I can see things that are worse... - Hotbit (MSX, from Sharp, Brasil) - CP 400 Color II (CoCo clone, Prologica, Brasil) - Timex Sinclair 2068 (Sinclair, US) - Sinclair QL (Sinclair, UK) Any others? :)

This is not a keyboard, but a thin film :o)

Oh, I've got a few myself that I think are bad keyboards too. Not saying that it's THE worst keyboard on the ST, but rates pretty high in my book. On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 9:17 AM, Alexandre Souza < alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 29 Jul 2013, Alexandre Souza wrote: The keyboard on the 520ST was horrifyingly bad. g. -- Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007 http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind. http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home. Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies. ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes. http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!

On 29 July 2013 16:26, Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk> wrote: Had you not encountered the TS2068 before? The best official Spectrum clone ever. 2 improved graphics modes - as well as 256*176 with a colour resolution of 32*22, it also had the same pixel res but with a colour resolution of 32*176 (a different colour for every line of pixels, allowing attribute clash to be banished if the programmer were careful) and a 512*176 mono mode with 64 columns of text. It could also map its extended RAM over the ROM, giving a flat 64K of RAM, meaning that it could run CP/M - something the Sinclair variant didn't get until the Amstrad Spectrum +3. I like to imagine that the Spectrum, and indeed Sinclair, would have prospered and survived had the UK Spectrum 128 used the TS2068's ULA chip instead of an essentially-unmodified one with the same (fairly crappy) graphics mode. Although to be fair, it did leave Spectrum owners a lot more usable RAM than BBC Micro owners (well, except in Mode 7. Pity the poor Electron owner who didn't *have* the one screen mode that left you 20K of RAM free.) The TS2068 is the basis of the enhanced Spectrum SE machine: http://www.zxshed.co.uk/sinclairfaq/index.php5?title=ZX_Spectrum_SE Jarek Adamski (http://8bit.yarek.pl/) hand-built a few of them, based around a slightly stripped-out version from Portugal called the TC2048: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC2048 Whereas I will not disagree, AFAIK the "keyboard" of the Atari 400 was a near-identical membrane type: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_400#The_early_machines:_400_and_800 -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:17 AM, Alexandre Souza <alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: Any recent Apple products, and similar from companies that copy Apple, e.g. Sony Vaio. In the 70s and 80s it seemed that everyone was in agreement that chicklet keyboards suck, but once Apple started using them, all of a sudden they're wonderful and everyone wants them. A triumph of form over functionality. :-(

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 8:17 AM, Alexandre Souza <alexandre.tabajara at gmail.com> wrote: Atari 400 Radio Shack MC10 Micro Color Computer Mattel Aquarius Any of the Sharp or Casio pocket computers

On Mon, 29 Jul 2013, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote: Ah, but how do you feel about the REPLACEMENT keyboards that RS (coco), IBM (Jr), and maybe even Commodore (Pet) replaced the Chiclets with? (mine were replcaced FREE by RS and IBM!) Answer CAREFULLY. How much is riding on the SHAPE of the keys, and how much on the underlying mechanism/feel? When IBM was planning the Jr, they asked [focus groups] what they wanted. People said that they wanted a "home" version of the PC, at half the price. They EXPLICITLY said that they WOULD be willing to cut corners on the keyboard!, be limited to single drive, less RAM, etc. But, when the Jr. came out, IBM found out that there is a gap between what is asked for and what is demanded. The purchasers bought the half-price Junior, and then were irate that they were unable to expand it all of the way to the equivalent of their office PC. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com

f>fingers self-center. On flat square keys they don't. An interesting discussion but I wonder if technology has improved the chicklet keyboard? For example, in the days of yore (say 1980s) is was easy. Anything that wasn't full stroke sucked...chicklet keyboards being bad and membrane keyboards being even worse!! However, it was ALSO appreciated that not all full stroke keyboard were good either. Some of them had a very mushy feel, e.g. the Atari 1040ST (and in fact most of the Atari models under Jack Tramiel's Atari Corporation) and several other home computers (I'm looking at you Commodore 64). BUT...consider today. I'm typing this on my Toshiba Portege which has, what would be called in the 80s, a chicket keyboard. It has square pads. They are ever-so-slightly slightly sculptured however. They don't travel far but they do have a definite tactile response when you press them. They are reasonably spaced. In fact, I have no problem typing on and prefer this "chicklet" keyboard to many of the full stoke USB keyboards I have used, which have been somewhat mushy. SO...maybe the technology of the chicklet has improved...OR....have we (or I) just got used to it? As an aside, I don't feel too negative about 80's computers which have chicket keyboards. You get what you pay for and those computers tended to be cheap, and mainly used for games. It's more disappointing to see (or rather experience) a full stroke keyboard that is below par...although considering the price of those in question (home computers) the same "you get what you pay for" argument still applies. Terry (Tez)

On 07/29/2013 07:08 PM, TeoZ wrote: I never had the patience for a membrane or chiclet keyboard for real use, but the 520ST keyboard was by far the worst "conventional" keyboard that I ever used. It drove me nuts to the extent that I'd prepare text on a PC then copy it over on the 520 rather than have to enter it on that keyboard. I installed booster springs, which helped a bit, but I'm not sorry that I got rid of the thing finally. --Chuck

On 29 July 2013 22:38, Eric Smith <spacewar at gmail.com> wrote: Um. I think my fingertips are too low-friction for that to work. Saying that, as I've Hackintoshed my PC, I've switched from an early-1990s IBM Model M keyboard to an original Apple Extended, connected via a Griffin iMate. This may be a classic but it's a little softer than I really like myself. As with so many things (GUIs, laptops with trackballs, then laptops with trackpads, USB, etc.) the trend to modern chicklet keyboards started with Apple. I do not like them at all myself, but I must admit, the Apple chicklet keyboards are better than almost anyone else's. A friend recently bought a new Lenovo Thinkpad X230 and even Lenovo, doyen of quality laptop keyboards, has gone chicklet. It's a decent one (as far as chicklet keyboards go) but it's not as good as Apple's - and I'd *much* rather use a 1987 Apple keyboard than a 2013 one. -- Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884

On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 03:38:26PM -0600, Eric Smith wrote: [...] I note that the wear pattern on this here MacBook Pro keyboard that I've been using for over four years is such that most of the keycaps are now concave. It's interesting to see which keys *haven't* worn: ?/?, the function keys, eject, caps lock, both Alt keys, and the right-hand command and shift keys. As an Emacs user, Esc and Ctrl are very smooth, with X being smoother than E, probably from C-x. A is smoother than E too, probably from screen(1).

**very** common keyboard in Brazil. Way better than "THAT" of TK82C and TK83 :)

While I'm criticizing the 520/1040ST, let me also point out the idiotic placement of the mouse and joystick ports. Okay, the joystick port kind of makes sense, but definitely not the mouse.

:-).... Actually, as I haev said before, I acutally used the membrane keybaord that could be fixed ot the outside of my student room door and which didn't have loose keycaps that could be 'borrowed'. Hmmm. Define 'computer'... Since these pocket computers generally have some kind of string handling (not just numbers), program in BASIC and have some lioited peripherals (printer and cassette recorder), I think they probably are computers. The HP71B and HP75C/D are comptuers by any reasoanble definiton. They can talk to a widne range of periphearls, including a disk drive, HPIB interface, RS232 interface, etc. They have pretty good string handling. They boath have BASIC in ROM. The HP71B can also take a Forth/Assembler ROM, the latter had Forth available on magnetic media. The hP75 could also run a text formatter program and Visicalc (!). IMHO the HP71B keyboard is useable, the HP75 one less so. -tony

Sure. _Any_ Sinclair machine from the MK14 onwards. The QL was actually one of the better keybvoards! - Atari 400 - Coco 1 ('Chicklet keyboard') - IBM PCjr - HP9825/HP9831 original keyboard, maybe.... -tony