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From: nigelm@ohm.york.ac.uk (Nigel Metheringham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: NeXT Keyboards (was RE: Low End NeXTs)
Message-ID: <1991Apr10.075619.1328@ohm.york.ac.uk>
Date: 10 Apr 91 07:56:19 GMT
References: <1991Apr9.122402.5072@wam.umd.edu> <4989@lectroid.sw.stratus.com>
Organization: Electronics Department, University of York, UK
Lines: 43

In <4989@lectroid.sw.stratus.com> jmann@vineland.pubs.stratus.com (Jim Mann) writes:
[quoting a number of other people....text deleted]

>I don't particulary like either the new or the old keyboards. Oh, by and large 
>the keys are in reasonable places.
  The argument about where they keys should be is going to run and
run - as a Unix user moving to NeXT I am not keen on the relegation
of unix-ish keys (ie tilda, pipe, slashes etc) to the keypad, but I
seem to be getting used to it very quickly!

>But it just doesn't feel right. There is
>not enough tactile respnse from the keys.  But then again, this seems to
>be, perhaps, a problem with Steve Jobs companies: they don't care about the 
>feel of the keyboards. The original Mac keyboard was the worst keyboard
>I've ever had to type on. The newer Mac keyboards are a bit better (about on
>par with the NeXT keyboard) but aren't up to the really top-of-the-line
>keyboards you can find in the PC world.  Tactile feedback really is very
>important to touch typists, something the PC world seems to have figured
>out but neither the Mac nor NeXT worlds have.

The basic problem is that everyone has their own opinions on
keyboards - I happen to like the feel of the NeXT (new) keyboard,
hate the Dec VT220 (too squidgy), and most IBM PC keyboards (to
clacky).  What we really need is a _standard_ keyboard connector so
that you buy in your own preferred keyboard and use that.  Within
one research group here, with about 5 people in it, I know of at
least 4 set keyboard opinions!

One of my co-workers, who has extremely strong opinions on
keyboards (his idea of heaven appears to be a Sun 3 keyboard,
although they tend to gunge up and suffer from sticky keys), spent
better than half an hour berating a rep from TeleVideo who had
loaned us a demo terminal - the poor girl was rather relieved to
escape!!

BTW Shift-Escape gives tilda on a new keyboard as well.

	Nigel.
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