30 Oct
2007
30 Oct
'07
12:05 p.m.
Tramiel was using Vic-20 mentality towards a next generation computer -
the whole all in one cases which I never liked - the Amiga's pedestal
with detachable keyboard looked soooooooo much nicer (Atari would come
out with the Mega ST in 1987 which was a nice pizza box design, that
grey was just blah...)
Atari had a lot of well established connections for good quality
keyboards, tactile input for the keys and for the mouse (that horrible
little wedge shape that they never improves) are paramount
importance... In fact right now I'm typing on a newly released Dell
keyboard for a Vostro Dual Core I upgraded to this week, the keyboard is
too light and slides around a bit, but the keys have an almost hollow
tactile feel to them and for the last 2 days I've been making typos
galore and its driving me nuts, so this keybaord is being pulled tonight
and I'm going back to my nice heavy, solid feeling IBM Thinkcentre
keyboard which I have been using since 1999 and I'm putting back tonight.
Some things you just don't skimp on, no matter what, a keyboard
especially whether its a 22 year old ST or a brand new Wintel box.
Curt
Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 30 Oct 2007 at 8:12, Adrian Graham wrote:
I was so upset with the keyboard on my 520ST that I purchased a third-
party set of springs that were installed right under the keycaps. It
was better, but the keyboard was still a real pile of (What's the
right word, Jay--"stuph"?). I also recall that there was a mod for
the 520ST wherein additional DRAM could be soldered piggyback-style
over the original chips to double memory capacity. The chip-selects
for the added RAM were tied together and run to somewhere on the main
board.
Had Atari managed to put better keyboards on their intial STs, it
probably would have sold better.
Cheers,
Chuck
I had a
very early ST which had a slightly different keyboard. If I remember
correctly, rather than using those rubber things, it had little springs
beneath the keycaps which pressed down directly on the keyboard membrane.
I'm going to have to dig out my floppy-less 520 now!