SWMBO treats her keyboard like her piano, hitting the keys more in forte fashion. The result is that the letters on the keycaps wear badly. A set of stickers has worn even more quickly than the originals. My keyboard is hardly worn at all, but it's a Microsoft ergonomic one, which she hates to use.
Can anyone recommend a keyboard (not wireless) with really hard-wearing keycaps?
Teach her a lesson:
No signs of wear on my Cherry.
Or one of these
Owain
Yes, but how's your keyboard? ;-)
Chris
Filco are the best followed by Cherry both available at
-- rbel
omg that's a disgusting looking keyboard, it'd give me a headache ;-0
This one would do the job ;-)
Most modern ones have simple printed lettering. Which doesn't last. Older ones with the 'hard' keys usually engraved which does. I'm using an Acorn keyboard here (cream with black lettering) from the '90s which still cleans up as new. All my 'Microsoft' ones show signs of wear.
I have had some success with letraset followed by some clear lacquer, though.
You must be a very indulgent husband, has she no housework to do?
As others have said though the vast majority of modern PC keyboards have the symbols printed on them and they will wear out .. having said that I'm currently using a "Tiny" keyboard (anyone remember them) which was very budget and it's as good today as it ever was (and no wearing). I think your options are (1) buy a dirt cheap one from PC world or the like for a tenner or less and expect to replace it every year or so or alternatively (2) look for the very expensive ones with raised symbols on the keys sold to those with difficulties seeing.
Well in my experience of dealing rooms traders do need to be treated like kids - everlastingly having to pick up their rattles from the ground under their pram
AWEM
'Quality' keytops were always 'two shot moulded', with the symbols injected as a separate operation but the accountants put paid to that process. My favourite keyboard is still the big clunky one that came with the original IBM AT. Decent key travel and a definite feedback that you'd hit it. Years back when they failed, we used to put them through a domestic dish washer, pull them out before the end dry cycle, and let them dry off slowly in a warm place - at least 80% of faulty ones were revived and the keyboard came out beautifully clean!
AWEM
Too bloody true. You also need a keyboard that can survive having an expensive noise cancelling telephone handset repeatedly smashed into it.
Well, the other tack is to get a few Tesco Value ones and simply replace them when they go down.
Most people have learned where the keys are by the time the letters wear off!
Brian
IBM Model M - bullet proof.
One police control room used to go through several mice per shift. A particular operator used to hammer the mouse ball though the PCB then swapped mice with another workstation. took CCTV to see what was going on.
The key to the long lasting letters is the process used. Most of the cheapos use printing but some use a kind of injection technigqe where the letter is melted into the keytop in a different colour of plastic. Brian
We just started charging people's cost centres for the keyboards & hand sets. Their managers soon sorted it out - I think the two between them were the thick end of £2K.
From the keyboard co also look at
This is the highest quality, high visibility keyboard, on the market today, with it's large legends engraved in to it's keys. The keyboard and keys are black, and the legends are white, the legends will never wear off, and the keys use the Cherry mechanical G80 (blue) tactile keyswitch.
They also sell the unicomp version of the IBM model M. Made on the original (well, Lexmark era) tooling, but not as solid as the original.
IBM model M. Mine just turned 26 this month. Noisy as hell, but bomb- proof, and from a typing point of view the nicest keyboard that's ever been made.
If you don't have a real keyboard port on the PC, you'll need an active USB-PS/2 adaptor; the cheap ones sometimes seen are purely passive and rely on the keyboard to detect that it's been plugged into a USB port (and act accordingly) - model M's are too old to know anything of USB, of course.
cheers
Jules
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