Hi,

I was wanting to know what kind of commonly available (and not so commonly available) keyboards you programmers love to use the most when writing your code?

Thank you

Microsoft Natural 4000

It's the colour that matters: using a black keyboard your code will be much better than with any other colour.

For non ergo I liked and still do the old IBM keyboards with mechanical switches. However a Kinesis ergo keyboard with the option footswitches is a dream once you get sued to it.

I will use any keyboard that is comfortable for my wrists, has a full left shift key, is wired not IR or bluetooth and on the software side I use the dvorak keyboard layout. Currently I use a M$ keyboard, but that is because it was the only one sold here with a full left shift key, otherwise I would have preferred Logitech.

I bought a low-cost Compaq desktop machine which suits my computing needs. However I am dissatisfied with the keyboard because it is "flat" (i.e. planar). I have an old keyboard which is terraced (or whatever the correct term may be). My keying error rate is noticeably lower on the terraced style keyboard.

By terraced, I mean the asdf row is raised above the zxcv row; the qwerty row is raised above the asdf row. This is similar to old-timey typewriters. (Remember them?)

I modified the flat keyboard to increase the "tilt" provided by its built-in feet and that doesn't solve the problem.

I can't use the old keyboard because it has an annoying (and sometimes dangerous) defect. It goes into typamatic mode at unpredictable times. That's only a nuisance when it does thissssssssssssssssss but a disaster when I hit the Delete key and the PC goes berserk deleting files.

So... my request is to have LQ members recommend commercially-available USB keyboards which have the terraced design. Thanks!

Daniel B. Martin

Nonsense! Black keyboards are for C# and other new-age language programming. Real Men(TM) use beige buckling-spring mechanism keyboards with the function keys on the left, and the Ctrl key beside the 'A' key, so all of the WordStar key sequences can be correctly used, and with the little pencil tray across the top to collect pizza crumbs. The loud clacking sound of each keystroke keeps anyone within earshot (about 25 metres) awake, enhancing organizational productivity. And when the little legs at the back of the keyboard break off (after one too many cases of danielbmartin's scenario), the keyboard can be propped up on an old DEC VT-100 keyboard to get the proper angle for typing. DAMHIKT.
--- rod.

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i personally have never seen the values of 'ergonomic' keyboards, they seem awkward to me by comparison to the standard design of keyboard, especially with the methods of typing that was taught me when i was growing up.
i think they angling isn't necessarily bad, but more the distance between the sections often makes positioning of hands more awkward than with a standard keyboard. just my