Worst switch that you've ever tried?

[davkol]

derp

[seebart]

OK well that's one for Cherry MY. Obviously a switch designed for machine shops with CNC mills, I'm sure Cherry totally planned that. Reminds me of how the industrial SSK with the blue caps was used with Mopar equipment until the guy found out what he could sell that filthy SSK for.

[keycap]

I've still yet to try anything worse than the Smith Corona leaf spring over membrane. Absolutely horrible, nothing good about it at all. I never knew that a certain switch could feel so god-awful, but Smith Corona made it possible.

It's almost as if they strived to make the key feel as horrible as possible. They've definitely exceeded, if that's the case. I'd rather type on one of these...

...and that's just me being generous.

[UnFocused]

A mechanical keyboard that looks like it would be great, but I think is beyond terrible is the Apple II+ keyboard (and I guess the original II as well). It's sloppy and mushy and has a tiny bit of tactility near the bottom of the keystroke.

However, the very early Apple //e has a wonderful keyboard. It's linear and feels and sounds wonderful. The later version (not the platinum //e) is good, but not excellent.

The Commodore 64 looks like it would have a great keyboard. The caps are nice, but typing on it is nasty.

[eekee]

"Sloppy" reminds me of the worst keyboard purchase I ever made. It cost £60 which I thought would have got me a nice keyboard. I wasn't expecting too much as, at the time, keyboards other than the full 100% were very rare, and black keyboards weren't common either. This was black and about 65%, looking much like a Toshiba laptop keyboard did then; about 10 years ago. It was even branded "Shortboard." I appreciate the difficulties of low-volume manufacture, and 10 years ago I think this was prior to even the first USB-printers, but the guys who made the Shortboard got every part wrong except the outer case!

It has a thick steel plate inside, but instead of mounting switches in that nice plate, it's just sat under the PCB, atop which is the complicated moulding required to hold rubber domes. The domes are mediocre, not the worst I've used but the end resistance is quite unpleasant. The keys -- caps and sliders are one piece -- are just plain bad. They rattled from new. Within 5 years they were also creaking, the legends were wearing off, and there was a very shiny patch on the space bar. Perhaps the loose keys contribute to how bad it feels to type on.

The keyboard has a USB hub inside. When it was still new, the metal back fell off one of the USB sockets and rattled around inside until I took it out so it didn't make a short circuit. I tried to put it back in place once; it fell off again. The keyboard controller doesn't do a standard HID keyboard properly. It worked well enough with Linux, but when attached to a 9front system the alt keys (used for compose) don't work properly and the right control brokenly initiates a compose sequence instead of just being control. Left control works fine.

It was my only keyboard for a while, except for a truly horrible el cheapo, a £1.50 keyboard I mentioned above. I bought it when my last IBM died. Looking back, I think I should have used el cheapo for a while because the Shortboard doesn't seem that much better.

The strange thing about the board is every individual part feels solid, even the metal housings of the USB sockets are thicker than normal. That solidity is deceptive on almost every level. It reminds me of the fools who told me to pick a power supply based on its weight, and then went on to prove to me the power supplies they chose weren't properly engineered. I've had lots of power supplies fail; I got them for free out of the trash in the first place. Not one of them harmed the motherboard it was attached to when it failed. Those fools were adamant that a failing power supply will destroy your machine! It's funny looking back. I asked those guys about loads of things because I didn't know the terms for anything; AGP and Socket 7 (or was it Socket A) were dead and IDE nearly so, and with their advice I built a computer which has lasted me very well. It's 9 years old now and all I've upgraded is the graphics card. The power supply was the last thing I asked them about, and it suddenly showed up these huge gaps in their common sense! "Overvoltage protection" -- these words do actually have meanings!

[thomascherry]

I guess Dell keyboards don't count?

[seebart]

I guess Dell keyboards don't count?

Anything counts.

[Hypersphere]

- Keypad at my local gasoline station. The switch action is not terrible, but the printing on the keycaps has mostly worn off; ugly.

- Cherry mx clear. I don't like the steeply rising force-displacement curve after the actuation point.

- Various foam & foil.

- Some linear switches on old terminal boards (yet some of these proved to be quite smooth).

[eekee]

Does anyone like foam & foil? I liked the smoothness and light pressure of one or two boards I had when I was younger, but never did any real typing on them.

[seebart]

Does anyone like foam & foil? I liked the smoothness and light pressure of one or two boards I had when I was younger, but never did any real typing on them.

I've heard quite a few people here dislike foam & foil switches.

keyboards-f2/foam-and-foil-like-em-or-n ... y%20tronic

The foam & foil switches in the rather old Key Tronic of mine don't feel too bad but their not great by any means.

keyboards-f2/key-tronic-corp-serial-no- ... y%20tronic

[davkol]

derp

[Chyros]

Does anyone like foam & foil? I liked the smoothness and light pressure of one or two boards I had when I was younger, but never did any real typing on them.

Foam and foil is great in almost every way EXCEPT keyfeel, which unfortunately the most important one xD . They have many advantages though.

That said, I really don't mind my BTC foam and foil board with my Mitsumi mod . A bit like jury-rigged Topre xD . Maybe I'll do a dedicated video on it sometime, I kind of glossed over it in my BTC video.

[eekee]

Thanks for the replies. I like the 'like 'em or not' thread.

[vometia]

The only other keyboard to use this switch is the DEC LK201 I think. The assembly itself is beyond complicated, so I'm confused as to why these exist if they were made solely for lower pricing.

The LK201 is a really dreadful keyboard. Pity, I mostly like the layout and I mostly like DEC's computers, but that was a really nasty, mushy thing to type on. Then again I wasn't a huge fan of the Cherry keyboards on the more-or-less contemporary NCD X-terminals we also used: the tactile keyfeel was okay, albeit not the best, but the acres of creaky plastic were rather off-putting. I vaguely recall they may have also been a little trigger-happy, but I speak as someone who shortly afterwards discovered the Model M which has been my natural home ever since.

[cookie]

I just remember another one!
We used to have a bank terminal with this metal pile of shit here:


It was just awful to type on this!
I don't know what switch is actually inside.

[Chyros]

Is that one of those Devlin boards? Should be rubber dome in that case.

[vometia]

The LK201 is a really dreadful keyboard.

Actually, it just struck me that I shouldn't rely on my often unreliable memory, especially when I realised there's a handy LK201 sitting right next to me. I just gave it a quick prod and realised it wasn't actually as bad as I thought I remembered: it's never going to go down in history as having a classic keyfeel, but actually it does its job adequately well, and even that is probably still coloured by my slightly negative opinion of it.

I should've really learnt not to try to exhume half-forgotten experiences by now.

[vometia]

I'm also trying to remember the Philips terminals I encountered in around 1991/92: I just remember them for being totally hyperactive. I can't remember the model number, annoyingly, other than it being maybe a Philips P2xxx, but I really have no idea. All I do know is that they were Philips' fashionable terminal of the time and replaced the venerable TM220, which was a rebadged Motorola, which was a probably rebadged Ampex, which was apparently a rebadged something else; the TM220's LK201-equivalent was very similar to DEC's LK201 in terms of feel, though. But had more sensible (albeit still weird) feet.

But I wish I could remember what it was that replaced it. I've spent ages scratching my head trying to remember, searching for it and it seems really elusive. I'm not entirely surprised as it was Philip's revamped range of terminals that was released at the same time that PCs were really taking off in the office (Philips themselves were major users of 3270 and VT terminals rather than PCs up until that point) and Philips TDS/PBS/PIS/whatever they were called today were increasingly becoming a rebrander rather than an innovator and I suspect most customers just said "lol".

My best guess is that it was perhaps a rebadged Wyse: I can't find anything on Googly Images that looks exactly the same, but it seems to have their general vibe about it, a grey and slightly angular thing compared to the classic, slightly rounded TM220 it replaced.

Anyway, the point is I hated its keyboard: it was so hyperactive. It felt like if I so much as breathed on it, I'd get a whole catalogue of typos.

If it is a rebadged Wyse, that suggests maybe Cherry MX blacks, which I feel I can hardly criticise as being "the worst keys ever", nor even the most sensitive, all things considered. And I was told that for all my griping, secretaries and anybody else who could touch-type absolutely loved them. But I was a C programmer and I didn't (and still don't) touch type and a Model M is still my natural home, albeit much later than that.

I guess in short, "it looks like a Cherry MX black is the key type I'm the most absolutely cack-handed with". Better not get something with reds in it, then.

[eekee]

That reminds me of the time I was told programmers prefer clicky switches, typists linear.