the keys to failure
Geek nostalgia of the day:
10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time
There are some doozies on this list, but most discouraging is that Commodore made the list three times. And I'm not even sure the C64 belongs here. True, it did not have a well-designed keyboard, but it was certainly usable by a touch-typist, which can't be said for any other entrant on the list. The C64's biggest problem was a lack of localization: it followed the European norms at the time for symbol placement, which forced me into hunt-and-peck mode while learning the layout (the double-quote was a shifted 2, for example, and the = key was right next to the Return key, which might have made a weird kind of sense when programming but was really annoying when trying to write a paper). Of course, when I got an IBM-based PC later, I had to re-learn the standard U. S. keyboard layout.
But some of the other keyboards on this list are beyond dreadful. My favorites are the Mattel Aquarius, which had the awesome feature of placing a Reset button right next to the 1 key; and the all-time bad-keyboard champ, the IBM PCjr. The only advantage of its wireless keyboard was that you could throw it across the room without damaging any wires.
10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time
There are some doozies on this list, but most discouraging is that Commodore made the list three times. And I'm not even sure the C64 belongs here. True, it did not have a well-designed keyboard, but it was certainly usable by a touch-typist, which can't be said for any other entrant on the list. The C64's biggest problem was a lack of localization: it followed the European norms at the time for symbol placement, which forced me into hunt-and-peck mode while learning the layout (the double-quote was a shifted 2, for example, and the = key was right next to the Return key, which might have made a weird kind of sense when programming but was really annoying when trying to write a paper). Of course, when I got an IBM-based PC later, I had to re-learn the standard U. S. keyboard layout.
But some of the other keyboards on this list are beyond dreadful. My favorites are the Mattel Aquarius, which had the awesome feature of placing a Reset button right next to the 1 key; and the all-time bad-keyboard champ, the IBM PCjr. The only advantage of its wireless keyboard was that you could throw it across the room without damaging any wires.