7597 Low End Mac's Andrew J Fishkin's column this week is entitled "IBM Model M: The Best Computer Keyboard Ever." Andrew prefers his keyboards with a stiff, positive action, and he is good enough to cite me as a proponent of soft touch keyboards, which is true, but that doesn't mean Andrew and I are in totally antagonistic camps when it comes to keyboards.

Andrew writes:

"My laptop articles have often focused on the relative merits and/or weaknesses of laptop keyboards, including the good (MacBook, PowerBook, ThinkPad), the horrible (Dell), and everything in between. The one constant, however, is that the keyboard is the part of your computer that you touch the most, and, strangely, it's the part that most buyers pay the least amount of attention to.

"It's not a matter of Mac vs. PC or how many function keys you want, but of build quality and switch type. There are many types of keyboard mechanisms, but all keyboards sold in the last 20 or so years use either an Alps Switch, a buckling spring, scissor, or soft dome to get their feel, along with a membrane switch to register the keypress.

Clearly the most important thing that any keyboard does is registers the letters that you type, but how it feels in that process can make the difference between fast and accurate typing and slow and sloppy gibberish generation.

After reading Charles W. Moore's columns for years, I know that he prefers keyboards with a soft touch. In his case, it's due to a medical condition, although he may very well have subjective reasons for that preference as well.

I prefer a heavy, clicky keyboard. Clearly, Mr. Moore and I probably won't find happiness typing on the same keyboard, though strangely two models are on both of our lists of the best keyboards ever made: the WallStreet PowerBook and the PowerBook 1400.

I like those two keyboards because of the precise mechanical feel and the distinct feel when the key bottoms. These are soft keyboards, but they're also made with high-quality scissor mechanisms that are precise and have no slop."

Precisely. I've got no problem with a precise feel provided it's got low effort and a soft landing - charateristics met particularly well by the WallStreet and 1400 PowerBook keyboards, and the Pismo keyboard I'm typing on right now is pretty good too. I don't think a gentle action has to preclude a precise feel if the 'board is properly engineered and constructed. In freestanding keyboards, my current favorites are the Kensington Slimtype and the i-Rocks Backlit keyboards, which are similar designs that emulate the feel of a good laptop keyboard quite well (and have a precise "clicky" feel that I think Andrew might like). The i-Rocks unit even has backlighting like a MacBook Pro or aluminum PowerBook keyboard.

Good keyboard "feel" is difficult to describe in words, but you know it when you feel it. Some "soft" keyboards have a horrible feel, while the Slimtype and i-Rocks 'boards that I use daily are certainly not mushy or imprecise. To my way of thinking, the nonpariel in good switch design, whether it be computer keyboards or automobile dash switches or the controls on a toaster-oven is smooth and almost effortless action combined with a precise feel and positive tactile feedback - a big order that takes first-rate engineering.

Andrew is right; besides my battles with neuromuscular pain, I just plain prefer smooth and quiet keyboards, quiet hard drives and as little cooling fan intrusion as possible as well as quiet keyboards.

I think the worst Apple keyboards I've ever used are the ones that shipped with the original compact Macs like my Mac Plus - noisy, long, stiffish travel, and a rock-hard landing. I had to give up using the Plus more than ten years ago when I began findng that half an hour's typing would make my hands and arms numb up to the elbows.

The RSI/typing pain factor is not a trivial matter, and it is my conviction that stiff, hard landing keyboards are much more likely to aggravate this tyoe of injury than ones with a soft, short, smooth action.

Another dissonance is doubtless between touch typists, which I assume Andrew Fishkin is given the enviable typing speed he is capable of, and hunt & peck or "hybrid" typists like me. I don't have to watch the keyboard like a hawk, but I'm definitely in trouble if I can't see the keys. I don't rest my fingers on the keys but rather my hands on the palm rest, and I'm sure the difference in body English affects keyboard action preference.

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Charles W. Moore

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