Photo for illustration purposes only, this ain’t my nasty skanky-ho keyboard
Hi, I’m Rob Manuel and I’ve got a problem with keyboards. A big fucking problem. I can bore for hours on the subject, and so in the small hope that the magic of the internet will get my message to keyboard designers, here’s my rant. Hold onto your hat, it’s going to be a rough ride.
1. Numlock
What is the fucking point of numlock? Why would I ever want to use the numeric keypad as a cursor? Yes I imagine it’s some kind of gay backwards compatibility thing, but it’s just a pain in the arse. The only time I ever press it is by accident and then wonder why the number keys have stopped working.
2. Capslock
Apparently capslock was considered quite useful on typewriters. Probably because TYPING IN CAPS WAS THE ONLY WAY TO DO EMPHASIS. But we have bold now, and the only people who type in caps are the modern green-inkers who send me loony emails about their cats.
Again, it’s a key I press only by accident, normally when filling in a username / password thing, and using tab to change the form focus, missing and end-up adding robmanuelBADGERSEX to the auto-complete. Gah.
Although recently I have found a setting in the control panel to disable the damn thing. Which made me as happy as a pig in shit.
3. Multimedia keys
All those fucking keys at the top of the keyboard. They’re never built like proper keys and always look shoddy and plasticy.
But my problem is more than aesthetics. It’s standardisation. Every last damn keyboard manufacturer has a different idea of what these keys should be doing.
Hence I don’t bother using them as I swap machines a lot between home and offices and don’t want to have conflicting and non-standard keyboard information in my brain. I don’t want to on another PC and automatically stabbing the messenger button, to find it’s opened some shitty sales portal.
And the corporate ego of it all! My old HP keyboard had a internet button that opened the bloody hp.com homepage. What use is that to man or beast? I’ve already bought an HP computer; I don’t need to buy a second.
4. US keyboards
Oh jesus pillocking shit. Who thought it was a good idea to make English and American keyboards different. We speak the same bloody language for gods sake. It’s not like we need a load of twirly umlauts on the keys. The crucial and mind-boggling shit variation is the enter key. On the UK version is nice and large and shaped like an upside down Tetris L brick. The shape is distinctive to the touch and you can easily find it by feel in poor light conditions.
In USA the key is roughly the same shape as the backspace key, with the saved space being used for the backslash / pipe key. Duh, now that’s a brilliant idea isn’t it? Because normal PC operation uses those characters all the time. Probably a hang-over from DOS when your computer was controlled by an arcane series of cryptic symbols. Or small donkeys, I forget now.
5. Colour
Why colour a keyboard cream? Because the manufactures want it to get dirty and you have to buy a new one every three months? Wired magazine once memorably described the gunk as “keyboard plaque”, but the state of some keyboards I’ve seen, it’s more like “keyboard AIDS.” There should be a law that makes all keyboards black. Well, unless you’re a Steve Jobs acolyte and think white keyboards where every bastard button looks like the other is a good idea.
6. Volume control mute
Now, the volume control is one of the few keyboard advancements of recent years that’s a good idea. Using a PC has become a noisy activity, but sometimes you need to answer the phone and being able to quickly hit mute without fiddling with the mouse rocks.
But the small problem is that the mute key often works after the PC is fully booted, meaning that the system “whoosh” noise will play regardless.
Which means using my laptop late at night can wake my family. I’ve taken to keeping an old pair of broken headphones handy so that I can push the jack into the speaker socket and re-route the nasty noises.
7. Sleep button
I’m highly suspicious of the sleep button. In principle it’s great, but I had such a bad experience with the sleep mode crashing the PC and losing my work that I don’t trust it. At least on the recent Microsoft keyboards it’s in the far right corner and difficult to hit by accident. On my old HP keyboard it was place just above the ESC key and I’d hit it when trying to stop a webpage loading, and then go “Argh! My PC is going to die! Don’t die, little computer.”
8. Non-standard insert block
The Microsoft keyboard design team are clearly back on the crack pipe. First they made the insane “natural” keyboard that split the keyboard into two chunks for touch typists. And secondly they’ve recently re-designed the insert block.
Why? All it means is I’m constantly pressing the wrong keys when I try and navigate documents via pagedown and home keys.
I’m sure they did some lovely usability study and worked out it was more efficient or something, but for fucks sake, don’t muck with the standards. I know how to use the old one and don’t want to learn a new one. Haven’t you learnt anything from those crappy Dvorak keyboards that attempted to persuade people to abandon qwerty?
9. Legs
What is the point of giving a keyboard legs? Yes keyboards are more pleasant to type on with a small tilt, so why not simply make the keyboard shaped like a wedge of cheese? It’s a particular sore point for me as I’ve thrown away perfectly good keyboards after accidentally snapping one of the pathetic spindly plastic legs.
10. Function keys
Grr. Another Microsoft “innovation.” On recent keyboards they’ve move the function keys from blocks of four to blocks of three. I can see what they’re trying to achieve here. Visually three is a better shape to help aid the memory: something is either on the left, the middle or the right. However, again this move away from standards results in me pressing the wrong key. For example I regularly press F5 to refresh an internet page, which my brain has hard-wired to know it’s the first key of the second block. Microsoft has moved it to the second key of the second block, hence I now keep keep pressing F4 and wonder why nothing is happening.
… 2 Bonus reasons, there’s no stopping now …
11. F Lock
Oh damn your eyes Microsoft. Is nothing sacred any more? You’re taking my function keys and replacing them with some bollocks about “New, Open and Close”? Ok, the F Lock turns all this off and it stays off which in theory is fine. Except they’ve made the (rather useful for screen grabs) PrtScn key only work whilst F Lock is off. Hence to grab a screen now I have to press three keys instead of one. Nice one, you bunch of keyboard bastards.
12. Wireless
What’s this obsession with making everything wireless? Yes having your laptop connecting to the internet whilst you take a dump in the bog is one of the marvels of the technological age. However we don’t need wireless keyboards on the desktop. I recently was nosing around PC world and except for a shitty £5.00 made of crap thing, that’s all they were selling.
For fucks sake. It’s not an innovation to stick batteries in a keyboard. It’s a pain in the anus. I don’t want to stop typing because my keyboard is out of batteries, it’s just fucking insane.
End bit
Now that I’ve ranted, I really do feel much better. Carry on, as you were. Or why not look on Flickr for some kittens?
UPDATE - Hello to the Digg / Fark readers, and the other blogs linking my rant. BTW: I’ve got a book out, and it’s very rude.
You must be a superior mouser. As a pianist and a computer programmer, I avoid the mouse as much as possible because it sucks the life from my wrists. The only innovation you have listed that I could go one day without using would be the [insert] button. All of the others are essential features.
I have but one rant,
Keyboard Failure, press F1 to continue
Gates is a funny funny cnut isnt he?
To be honest I don’t know what the fuss is all about. Maybe it’s because I’ve been using computers for so long (20+ years) that I’ve gotten used to whatever quirks the keyboard had and accepted it (since I’ve started early, I’ve used computers long before the mouse appeared – my first “PC” being the TI99-4/A, whose “Function” keys were actually part of the QWERTY section and activated by a modifier key, FCTN).
1. By default I have NUMLOCK on. Ever since I’ve had to type numbers manually like a cash register (which I often did with Excel) I found it convinient to use the numeric keypad. Otherwise games like Flight Sims which often used the keypad for changing cockpit views remind me of the keypad’s other “functions”.
2. Using allcaps is useful for me as a coder. A tip I got during my Oracle PL/SQL training was that when writing code, reserved words were to be typed in all caps, leaving everything else lower case. This makes the code more readable when debugging.
3. I just ignore what I don’t need.
4. I just learned to get used to that when a bunch of British Compaq Deskpros were sent over to my office (which normally uses USA keyboards). Try using Japanese mode (which I needed when using Japanese software), where the \ key produces the Yen (¥) symbol instead (but does the same function anyway; so a directory path when in Japanese mode would look like C:¥WINDOWS¥SYSTEM32¥ for example).
5. My dad prefers cream keyboards instead of black (which I prefer by the way), because for some reason the labels on the keys of a black keyboard get erased after prolonged use (and unfortunately for him, he still hasn’t memorized the QWERTY layout; in my case the “N” key of my Logitech black wireless keyboard is already a blank key, at least I still know it’s “N” due to its location).
6. Just set your Windows Startup Sound to No Sound, or something softer or less disturbing if you need to hear that Windows started up (I don’t like the default Windows Startup sound anyway; I changed it to the sound of a girl saying “Ohayo!” [Japanese for "Good Morning"]).
7. I completely disabled sleep mode on my PC (so the Sleep button has no effect); I don’t find it that useful anyway (never trusted it ever since I’ve had PC’s that never “wake up” from sleep mode); if I want to save power I’d rather just shut down or use “Hibernation”.
8. I don’t use Microsoft Keyboards anyway (too expensive for one big reason); I prefer Logitech (for me the best keyboard in the world).
9. Ergonomics man. I find keyboards tilted towards me more comfortable to use. Keyboards laying flat give my hands an uncomfortable “stretched” feeling.
10. Rarely use them, except in games like Doom3: F5=Quicksave, F9=Quickload, F12=Take Screenshot.
11. What the heck is that? (Can’t find such key on the Logitech)
12. That’s one thing I actually have fun with. Sometimes on my cramped desk I want more legroom. So thanks to my Logitech wireless keyboard I can place it anywhere I want without the cord getting in the way. Places I’ve had my keyboard on include my lap (when I’m sitting at my desk but facing sideways with my legs free and stretched out), and on my bed (when I’m lying down on it). It’s also a good solution for my Logitech Wingman Formula Force Feedback Wheel, which takes up much desk space (and under-desk too thanks to the pedals) when I’m racing around in NFS:Underground, and a wireless keyboard can be put out of the way quite easily but still within reach to use it.
PS I also have a wireless mouse, which is also convinient for me; in fact the wireless mouse and keyboard together are one package from Logitech, with the shared receiver connecting to only 1 USB port.
With regards to the battery issue, I use NiMH rechargables with spares (so if it goes dead, I quickly change to the spares and recharge the dead ones, then repeat the cycle again; surprisingly my wireless keyboard hasn’t had its first batteries run out yet ever since I bought it more than a year ago; the mouse on the other hand had numerous battery swaps).
I think that ‘Undo’-key could be also very useful.
I agree with James… the Happy Hacking keyboards rule. (Although you do have to learn the keyboard combos for the function keys.)
I only disgaree with the CAPS LOCK key, otherwise, you are spot on the mark. Also with wireless items: the bastards should all have to be able to be plugged in to a) charge the batteries when not in use b) be able to be used when the bastards do go flat.
And fuck off the legs!!!!!! Cheese wedge chunk shaped keyboards are the way to go, which mutants type with a flat keyboard?
Here’s a key I absolutely hate. The enter key in the number pad. Whenever the damn key is unbeknownst to me pressed down by an object on my desk such as a book, it becomes a huge fucking pain in the ass to get rid of all the returns that blasted key caused.
And I would like to shoot the asshole who thought that using the spacebar to scroll down a page was a good idea. Whenever I miss clicking a type-in bar at the top of a long page and make a space, I end up being thrown halfway down the fucking page! What, scrolling with the arrow keys wasn’t good enough or something?
Also, I HATE those curved keyboards with a burning, fiery passion. I am a four-fingered typist, and I constantly miss the keys on a curved keyboard, because the one I use at home is straight. I’m glad they started to disappear, though. =D
I have a wireless keyboard and can’t say that I have ever had the batteries run out on me, and I have had it for two years. I type for at least two hours every day on it and still it keeps going. I prefer the wireless cause it allows me to easily free up space on my desk when I need to write, or eat some thing that I don’t want to end up on my keyboard. Though its not a microsoft, so perhaps that is why it is better than whatever you have had experience with.
What I hate most: TOO FUCKING SMALL ENTER KEY!
There, I didn’t even use caps lock for that!
CAPS LOCK: APPARENTLY THIS IS A COMPATIBILITY FUNCTION FOR EX-MILITARY TYPES WHO CAN’T GET OUT OF THE HABIT OF USING TELEX MACHINES – STOP
scroll lock and pause/break can fcuk right off.
I have dell laptop where the properties key is next to prtscrn.
Numlock or capslock are useful for machine crashes, but a single ‘is my machine alive’ button would do.
Did you know hospitals are now concerned about keyboard plaque as the number 1 carrier of MRSA.
and finally, if your going to put batteries in a keyboard, then the fcuking thing should have keys that light up so we can see em in the dark.
Why fscking Logitech produce some keyboard without scroll lock, which is a standard key and is needed to use a kvm switch?
It’s a standard key!!!!
Ever been using Excel and every time you press an arrow key to change cell the screen scrolls instead ?
Ever wasted 45 valuable minutes of your life looking in the Help and on the interweb trying to find out what’s gone wrong ????
Well, it turns out that at some time in the long distant past you pressed the Scroll Lock key. And on my keyboard that means 2 keys at once – Func+Scroll Lock. Hmm.
What’s with laptops with the arrow and PgUp/PgDn keys all over the place ??
I chose mine partly because the arrows are in the same arrangement as a standard keyboard (well, what used to be standard), with PgUp/PgDn above the left and right arrows. Quite sensible, sort of. My colleague’s – from the same manufacturer – has $ and € where I have PgUp/PgDn, and the latter keys are up the side of the Enter key. Why? The $ and € are already present – whoever would think they need them with such frequency as to merit dedicated keys? I can’t use his keyboard because it drives me mental.
Scroll Lock is an important key – it functions as a purely hardware key, and as such can be used to control programs running in the background when the foreground program is capturing all regular keystrokes.
F Lock wouldn’t be so annoying if it defaulted to on. Fine, you want to give me a spellcheck button. Fine. Why would I want it to be the default choice over my function keys?
Another complaint: I often keyboard in the dark. Why do they have to set the LEDs for the toggle indicators to be as bright as freaking lasers? All I need to do is be able to glance down and see if they’re on – I don’t need to be able to check from across the room, and I sure as hell don’t need to signal aircraft with them. All of my keyboards tend to end up with electrical tape across them with little slits cut in it.
Wireless, though – that’s handy. I use one of my PCs to serve music and video to my TV. Being able to hotkey media controls (or have multimedia keys) while I’m sitting on the couch watching a show is invaluable. Tapping a spacebar when the phone rings trumps having to mouse to the pause button.
[...] An intelligent rant. Food for thought. The capslock is obsolete, I guess and the Sleep button can irritate. Read it.read more | digg story [...]
with regards to caps lock, i understand its necessary with some applications but when you reply to a post or talk to someone using various software and need to SHOUT is it just me of do you feel like you are MAKING MORE OF A POINT IF YOU ARE HOLDING THE SHIFT BUTTON DOWN AND HITTING THE KEYS HARDER even thought it makes no difference to the text. Maybe its just me…
I use a screwdriver or similar implement to pop off the keys I don’t use – so long tilde key, bye bye insert key, bon voyage caps lock key.
It is much harder to accidentally hit these keys if they are in my desk drawer.
Linux is nigh useless without the | (pipe) key.
Reasonable… Most of it anyway. Most of the stuff you forgot to mention is already here, but just to reiterate:
1. Scroll Lock (who in their right mind uses that?!)
2. Pipe and slash are very useful for me since I ma running Linux. Use them all the time.
3. Please don’t let them make keyboards without legs. I will have to saw off parts of the keyboard case where right now I can just close the legs.
4. Split keyboards are an abomination. hopefully they keep making regular ones.
5. Num lock is sort of useful playing some games. Not a good reason to keep it on the keyboard I guess though. Like in those RTS games you can scroll 8 directions.
The only thing the Caps Lock is good for is when filling out forms (Is that an I or an L?) and unfortunately, it’s required for the US military. They obviously like to yell. A lot.
Won’t somebody please make a nice clacky keyboard that doesn’t cost a fortune. I miss the old IBM keyboards
you probably wont see this but just this morning i was bitching about keyboards. asking why you still have to hold down shift to get to the question mark. is forward slash really that more important? anyway.. i was bitching then i come back from lunch and find this on Digg. fate?
I know youre into standards but they need to redo some of the non QWERTY stuff on the keyboard.
LOL!
I’ve just found out that my beloved keyboard for all these years is the beloved-by-many Model M!
I’m just looooving this loud clicking now!
Pause/Break also pauses the game in AoE2
I agree with some of the other replies.
How the hell can you rant about keyboards and not mention the insert key shame, shame, shame, shame on you! If the keyboards god do indeed read your rant and never remove the damn insert key you’ll surely have done us all a disservice.
Also………….. I hate that freakin’ insert key!!
I surprised their isn’t a British Standard for keyboards there is for everthing else. I can see a potential national campaign.
i have used the UK layout now for long enough that i set my MAC to UK layout even though its a US key board…
I must say i like the USB mac keyboard (with the del key) and 2 usb ports in the back – 1 for my mouse and 1 for a USB drive or what ever…
my PC keyboard has that stupid f-lock thing.. and be default its aways off when the computer comes on – so i aways have to press it at some point – every single time i turn the damn thing on! I have NEVER used the alternative F-Key functions, i plan not to ever.
Also whats the deal with German and danish, probably plenty of others… with the @ symbol hidden by a crazy zainy secret code (something like alt+ctrl+shift+’key 3′)
Num lock is great. I started switching it off when I got a machine with a narrower keyboard that lacked the Home/PageUp/whatever block and now I use the numeric keypad pretty much all the time instead of that. It’s consistent whatever keyboard you’re on. I could never be arsed doing numbers on there – they’re above the letters for a reason – so you can reach straight up to them.
Your L-shaped return keys cause a worse problem: The tiny sized backspace key. On “American” keyboards, the backspace key is twice as big as a normal key. As it should be. On every kbd I’ve seen with an L-shaped enter key, the backspace key is tiny as a result.
I know this is completely radical, but what the hell. The “qwerty” system was supposedly devised to keep people from typing to fast. But that whole concept is so frigging archaic at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Isn’t it about time to drop it!
I agree with a lot of this rant. Most significantly all the new buttons which is totally lacking standardization.
I’ve got a few additions as well.
Stop fucking resizing the enter-key and reorganizing the block of keys with end, del, pgup, pgdw etc. When something is _really_ standardized: FOLLOW THAT STANDARD.
What I do NOT agree upon, is the flaming of of the buttons and key-combinations that is replacing known mouse-click things like “right click to get drop-down menu” etc. I use the mouse as little as possible unless I play games. To me it’s slowing med own every time I have to leave the keyboard to get to the mouse. I even navigate on my dekstop with my keyboard, and not even the most avid Quake-player can do it faster than me.
The windows-button is great, as it gives you really fast access to stuff like “run”, “show desktop”, “find files” etc. But I agree, lose the second one, we only need one of them. Don’t really understand the use of the right shift-button either. The right one is perfectily enough.
Wireless keyboards are really awesome to have if you run a home-scinema and watch stuff from your PC. Or even if you play music through it and browse using the TV from your couch. If you don’t want to stop typing because you run out of batteries, do like me, have one wireless and one with a cord.
I agree with most of what you’ve said except for the US vs. UK keyboard bit. I’ve never seen a UK keyboard, so I can’t really say anything against it. I think it’s mostly all in what you’re used to.
As far as the \ and | key goes, that one key often determines whether or not I can use the keyboard. If it’s NOT above the enter key, it can really screw me up. The backslash is used a lot in DOS (yes, yes — no rants about how it’s out of date. I don’t like it either, but sometimes there are situations where you have to use it.), and bothe the backslash and the pipe are used in the *nix shell.
My friend has a french laptop and occasionally I have to borrow it for emailing….I HATE IT. Why do you need to press shift to get a full stop? I use that much more often than ~, seems completely pointless to me.
Best keyboard I’ve used?
A now-20-years-old one that came with a 286 someone gave me. When I have the desk space, I’m going back to using it, plugged into my laptop via an insane combination of AT-to-PS2 and PS2-to-USB adaptors (also hosting a regular wheel mouse). Full size keys. Nice big travel. Firm feel but no stupid clicking noise. Proper angle to it. No stupid windows keys (I’m a man, I know how to press Ctrl-Esc or Alt-Space)… you can even swap around the positions of Ctrl and Caps if you really want to. Good stuff. Have written a lot of stuff on it already with the old (retired) desktop.
Assuming the adaptors don’t ruin the functionality, what with the USB bus being somewhere on the far side of fucking shite for HIDs such as keyboards and mice.
Second best is actually joint second between the two laptops i’ve used long-term, and probably the reason I stuck with them. Both have been 12″ form factor, but had clever enough designs to allow pretty much full desktop size (certainly no less than 90% – i have chunky fingers) and nice, deep travel, without the Function and Edit keys being impossible to find or use. All the Ctrl, Alt etc are in the right place too, so it’s still possible to do e.g. Ctrl-Right or Alt-P one-handed. Bliss.
(the current one just ekes out the old one, as the Caps and Num Lock have their own lights positioned on the actual keys, so it’s easy to tell what’s at fault if something inane is going on late at night)
So many crap keyboards in the world though. Hard to list them all. Besides the listed complaints (which are wholeheartedly agreed with), soggy feeling keys are another big one. And symbol keys ending up in retarded places – and not just on laptops.
Also: having used a webcafe in france… never mind having to press shift to get a full stop (as you could at least use the one on the number block), what’s with pressing shift to use the number keys on the main board (and therefore, on any laptop)??? Sure there’s the keypad, but it’s a complete bind when you’re just putting someone’s address in rather than working a spreadsheet… and totally jarring to anyone who isn’t used to this rather mental arrangement.
I couldn’t agree with you more, Rob Manuel. You are a new God.
Though two Windows keys are kinda useful, so you can do Win-L as a one-handed chord. :o)
Recently I said “enough” to all this and bought 5 “Mitsumi Classic” and 3 “Mitsumi Millenium Multimedia” (with really good MM keys, and mostly – MUTE). And think that I can forgot about this shit for couple of years…
There are many stupid keys, but there is no really needed – special key for switching language. Yes, English is the ONE language in the world :) , and if someone think different – let “play accord” every 10-30 seconds (avarage).
These features are for those of you that do not use a mouse. Noob!
With the whole bunch of personal preferences and opinions, I’d see the only way to resolve this issue by creating a programmable keyboard with LCD key caps.
By assigning certain characters and/or functions to certain key, one would be able to tailor the keyboard to his/her personal needs.
This is what Microsoft consistently fails to do…
I don’t really like overwrite mode (when you press “Insert” once).
I like some of the keys that’s being criticized here.
Win + Pause / Break = “System properties”.
Caps lock is OK for 3D action games – if the small green LED is on then you’re running otherwise you’re walking.
Scroll lock keys are useful for MS Excel (obviously to scroll the sheet). It also employed in most hardware KVM (=Keyboard VGA Mouse) switches (“scroll lock then scroll lock then up/down arrow” will switch the keyboard, display and mouse to the next/previous PC)
The worst of all are non-standard layouts. For example the family next door have insert end delete keys on their keyboard merged together and marked as “delete”. Guys can you imagine that?
I press Ctrl+Ins – and the block of text disappears. Then I look at the screen. Then I say “Dammit!”. Then I realize all the friggin’ shit about the fuckin’ layout and press Ctrl+Z to undo. Then I’m tryin’ to find the real Insert key. And you know what? There’s the only Insert key on that keyboard – one on the numeric keypad! So just to copy a few words I have to press Num Lock, then press Ctrl+zero, then press Num Lock to restore it’s state. A few moments later I press Shift+ins to paste – and the fuckin’ text block dissapears again! Then I say “Fuck!” and begin to look at the keyboard before pressing a single key on it – which catastrophically slows down all the computer operations.
IMO americans should pass the law which obliges the keyboard manufacturers to do exhaustive clinical studies of ANY keyboard layout before putting the keyboards with this new layout to the production.
I agree with you on everyting except caps lock, it is quite useful at times, not always for when you’re typing sentences but for other thigs like case sensitive commands and linux and stuff
Though I agree with much of the comments above, I have used every key on the keyboard…
Scroll lock is application specific – the only use in windows know is in spreadsheets… for e.g. in Excel it locks the cursor position allowing you to scroll with the arrow keys and page down without losing your position. and in the linux terminal.
I use Pause in the windows Command Prompt to stop things flying by and in Games to go grab a drink.
I just wish the winKey would open the Menu in Linux… I have configured it to work that way but it should be standard.. and if the linux people dont wanna call in the winkey rename it to menukey or something.
The worst thing is the subtle layout differences (often regional diff)… more then once i’ve had to hunt down a key like the ‘/’ or single open quote on a friends keyboard.
and btw 2 Shift keys are gr8 for playing pinball.
And i like the MS natural keyboard… it grows on you the more you use it.
On I do hate is people mucking around with the Space Bar or replacing it with a horrible cheap bit of plastic, Little or no spring that sound like it’s broken when you use it (eurrrgh)
2 Shifts are requuired if you type a lot, other wise how would you enter a “!” with 1 hand.
The windows key and ‘Menu’ key on a modern keyboard are great when doing client support over the phone, then the muppets can click and press that button, for when saying, “Now let’s try clicking with the other button on the mouse over that file name.” isn’t plain English enough for them. but 99.99% of the time for personal use apart from the odd KEYB shortcut (I don’t mouse for the hell of it) it is a PITA.
Non standard insert blocks (ARRRGH) mine has the PRT|SCRL|PBRK keys on the top row and stupid power functions where they should be, I’ll just grab that window and *Poof* attempt Power down.
The Insert key is required, it is used to alter viewpoints in a lot of games :) and the insert block would then be called something different, and would look strange with 5 keys.
I had a tool ages ago that could link your num lock light to you HDD activity, unfortunately I use the numeric pad a lot, (I get to enter a lot of data) and that just got confuzzling
I had one KEYB that moved escape above the tab and moved the tick somewhere random, and put a propriety button that did crap all that I could find in it’s place, got used to the escape, but couldn’t stop my submarines engines and bring her straight and level without that key.
A good fungused keyboard is a big deterrent to unauthorised access. and I like cables the annoy the hell out of fems.
I used to review keyboards for Techtree.com where I had written a similar rant about the new Microsoft keyboards complete with the insert key size, F-lock, function key blocks and other problems.
It’s interesting to note that almost all the expensive, branded keyboards mess around with the standard layout and promise you something new and innovative, but the cheaper US$3 (yeah, Rs. 130) keyboards are actually perfectly standards compliant and work like a charm.
You can disable any key you want if you dissassemble your keyboard and put a sticker on the circuit board, under the rubber part, at the key’s position. I did that with both windows keys. Now they physically don’t work anymore because the sticker prevents the conductive layer under the rubber from touching the circuit board terminals.
I also replaced little green LEDs for lock keys with super-bright 5 mm LEDs of 3 different colors. Now i don’t have to look directly on them to know which are on and which are off – i can tell by color!
I’m a programmer but i still like the enter key to be L-shaped. On my keyboard the button for \ and | is between left shift and Z. Entering | is easy because shift is right next to it. It’s logic because backslash is to the left of the lower row, and forward slash is to the right.
Dear Rob Manuel,
Having just moved to the US, getting to grips with different keyboard layouts, I totally understand what your on about. Its so refreshing to here a Brit with a potty mouth! Your anger is my frustration too! I feel somehow vindicated, consoled almost in the knowledge that there are others out there with the same frustration. It grates me that I had to buy a US apple keyboard after I spilt the slightest bit of water on my UK version I brought with me, while cleaning the fucking piece of shit. If I had known my actions of care would lead to complete malfunction I would have rather taken it out the back and smashed it repeatedly on a kerb so I at least get some satisfaction. I hate this wank US keyboard, I might return it just for being a twat, that’s what I’ll say, most people don’t know what that is here, see if I get away with it? Anyone considered having a festival, bit like the burning man except we just all bring a keyboard and destroy it in an entertaining way, you know a family thing ;) Keep the anger alive.
It’s a shame that manufacturers insist on fixing something that isn’t broken, insist on re-inventing the keyboard, adding shit that I don’t want and moving keys who’s location is already hard-wired in my brain.
As a result, I’m forced to purchase crappy cheapo keyboards (made by a company who I assume don’t have the budget for pointless re-designs) who’s keys you have to batter the shit out of in order to type.
GG solving problems that don’t exist.
And wireless keyboards? I mean come on… are people tripping over this cable as it lies on their desk or something?
Give me a fucking break.
All I want is a good quality keyboard using the same layout that has been standard for years.
It just goes to show… the undiscerning consumer zombie sheep will buy whatever shit you put in front of them… just take away all the normal keyboards and people will HAVE to buy our shitty new designs.
There is much to be said about shite keyboards. Err, modern keyboards.
I just purchased a £30 ms ergonomic keyboard and yes, I will stand by the crack-pipe toss pots and say it is a better experience, it is.. honest!. However, why have a zoom button? Furthermore, PrtScn doesn’t work for love nor money.
I think some serious neglect in which much innovation is needed is in the hair magnetism department. What or what causes hair to miraculously appear under your keys? It is horrifying!
Good points made mate, I can’t agree with your more.
What about a Kinesis keyboard? I think it’s better than a usual desk with keys mapping as on fossilized type writers.