The Keyboard - Debut

Introduction - The Story Of My Youth

It always amazes me how people go about buying a new system. Dedicated gamers have no problem whatsoever to shell out 1500€ on a rig, but buying input&output devices that you actually USE to use the computer is the thing we overlook the most and just go with whatever is the cheapest. So you end up buying a world class grade PC and a professional gaming mouse, together with a generic 22 inch monitor from WalMart, a decent headset and a 5€ keyboard.


SteelSeries 6Gv2, one of the cheapest mechanical keyboards on the market with Cherry MX Black's

In this article I'll delve into the before mentioned PC peripheral – the keyboard. From the beginnings of computers, it has been the most important input device. In it's early days, believe it or not, keyboards were really of quality and although expensive, they were made with user satisfaction in mind, not profits. I vividly recall my parents typing on their trusty IBM Model M, whose clicks you could hear through the house, which sadly eventually led to buying a rubber dome keyboard, that are (mostly) used today. Of course I had not known that it was a wrong decision to make, I was just happy the clicks went away. Well, in the passing years we changed about a keyboard per year, which led us to regret the decision to toss the Model M in the trashcan. And then I started doing research.
The old keyboard that we had was called a »mechanical keyboard«, and the ones that we bought after that were »dome keyboards«. The difference? Night and day. With me and so many others the main difference between mechanical and dome keyboards is their feel (together with better MTBF – Mean Time Before Failure, sound presence and looks), because when you're typing on a »normal« keyboard you have to bottom out the key in order to get it to register. Besides wasting a lot of energy it also causes premature fatigue and can lead to conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. On a mech one, key switches register the click before you actually push it to the bottom, so you only have to apply a certain amount of pressure to actuate the switch, not always having to bottom it out.

On the next pages I will try and present the types of keyboards on the market.
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