21 Mar
2007
21 Mar
'07
12:36 p.m.
On 21 Mar 2007 at 10:19, Steve Shumaker wrote:
That style of keyboard was also used in the
"Northgate"
computers. They custom designed one of the heaviest keyboards on the
market and sold it with their Northgate clones in the mid /ate
80s.
Alas, good keyboards got very hard to get after price competition in
PC keyboards got to be real. At one time, Keytronics made some of
the better keyboards, then moved their operation out of the US and
sold out to Honeywell and marketed what amounts to looks-just-like-
every-other-far-East-keyboards.
I've still got a few Cherry PC keyboards, with 10 function keys on
the left, like the old XT style keyboards (20 more function keys are
on the top). Very reliable units.
Some of the more remarkable (in terms of reliability) keyboards are
from the late 60's--a sealed reed switch for each
key, activated by a
doughnut-shaped magnet suspended by a calibrated spring. I
believe
that George Risk made many of these.
On eBay, I see lots of used Cherry POS keyboards with credit-card
stripe readers. Are these PC compatible--and are they any good?
Prices being asked for them seem to range all over the place.
Chuck
(typing this on a Model M; who needs a "windows" key anyway?)