We all love mechanical keyboards, but are there any normal keyboards that hold a special place in your heart?
I for one love the keyboard on the old IBM thinkpads.
I also have a special place in my heart for the old Dell membrain keyboards that used to be in every school library in the 90’s
I know its technically still a ‘mechanical’ keyboard but its not an MX style switch: IMB Model M. I still daily drive one for work even though I can’t use some shortcuts (no win/super key) and I have a handful of modern mechanical keyboards at home.
If not that, then probably the one I had for work a few years back, similar era but membrane, unknown brand. It had a little bit of an old smell to it and found it in an abandoned warehouse at work. Left it for my replacement when I left that job.
I made a “Soarers” converter for my two. One was a terminal board, so it has about a dozen remaps and is semi-permanently wired in, but the other is a little black box that will take any PS/2 keyboard and make it a USB keyboard that changes the right Control key into a Win key.
I really liked my Microsoft Natural Keyboard in the late ’90s.
It was so huge, I ended up learning to mouse with my left hand, so I wouldn’t have to reach so far.
I was also thinking old Thinkpad keyboards, and Dell membraine keyboards. Those were both widespread enough that nearly everyone back then had used them, and some of us still remember them lol
I bet someone has taken the original thinkpad keyboards and put it in a housing to use like an external keyboard, just haven’t looked into it. I have the shinobi which is a mechanical interpretation of the thinkpad keyboard. It’s OK but I prefer the original.
Someone certainly has… IBM and Lenovo themselves! Both have sold external ThinkPad keyboards over the years that are (in some cases) literally laptop keyboards, with a TrackPoint, in housing.
