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… and page 5. I’m on fifteen or sixteen, but I’ve actually skipped over like page nine or ten, so if we catch up before I actually draw that, there might be a break. “Wolf Manor” in the background of the last panel is based off of Roble Hall.
But today’s post is once again about clicky keyboards.
I seem to have suddenly acquired a small collection (four – apparently four is the lower end of “collection” for me) of clicky keyboards after my recent acquisition of a “Siig MiniTouch”. I happened to be in the scrap room at work and chanced upon this thing in one of the many bins of not bar-coded junk (read: generally free for the taking) being discarded and took it home. I looked it up to see what it was worth, and apparently it’s pretty legit as far as modern clicky keyboards go (It’s just occurred to me that Firefox doesn’t actually like my spelling of “clicky”).
I like this keyboard because it’s clicky (obviously), but also because it’s a “space saver” kind of keyboard, and not the full-size battleships that my three other clicky keyboards have been. I prefer the lack of a number pad… because I don’t use it. The Siig also uses switches that have a “sharper” click to them, though they seem to be a bit cheaper. I wish I could be more descriptive about the feel of the keyboard, but I’m not quite a connoisseur.There’s some weird key placements here and there, but nothing stranger than anything I’ve seen on some notebook keyboards.
It’s interesting that the control key is in the same place as that of my X200T… score one for standardization. Or something.
The last clicky keyboard I picked up from scrap was a less useful [i]Sony[/i] branded device (yeah, of all brands). The feel of the keys is somewhere between the the feeling of the Siig and the standard Model M, but the Japanese key layout kills it for me. I used it for like a month with a couple key re-mappings, but I can’t get over the puny, puny spacebar and the tall enter key. I don’t know how these foreign people get off with these strange keyboard layouts…
This keyboard actually still has the old AT connector of really really old computers. It works with PS/2 with just a socket adapter, though.
The second item in this “collection” (and yes, I’m going backwards chronological here) is the classic Model M. The is not quite the one I talked about in d171, but similar. The first one I bought was made by Lexmark in 1995, this one was actually made by IBM in 1988. They feel the same, though. I bought the older one because I had hoped that it would feel the same as the older Model F (mentioned in d171; there’s no Wiki article for me to link, sadly), but it didn’t.
This has been my main keyboard pretty much since d171, but the Siig might replace it if I’m not too bothered by the strange key layout.
And of course, there’s the Model F itself, which goes all the way back to the original IBM PC. Yes, I do have the original Model 5150 that came with it (yes, the computer came with the keyboard, the keyboard didn’t come with the computer), but sadly, it doesn’t work, so I’ve never actually been able to use the Model F to type anything. What I’m really looking for is a Model F that works with PS/2, but apparently they’re exceedingly rare, and I’m never seen one on eBay for less than $100.
I might pay $100, though. Maybe.
The other keyboard in my “collection” isn’t clicky. It’s an Apple Pro Keyboard (M7803) (not my pic).
