Mechanical mysteries

Dave Alcock takes you on a journey through the realm of clickety keyboards.

Embark on a journey through the realm of clickety keyboards

Keyboards are the true kings of input devices. They predate mice by almost 15 years, and thanks to companies like IBM – which set the standard in terms of the shape we know today – they have become perhaps the most easily recognisable and usable devices out there. In fact that tell-tale shape ensures that we can jump onto any PC we see and immediately know how to interact with it. If you think of a keyboard, you usually end up with an image of that standard 104/105-key ANSI layout imprinted into your mind.

Membrane, dome, capacitive, and scissor-switch keyboards still make up the majority of the keyboards that are out there in the wild today, mostly due to office and industry use. But before we go any further on this, what we will say is that these boards are perfectly fine products. There is a reason they are still being used in such vast numbers right now, and that’s because they’re cheap, accurate, and do the job they’re designed to do darn well.

However, if you want to take it a step further, there are of course mechanical keyboards. These are nothing new – in fact most early keyboards were mechanical, with many phased out in favor of the cheaper options we just mentioned. The IBM Model M and Model F were the most sought-after of the older mechanical boards back in the day, and almost 30 or 40 years later these buckling-spring bundles of joy are still priced high enough to make your eyes water, coveted by many a coder and developer, even at APC. So let’s dive a little deeper into the world of the mechanical keyboard.