What happened to keyboards? (Off-Topic)

by Funkmon , Sunday, January 31, 2016, 16:36 (3451 days ago)
edited by Funkmon, Sunday, January 31, 2016, 16:46

My mom asked me to get her a new keyboard for her office. I went to Best Buy, and they're all flat. Even the ones with large key travel are flat. This shit's lame. I had to buy the cheapest one and bring one of my own to her office to hide when I was there because I'm a child and want to have things my own way. I had a Model M before it broke, and now I use a combination of old Dell Quietkeys or AT101Ws. The keys are curved so they go with your hands.

Here's what they appear to look like now.

Here's a relatively modern Dell keyboard I see on computers a few years old.

Dell no longer makes this keyboard. HP makes Chiclet keyboards and flat ones. Indeed, the vast majority of computer manufacturers only now make these dumb flat keyboards.

And why are they all black? Since when did that become a good idea? They don't yellow and it hides some dirt, but a lot of us are using our keyboards in darkened rooms and white keys with dark legends are much easier to see.

And why did we get rid of the modifier keys being a different color?

The different color modifier keys are a huge help in the darkened environments, and also, it helps you see where you are on the keyboard at a glance. Many of us no longer need that, but it helps. Like with the F keys!

And what happened to that nice recessed part of Caps Lock? I typo caps lock sometimes on keyboards. Didn't used to happen with that caps lock.

As a Windows user, I think I can confidently say that in terms of general use keyboards, we've gone way downhill since the late nineties, when the Windows key became basically universal. And that Windows key is super useful. Since then, I think every major keyboard trend has been crap, except for backlighting. That stuff is great.

I even have modern mechanical keyboards, and they're good (they feel nice and have curved keys), but all the keys are the same dumb color, they don't have the nice caps lock, etc. You have to order a special key set for them. And I haven't found one that just models the way keyboards used to look! Goddammit!