Apple & SGI keyboards (Re: NEC ProSpeed 386)

[Swift Griggs]

On Tue, 31 May 2016, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 31 May 2016 at 19:15, Chris Hanson <cmhanson at eschatologist.net> wrote:
> > On my desk at work, I have a 5K iMac hooked up to the same Apple Extended Keyboard II that I've been using since 1990. :)
> Excellent! :-)

I'm not a huge Apple zealot to the point of wearing black turtlenecks 
every day, but I gotta hand it to them, they have been a big innovator 
with keyboard design. They (almost?) always design their own keyboards. 
They have had big fat key'd ones and tiny thin aluminum designs, ones with 
huge borders and ones with nearly zero borders, but they've always tried 
to put a little bit of pinache therein. Successful or not, I respect them 
a lot for trying, and several of their designs are very nice. I've never 
known them to create "clackety" keyboards with mechanical switches, but 
then again there are only two groups who care: gamers and curmudgeons 
(*grin*).

I made my choice to be an "IT guy" a long time ago, I might as well do it 
in style and comfort with the most beautiful gear I can get. Thus, the IT 
gear I'm least afraid to drop money on is my keyboard and monitor. Okay 
cash on keyboards in my case is a vulgar embarrassment (let's just not 
talk about that *ugh*), but monitors I only buy once every few years (if 
that much). When I do buy one, I choose *very* carefully.

That was the one thing that never really shone in the SGI world, despite 
some cool fru-fru in other places. I have a granite slab keyboard and an 
SGI USB keyboard. Neither is anything special (and the USB one has DOMES 
*gasp*... the horror). However, SGI did have the "dials and buttons" and 
"Spaceball" interfaces. So what they lose in style points for lack of cool 
keyboard designs I have to re-award for their other cool input devices.

-Swift