like using an electric typewriter.
Hmm. This all depends where I "pretend" to be...
Here, at the work desk? Some random thing... (*flips it over*) ...that turns out to be a Belkin Classic. It's not too bad. Full size, good key travel, reasonably solid, matt black. An absolutely ISO standard 21st century computer keyboard. Got a sticker from a Braeburn apple on one side, a smiley face made out of blu-tac on the other. If it was to break, I wouldn't be too bothered, but I'd be a little dismayed to get one of the more usual lightweight budget POSes that infest this place in return.
At the work desk, yesterday? A succession of "Trust" brand wireless keyboards and mice I was testing for use elsewhere on site. They're cheap flimsy crap, but they work well enough (well, at least, most do - one of them really shouldn't have passed QC, but it's still usable for what we have in mind) and have a good range. Apparently they were very cheap for the spec. I may look into ordering a "spare" for when my laptop finally gets replaced and relegated to the status of a behind-the-TV media server.
At home? The one built into my HP TC4200. It's reasonably good for a laptop. Solid keycaps with good travel - even though the thing will do Jobs' famous "envelope trick" when closed. Good positioning of the cursor keys, but poor layout of the edit group (six in a line instead of 2x3) and needlessly thin F-keys. It's seen a lot of abuse and still works fine, though. The quality of it was in fact one of the deciding factors in which laptop I chose out of a shortlist of about 3 or 4. That and the wacom digitiser screen... which proved to have a rather fragile and expensive pen (the pen alone costing more than a similar sized non-LCD graphics tablet), so i've just stuck to keyboard and trackpad after the second one broke.
On the go with my phone? Touchscreen, set up to use the 2-chars-per-key blackberry thumbpad type arrangement. It works surprisingly well... at least until it yet again gets confused between "but" and "bit", or "by" and "nt". Can still get a much faster and accurate result with it than the qwerty or numpad alternatives though. Haptic feedback helps!
Six years in the past or having a nostalgic moment? A 1987 vintage IBM-AT clone board (not clicky, but otherwise as beige, expansive, heavyweight and lacking in Winkeys as you could want) hooked up through a cascade of AT-PS2 and PS2-USB converters to my old desktop PC (which hardly got used after I bought the "new" laptop) and a fairly standard late-90s affair on the ancient lappy I was using at the time, which wasn't so great on reflection... Nowhere near as much wrist support as is necessary (the new one had the same footprint but much better ergonomics) and the trackpad buttons kept getting knocked by stuff as they were right on the edge of the case.
Still got both of them squirrelled away somewhere. The desktop board I'll probably never get rid of, just attach it to successively more anachronistic systems, because it's too cool to lose. The old laptop similar (I paid £40 for it and will lose money on the deal if I ever sell it on), but only use it with an external board (possibly that one?) for playing retro games on a big screen (not its internal boggo-VGA) without the need of DOSbox.
Here, at the work desk? Some random thing... (*flips it over*) ...that turns out to be a Belkin Classic. It's not too bad. Full size, good key travel, reasonably solid, matt black. An absolutely ISO standard 21st century computer keyboard. Got a sticker from a Braeburn apple on one side, a smiley face made out of blu-tac on the other. If it was to break, I wouldn't be too bothered, but I'd be a little dismayed to get one of the more usual lightweight budget POSes that infest this place in return.
At the work desk, yesterday? A succession of "Trust" brand wireless keyboards and mice I was testing for use elsewhere on site. They're cheap flimsy crap, but they work well enough (well, at least, most do - one of them really shouldn't have passed QC, but it's still usable for what we have in mind) and have a good range. Apparently they were very cheap for the spec. I may look into ordering a "spare" for when my laptop finally gets replaced and relegated to the status of a behind-the-TV media server.
At home? The one built into my HP TC4200. It's reasonably good for a laptop. Solid keycaps with good travel - even though the thing will do Jobs' famous "envelope trick" when closed. Good positioning of the cursor keys, but poor layout of the edit group (six in a line instead of 2x3) and needlessly thin F-keys. It's seen a lot of abuse and still works fine, though. The quality of it was in fact one of the deciding factors in which laptop I chose out of a shortlist of about 3 or 4. That and the wacom digitiser screen... which proved to have a rather fragile and expensive pen (the pen alone costing more than a similar sized non-LCD graphics tablet), so i've just stuck to keyboard and trackpad after the second one broke.
On the go with my phone? Touchscreen, set up to use the 2-chars-per-key blackberry thumbpad type arrangement. It works surprisingly well... at least until it yet again gets confused between "but" and "bit", or "by" and "nt". Can still get a much faster and accurate result with it than the qwerty or numpad alternatives though. Haptic feedback helps!
Six years in the past or having a nostalgic moment? A 1987 vintage IBM-AT clone board (not clicky, but otherwise as beige, expansive, heavyweight and lacking in Winkeys as you could want) hooked up through a cascade of AT-PS2 and PS2-USB converters to my old desktop PC (which hardly got used after I bought the "new" laptop) and a fairly standard late-90s affair on the ancient lappy I was using at the time, which wasn't so great on reflection... Nowhere near as much wrist support as is necessary (the new one had the same footprint but much better ergonomics) and the trackpad buttons kept getting knocked by stuff as they were right on the edge of the case.
Still got both of them squirrelled away somewhere. The desktop board I'll probably never get rid of, just attach it to successively more anachronistic systems, because it's too cool to lose. The old laptop similar (I paid £40 for it and will lose money on the deal if I ever sell it on), but only use it with an external board (possibly that one?) for playing retro games on a big screen (not its internal boggo-VGA) without the need of DOSbox.
If I ever lose the aforementioned old soldier, I'm so replacing it with one of those or the modern remake you mention...Rodrigo Girao said:
I'm using a cheapo Logitech MK250 wireless keyboard with mathcing wireless mouse. Mostly because I use my 32" TV screen as a computer monitor and I sit way back from it, so I needed a little more... reach. They do the trick and I hardly ever have to change the batteries, which was always my gripe with the flashy and more expensive types.
My laptop has it's own keyboard attached too it, fancy that.
It was mostly my deciding factor when it comes to which laptop I should buy after specs, I'm pretty picky when it comes to how my keyboard functions and I have certain requirements like completely flat keys for one.
It was mostly my deciding factor when it comes to which laptop I should buy after specs, I'm pretty picky when it comes to how my keyboard functions and I have certain requirements like completely flat keys for one.
Every time that I look down I am reminded of my mistake: going with a Razer( read Microsoft) keyboard instead of the sweet ass Logitech G-whatever.