Hmm, looking up the Model M on Wikipedia, the one I have here /is/ actually a Model M, only with a German layout (1391403 instead of 1391401) 
WTB a mechanical MS Natural Keyboard 4000. That form factor & precise layout > mechanical keys, especially since the 4000 is still high quality for a rubber-dome keyboard. My last one lasted 3 or 4 years before a single key stopped working.
Typing on touch screen tablets; or, at least typing on the iPad; isnāt all that bad. My buddy and I wrote a typing trainer app for the iPad (www.flairify.com). We encourage people to use a full, two handed, no-looking typing style (the term ātouch typingā doesnāt quit fit for virtual keyboards). We have a leader board: the fastest virtual keyboard typists are well over 100 words per minute. Tons of people are above 50 wpm.
Me personally? I type around 90 wpm on my DAS Keyboard Ultimate S and 60 wpm on my iPad. This gives me enough confidence to grab my iPad as my only device for flights with wifi or coffee shop runs.
I think virtual keyboard typing is something that people will eventually discover IS possible and IS worthwhile. They just need to give it a chance.
āI canāt take slow typists seriously as programmers.ā
That seems rather silly. The speed of typing has nothing to do with programming.
Iāve seen good programmers that use the two finger method of typing. Just because it takes them a bit longer to put down (even so, barely, apparently if you do it a lot, you become fast regardless), it doesnāt affect the quality of their code.
I consider myself quite fast, but Iām not super fast. I donāt do a full ten finger type, Iām slower like thatā¦ and I prefer to look at the keyboard. Yet I was best in my class, which isnāt saying that much since most of the competition was pretty weak.
Personally, Iām in love with my Logitech Illuminated keyboard:
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/keyboards/keyboard/devices/4740
It has laptop style scissor switches under the keys which makes it a nice light touch to type on. However, unlike a laptop it has slightly longer travel, so itās not too hard on your fingers and feels good to type on.
It also glows 
I type molasses slow and consider myself a competent programmer. In fact I consider my slow typing an asset as it allows me to actually think about the code while I write it, maning less time on the delete key overall.
So right. Passive computing is soā¦degenerate. Why do I long for the days of WordStar. When computing grows up, it will be greatly segmented. It will be modular. It will include complex apps that use only the keyboard and that enable great power and creativity. Iām standing here on the corner with my cardboard sign: āWonāt someone please code a real word processor?ā
P.S. Best keyboard Iāve owned was a $15 scissor-switch cheapy from NewEgg. It went bad after two years of heavy use, and the company no longer exists. It was glorious - very low keystroke, total laptop feel, and completely silent. I could listen on the phone and take notes at high speed, and the caller would never know - it was that quiet. (Sigh)
Guess what? You can still get a keyboard with function keys on the left. Remember those āWordPerfectā keyboards. Guess who scrapped that idea? Hint - first name starts with āB,ā last name is Gates.
I like the Unicomp Customizer ā so much that I wrote a long review of it after being disappointed with how little I learned about it online: http://jseliger.com/2008/05/07/product-review-unicomp-customizer-keyboard . But now Iām using a Kinesis Advantage, mostly because the spread position is so much more comfortable. (Insert dirty joke here.)
Iāve been using a Das keyboard for about a year, and just put the family desktop on a Unicomp Spacesaver a couple of months agoāthey love it, klacky sound and all. Most may consider the typing sound as noise, but itās a lovely, crispy sound I could fall asleep to.
I just wanted to mention that a quick Google Product search (http://www.google.com/products?q=mechanical+keyboard) reveals mechanical keyboards that can be had for as low as $44. After factoring shipping and other costs I think that would still work out to slightly above $50 for many people, which is significantly lower than the $70-$300 you mentioned.
Disclaimer of sorts: I have not used any of these budget keyboards so I have no idea what kind of switches are used in them (product pages seem equally scant on useful details), but I guess they would at least serve as an introduction to mechanical keyboards.
Whether touchscreen typing is the wave of the future or not, Iām sticking to my mechanical keyboard guns. Perhaps something might change when we finally get haptic touchscreens.
All those old school keyboards have too much key travel, as nice as the clackity clack feedback is.
The current Apple keyboards have ruined me for everything else. Extremely low travel for the win.
Why is everybody so happy with the ādefaultā keyboard layout? With a ānormalā keyboard, the first thing I do is pop out the Caps Lock and the Insert (near the Backspace) keys, because although those keys enable a different mode (something you donāt want to do by accident), theyāre right beside other keys. When I want one capitalized letter and aim for Shift and miss, I donāt want every letter from then on to be capitalized. If I made a typo and roughly hit for Backspace and miss, I donāt want to be in overwrite-mode (without any visual feedback beside status bars in some apps).
Why donāt Num Lock, Caps Lock, Scroll Lock and Insert get their own island on the keyboard? And why isnāt there a LED for Insert mode?
Cherry also do a mechanical keyboard, which is really good to use. albeit a bit noisy!
http://www.keyboardco.com/keyboard_search.asp?SG=10024
I used to have one, but I need a split layout or else I pay with pain! Now use the MS Natural, which is okay, but I find the key action not very nice to use.
The Lenovo USB keyboard is my favorite http://bit.ly/arnJdN .
Basicaly itās a 14" thinkpad without computer and screen in it. It feels great (as thinkpad keyboards always do!), and by using the track point (which rocks anyways) you never have to take your hands of the keyboard.
@Pixelbart: Although I wonāt miss Caps Lock (I never use it), I use Insert a lot and would miss it terribly. Not because I ever use overstrike mode (I donāt), but because I use it for copying (Ctrl-Ins) and pasting (Shift-Ins). To me, any keyboard that lacks an Insert key in a readily-accessible location is broken.
(And no, I never use ^X, ^C, or ^V for cutting and pasting. On Dvorak, those keys are in somewhat awkward (and definitely non-adjacent) locations.)
Iāve been aware of those keyboards in some (only some) detail for years, and regarded them as very interesting and promisingā¦ but Iāve been attached to my MS Ergo 4000 the same way you have. Ever since the original MS Ergo came out I havenāt used anything but one of those on my desktop computers.
Typing on a straight keyboard gives me tendonitis after a single day of heavy use. I just donāt have the option of using a Das Keyboard, no matter how much I would enjoy their investment in Cherry switches and the cool factor of blank keycaps.
I always get a little sad when I read something like this. Youāre tempting me with these nice things, butā¦ until somebody puts them in a curved body, I just canāt use them. Any post comparing an Ergo 4000 to a straight keyboard is talking apples and oranges to me!
Right, it will always be Thinkpad keyboards for me - because I love the TrackPoint (some call it the nipplemouse or erasermouse), and because Thinkpad keyboards have the feel I like. And finally because I want the same typing experience on my laptop as on my main computer.
So my laptop is my main computer, and I use its keyboard always. Docked at my desk, the laptop screen sits below my main screen. Whatever app I am focusing on is at eye level on the main screen, and the laptop screen is the place for windows that I need but are not in my primary focus, such as email, web, docs, etc.
It is facinationg how people get stuck into one idea and canāt get out of it.
Why would anyone want to type code on a touchscreen the same way he used to do on a keyboard?
I am actually thinking to make an ide for the ipad that eliminates typing of letters and words one by one. Getting your code into the machine should have much more freedom, than stooping in front of a keyboard and typing each word and symbol after another. It would definately be more healthyā¦ There must be some next level ui to autocomplete/typing in the world of multitouch.
If youāre going to opine on the creeping demise of keyboarding, then surely you must also mourn at the cold-hearted death of handwriting. And in truth, I do. It saddens me greatly that some schools feel the need for Powerpoint to be part of the curriculum even at the Kindergarten level (I kid you not) yet nearly none make even a cursory pass (pun intended) at teaching cursive writing to children.
Thereās a cognitive connect with the experience of writing notes by hand that is missing entirely from keyboarding. But even beyond that, the ability to write without the aid of a machine is a fundamental human capability, right up there with conscious thought, not a quaint nostalgic ātechnology.ā
But back on point, I cut my teeth keyboarding on an IBM green-screen dumb terminal (attached to a S/36) so I vividly recall the mechanical clacket-clack of the IBM keyboards. Even the nicely tactile IBM PS/2 keyboards paled in comparison to the feel of those IBM ābig ironā keyboards.
I had hoped that Apple could save handwriting but unless handwriting recognition is forthcoming with the 2nd gen iPad, that seems to have been in vain. Pity.
You wonāt have to type so much if you are a visual dataflow programmer. Oh, but there arenāt any serious visual dataflow programming languages out thereā¦ and nobody seems to care. Well, I do care, and so would you, if you think seriously (without feeling threatened or something) about end-user programming. Which is what could make using the touchscreen a mostly active experience. Which would basically, um, change the world.