I use original Microsoft Natural keyboards (typically salvaged from old pcs in the hallway). Before that I liked the keyboard that came with my vt220. A usb hub is a good feature, but not necessary as one of my monitors has that already. I specifically do not want it to be wireless. I could easily live with the loss of the number pad to save space, but the arrow keys and the orientation of page/up/down, home, end, and insert/delete must be standard. Matt’s pointer to the belkin keyboard looks interesting as a alternative.
My wife is a Mac user and often seems to like using the number pad and the enter key attached it. I’m not sure if that is a Mac thing or something specific to her.
I have the MS Wireless Natural Multimedia Keyboard, similar to the one above but it is black. I too hate the F-Lock buttons and prefer to have the standard F1, F2, F3, etc. I found this site which has a registry hack that will remap those keys back to the standard and the function keys will work as function keys no matter what the F-Lock status is.
I have to say the proper keyboard is pertinent aspect of efficiency. Sadly I only type on Dvorak so must convert every thing I touch to this layout, and am an avid mac user, and redo every aspect on a wintel machine to match my preference, even though I only wanted to show someone how to do a simple task like renewing a web page or copying and pasting without going to the mouse.
It’s a small keyboard with trackpoint built in. I used a thinkpad for several years, and loved the fact I could code without having to use a mouse for a lot of tasks.
The only thing I can find that comes close is this:
Close, but it’s not wireless, and it’s got that stupid touchpad in it (I hate touchpads). I’ve googled and searched and found nothing that meets my quest so far…
Alot of coments here but ill type in my 2 cents. I also was a big fan of the Microsoft natural keyboard pro. But after years of use and beer spills the keys started to fall of and loose function so yeserday i went an got myself a Microsoft Ergonomic 4000. As much as i hat microsoft i must admit this is a very comfortable keyboard. the design keeps my
wrists straight and my fingers dont go numb anymore The F keys do have the stupid functions attached but i use linux so they dont work(fortunatly) eventually ill recompile my kernel so i can map the extra buttons to whatever i want . It was about 60 bucks but it is the cadillac of keyboards.
oh, forgot that I had a question for Ross, who mentions that he uses linux, and eventually he’ll recompile the kernel so he can custom map the keys.
How does recompiling the kernel allow you to remap keyboard key functions? I always recompile the kernel when the latest release comes out, and am familiar with all the compile time options of the most recent kernel 2.6.17 including the beyond patchsets and don’t recall anything about remapping keyboard functions. In fact it sounds silly to have such capability in a kernel recompile.
Either Ross knows not what he speaks of, or I must be some clueless kernel hacker that needs to be seriously enlightened. Please enlighten me ross!
Okay, my bad on this one. I’ve since discovered a number of kernel patches that are supposed to provide support for this keyboard on linux … the most recent of which is from liyi on the lkml mailing list in case in anyone is interested.
There are actually two patches that need to be applied, the first patching hid-simple.c, then the next providing the functionality in usb/input/usbnek4k.c
I’ve also discovered some other patches written some months ago from different authors, but since this is the most recent, I’m trying liyi’s first (compiling at the moment).
I was happy with a very generic EzKey for years. It survived spills; kept decent touch…
The “Yahoo! PC Desktop Two” I may get back to. It was on clearance, but just didn’t fit needs at the time. Enormous.
Some no-name, I think I just saw branded “Durabrand”. Simple 104-key +3 usless dome buttons. But I’ve essentially worn it out in about 6 months. I have no idea what the one I have was branded.
Picked up a Micro Innovations KB565BL 126-key tonight that seems promising, provided I can map the 22 extras to something useful. It comes with a USB-to-PS2 dongle. Claims to be sealed against cats and coffee.
With Fvwm2, the logo keys mapped to Meta-4, and “menu” key mapped to Menu with appropriate bindings, but it would be nice to throw some controls and bind complex scripts to the fancy top row. What I need is more meta keys, without segregating Shift/Alt/Control/Logo keys between left and right. Comes with a USB-to-PS2 dongle.
Seems that I only get a couple months, with most keyboards, after getting fully used to the touch, before something stops – or keycaps start going blank.
Being a KN™ from the 80s, I constantly bemoan one of the great losses in keyboard land. Namely, the dropping of the F keys from the left side of the keyboard. I heard there was some lady who sued DEC because she got RSI and everybody freaked. The degree of wrist pronation to the left was nothing compared to working the inverted T, but I guess they felt like they had to do something after paying out Big $ to some whiner. The F keys were right there under your left pinky, but now everyone’s desk is lopsided over to the right with nothing for your left hand to do but hit the tab and shift key (and the caps lock by mistake). The Maxi-switch Prokey II was the last great implementation (with extra keys around the inverted T, remapping, and EZ macro creation). They dropped the model and I had to resort to the Gateway Anykey, of which I bought about 6 or so to tide me over for the rest of my life. (My Maxi-switch is still in great shape, though). The F keys on top are so far out of reach that they require arm, shoulder, and back muscles to reach them. Not so bad if you press F5 to open your email app, but in an IDE, it’s like working in mud. At work, I use Macro Express to duplicate all the function keys to the keypad. A moderately successful workaround. (Macro Express utterly rules, BTW. Check it out.)
Anyone have opinions on the left-side F keys? I’d go nuts if some company resurrected them.
I’ve gone over to the Logitech Cordless Desktop Comfort Laser, after using Microsoft pro for many years, and I like it a lot better. It feels very much more comfortable to me, and I definitely type faster. The mouse that goes with it is rubbish though, as far as I’m concerned, because the scroll wheel is very light to wheelie, but very hard to press down. This means that it takes concentration to push down the scroll wheel without wheeling it. Since I seem to spend half my time opening links in a new tab in firefox by pressing down on the wheel, this is a major nuisance. Like an earlier poster I also use the mouse left handed, both so it’s closer in to my hand and also so I can mouse and enter in quick succession, but this mouse is particularly unusable for a left hand use as it has a button on the side which it takes concentration not to press when doing a left click.
At present the Logitech has had to go back for a replacement, as the mouse didn’t sit flat on the desk ( warped base !? on top of all its other failings! ) and I’m back to the ms pro, and I’m really missing that great keyboard! The ms pro seems somehow awkward after only 2 weeks with the Logitech. It seems as if the heels of my hands need to be half off the pro to be in the ‘right’ position - I notice that the Belkin mentioned earlier has whopping heel rests. I was looking for a gel pad to use with the pro when I found this page, 'cos it’s nice to have options, but all the ones I have found are no wider than the existing plastic ‘deck’ on the pro. Anyone found a really big gel pad for this keyboard?
I use a logitech keyboard with the larger delete key. I have gotten the hang of it pretty well and often prefer it to the more traditional configuration.
As for the alternate function key assignments, I think every keyboard in my house has it but I doubt anyone’s used the features. As for volume controls/etc, I have my pc hooked up to a stereo, and as with most audio systems, it has volume control on it, so I want my pc to pump max and control the output via the speakers.
I work in a call center for Dell, and I use a Labtec “Standard Keyboard Plus” that I managed to relocate late one night from another station. Very simple, basic design, inverted T arrows, 3x2 insert cluster (not that I use it that much for what I do), three sets of four function keys, etc.
The thing I like about this keyboard is it more closely resembles the keys of a notebook, which is where my typing and keyboard-only navigation thrive. Much of my computer experience was gained on a notebook, with flat keys that still push down a fair amount and have a satisfying spring-back to them. So this keyboard was the best I could find that would emulate that.
I will admit: I’m no software designer. As I said before, I’m just a low-level call-center employee. However, using a keyboard makes up about 85-90% of my working day, (and who knows how much of my non-working night) so I definitely know what I like. In work, I’m mostly copying and pasting order numbers and customer numbers into data bases, online forms, etc. Unfortunately, most of the text I’m copying comes straight from an html document, so I have no way of selecting any amount of text with keyboard-only commands. None that I’ve found, at least. If anyone knows of any way to highlight HTML with a keyboard, I’m all ears!
The F keys do have the stupid functions attached but i use linux so they dont work(fortunatly) eventually ill recompile my kernel so i can map the extra buttons to whatever i want . It was about 60 bucks but it is the cadillac of keyboards.
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