Silent Keyboards for Silent PCs? 87
Kethinov asks: "Following up on the question asked in this story, I have a similar problem as he did except my late night coding (typing) sessions, not my clicking, seem to generating excess noise for the people I'm living with. I, as he did, checked out this possible solution, but to be honest, I can't type on anything but a standard-layout keyboard. Now, I too can search Google, but just looking at a possible solution doesn't help much. Does anyone on Slashdot have experience in this matter, from which I could better narrow my choices?"
Easy answer. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:1)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:1)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:1)
You speek ill of the Model M.
You must DIE (Or be forced to watch Spice World 10 times in a row)!!!
Re:Easy answer. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:2, Funny)
Remove the springs (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:4, Funny)
If you think the folks around you are complaining about noise now, wait 'til every dog for miles around goes nuts whenever you touch the keys. :-)
Re:Easy answer. (Score:1)
Hmmm... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
Nice, and I'm addicted to it, but for $50 at Fry's I'd like to see the keycap letters last a little more than five months.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:3, Informative)
They aren't. Moving your hand/fingers over the keys makes most of the noice, and I have noticed that you can type pretty quitetly with the right technique, but that's nothing like the quietness of the laptop keyboards. Same goes with the Apple mouse. They should be made more silent, even though they are pretty good otherwise.
Re:Hmmm... (Score:2)
missing two of the buttons for crying out loud!
Re:Hmmm... (Score:1)
A noisy keyboard in a soundproof room (Score:3, Insightful)
fruit roll-ups (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:fruit roll-ups (Score:2)
Yuck.
Re:fruit roll-ups (Score:2, Funny)
Re:fruit roll-ups (Score:2)
Re:fruit roll-ups (Score:3, Informative)
As far as their usability goes, i prefer it to a conventional keyboard, but it is certainly an aquired taste.
Once you get used to aiming for the contact under the middle of the keys, rather then any part of the actual keys themselves, they actually become quite nice to use. The surface of the keys are soft, and friendly to fingers hitting them. It makes for some
Atari 400 Keyboard (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Atari 400 Keyboard (Score:2)
Arrrgggg! I learned to type on that. Memories of
2340 DATA 255,56,78,48,87,165,187,255.255,255,255,255,255
Now find the errors in the above line. (hint don't try this unless you have at least an hour to dedicate to several hundred lines of the same, otherwise you don't get the feeling of how boring it is, and might be temped to say the problem is obvious)
Hint 2: the . instead of , should take the longest to find because you should spend most of your time looking for errors in the numbers where most err
Paradigm shift (Score:4, Interesting)
Have a look at this. [pcworld.com]
Touch Stream Keyboards (Score:5, Informative)
I really like all of the different special things you can do with it, like closing windows, zooming, using it as a mouse, etc...
anyways, I highly recommend it
Re:Touch Stream Keyboards (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Touch Stream Keyboards (Score:1)
Re:Touch Stream Keyboards (Score:2, Informative)
Fingerworks TouchStream LP [fingerworks.com]
Anyway, not only do you get a silent keyboard, but it's nicer on your fingers and hands because you barely have to press to get a keystroke to register. It also brings with it a numerous amount of gestures that you can use for common things, the website has flash animations of most of the gestures. The nicest thing by far tho, is the fact that you don't have to move your hand to
Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
Hardly instills confidence in the product, does it?
Re:Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:3, Funny)
Submitter's comment (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Submitter's comment (Score:1)
It is this hard surface that provides the feedback (imo). Your fingers feel the hard surface, and can tell when they have made contact with the contact pads underneath.
I would best describe the keypress as having (relatively) high initial resistance, followed by virtually no resistance (the travel of the ke
Re:Submitter's comment (Score:2)
Re:Submitter's comment (Score:1)
Re:Submitter's comment (Score:2)
Re:Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:2)
I was really hoping it would work out to be a nice keyboard but unfortunately, I was disappointed yet again. As the data point, I have been disappointed by virtually every keyboard I used for one reason or another be it reliability, key pressure, noise, etc. Maltron, kenisis, ms natural have failed my finger tests. They all suck but they all suck in uniq
Re:Virtually indestructible keyboard (Score:2)
Hmmm... you might want to stay away from this keyboard <g>
Try this... (Score:2, Funny)
Perfect Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Perfect Solution (Score:1)
Type using brainwaves [brainfingers.com] =D
Siemens Virtual Keyboard? (Score:3, Interesting)
From the designer's site: Here [siemens.de]
Re:Siemens Virtual Keyboard? (Score:2, Insightful)
Laptops (Score:2, Informative)
It also looks like most of the laptops have nice, silent keyboards.
As of silent keyboards for desktops, the ones that came with dells 2-3 years ago were great, and the one that came with my compaq deskpro 4000 was good too. I guess you can find these quite easily on eBay.
Re:Laptops (Score:1)
My solution (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My solution (Score:2)
A different angle... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A different angle... (Score:1)
If you don't need silence (Score:2, Insightful)
change your roommate (Score:4, Funny)
if you live with a roommate (or gf, etc) who minds the noise you make with your keyboard during late night coding, then the obvious thing to do is to change your roommate or gf, much more so than go with drastic actions like changing your keyboard.
hope this helps
One better... (Score:1, Funny)
Take up snoring.
Pretty soon they'll be praying for the soft patter of little keys at all hours of the night.
Or there's visual basic, no typing necessary....
Type More Softly (Score:2)
SUN Type 6 USB (Score:1, Informative)
It even works on a regular PC, not just on SUN
Switch room ? (Score:2)
IBM Model M: Loud but eternal (Score:3, Informative)
I've got what is probably the least silent keyboard in the world: The good old "Model M" from IBM which has been mentioned several times already. The version I possess was built in 1985, thus being only one year younger than I am. The first 13 years of its history, it served as my father's keyboard at work. Since he's a researcher with a desk job, you can assume heavy usage 9 hours per work day. Five years ago, he brought it home, exposing it to three computer-happy boys by plugging it into the computer in the house. Now, 17 years after it was build, I'm using it, and it's still a mechanical wonder, with unsurpassed feel. On the downside, it is rather loud. But it's nevertheless impressive, considering that no modern keyboard lasts more than a few years, while this one will probably last for as long as computers support PS2 keyboards.
BooHoo!!! Re:IBM Model M: Loud but eternal (Score:1)
But yesterday, the b,n, and space keys stopped working. I'd just upgraded my motherboard, so I initially thought I'd blown something. But when I tipped the keyboard, some red wine dripped out of it!
Imagine! I have this keyboard for 16 yrs, and I go and break it with a careless glass of wine! I'm distraught!
Ferg
Re:BooHoo!!! Re:IBM Model M: Loud but eternal (Score:2)
CoolMac Keyboard (Score:3, Informative)
This is totaly silent. Water resistant, foldable, etc. It's a very good seller where I work, although it has a Mac layout, it will work on a pc (windows and alt key inverted). Contrary to what most review say, I didnt find it hard to use it, you get used to the feeling pretty quickly. The only drawback is that it has no numerical keypad, but no one uses the numerical keypad for coding anyway. The best news is that it's USB, so you can have it connected aside your old clunky ps2 keyboard if you are a PC user.
Since it's in soft plastic, it's totaly silent. I doesn't emit any sound.
Silent is great but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone else have this problem? Has anyone found a silent AND responsive keyboard?
Re:Silent is great but... (Score:1)
Put it on a soft surface (Score:2, Informative)
The noise can also be reduced by changing your style to hit the keys more gently. It takes a little work but often works.
As for keyboard models, I seem to remember the old Mac keybo
iMac keyboards. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then again, I'm among the only people I know who like the way they feel. And I'm definitely the only one I know with huge, ogrish hands who likes typing on them. Anyway, give it a shot.
(And before anyone asks, they're just regular USB keyboard. They'll work fine on any computer. I have a couple
Have you tried...... (Score:1)
--
This sig best viewed with an open mind.
Re:Have you tried...... (Score:1)
On a side note: what happens to an IBM 'M' if you remove the springs completely ?
Re:Have you tried...... (Score:2)
It's not the typing, it's the chips & soda (Score:2)
Sounds like you need non-crunchy chips and non-fizzy soda. Not that hard to come by, at least in my house.
viewsonic? (Score:1)
Coolmaster Keyboard (Score:1)
Laptop style mechanisim, good feel. I love it my boss hates it, but it nearly silent.
Reviews:
http://www.enscape.net/?id=106
http:
Pruchase:
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProduc
Re:I-Don't-Do-Windows keyboards (Score:1)
You could also pick up a Sun. Type 5s are less flimsy, but require a RS232 adapter that you generally have to build from scratch.