Wired media keyboard

[John Rumm]

The only place I would say they can be handy is on laptops. If you are taking notes in a lecture room or conference setting.

[Scott Dorsey]

They are very handy if you're typing occasional characters in a dark control room. If you have your fingers on the home row, a keyboard with dots on it can tell you that you're centered right and then you can find everything in the dark. But if you're just occasionally punching in a letter or number here and there instead of carefully touch-typing, the dots are no help.

--scott

[Rod Speed]

That's not accurate. I compute from a deep armchair with my feet up with the keyboard off to the left of the airmchair under the two monitors, one of which swings over my legs. It is quite dark there at night so the backlight keys are very handy.

[Scott Dorsey]

How does that contradict one word I said?

--scott

[Dan Espen]

It doesn't.

It's Rod syndrome.

[Rod Speed]

Scott Dorsey [e-mail] wrote

Your last 'the dots are no help' is just plain wrong in that situation.

[Dan Espen]

I think the poster used the term "occasional characters" to indicate he was talking about keys that he couldn't touch type.

[SteveW]

I think he was saying that he doesn't have to type. The reference to a control room suggests to me a system where yes/no responses are required, the starting of operations and the muting/accepting/cancelling of alarms. So likely just requiring a single or a couple of presses every so often, when the hands will not be pre-positioned for touch typing and it will be easiest to look at the keyboard for a moment to hit the appropriate key.

[Rod Speed]

Dan Espen [e-mail] wrote

So was I with the occasional stuff I need to type with the keyboard still sitting under the screens in the dark, particularly at night. By definition when you aren't touch typing, you need to see which key is which and so need to be able to see the key labels.

I never need to see the key labels when the keyboard is on my lap because I have always been able to touch type since I was in high school.

[Rod Speed]

Correct.

That wasn't from me.

Actually individual single letter keystrokes used to do stuff like pause or skip forward the PVR when playing recorded stuff.

I use the PC as the PVR and use the keyboard to pause and skip over ads etc when playing recorded stuff.

Correct.

[Scott Dorsey]

How do the dots on a non-illuminated keyboard help when your fingers are not on the home row?

--scott

[Rod Speed]

You find the dots and then move from there to the key you want to press.

I play FreeCell Pro when watching recorded video and have my own micro spreadsheet which I keep track of potential moves in which uses just numbers, for the column number and the result of doing what that column allows. I type the numbers in entirely by feel with the keyboard off to my left under the screens. I key the correct column number into the spreadsheet using the dot on the 5 keytop in the numeric pad for the 5,6,8 and 9 keys. I use the left hand edge of the keypad for 4 and 7 and the large

0 for the 1,2 and 3 keys and the right hand edge for the - and + keys which I also add to the spreadsheet.