Re: quality keyboards
On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 6:52 PM, Petter Adsen <petter@synth.no> wrote:
> On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 09:45:03 +0200
> "Gian Uberto Lauri" <saint@eng.it> wrote:
>
>> Petter Adsen writes:
>> > On Mon, 31 Aug 2015 02:09:23 -0500
>> > rlharris@oplink.net wrote:
>> > > How much do those things cost? Now that a keyboard can be had for $10 or
>> > > $15, is it better to pay $150 or even $250 for a quality keyboard, or
>> > > replace a $15 keyboard every year or even every six months?
>> >
>> > I while back I bought a Razer Black Widow mechanical keyboard, and it
>> > cost about $100. They claim[1] that the switches will last up to 60
>> > million keystrokes, and sell both silent and clicky types. It's a
>> > really nicely built keyboard, and IMO good for typing. It also has USB
>> > and audio pass-through.
>>
>> I have a Cherry keyboard under my fingers. After some years of
>> continuous usage (it's my office keyboard) the original caps lost the
>> marking and I got the chance to make a custom coloured key-set.
>>
>> The keyboard is still the most comfortable I ever used.
>>
>> I'm planning giving Razer a try, I am willing to buy a K95 with all the left
>> keys - they recall me the old Sun keyboards I used as a student.
>>
>> The RGB version could let me emulate the colors of my custom keyset
>> (black fo alphanumeric keys, blue for "shifts", green "non printable",
>> yellow for cursor movement, gray for function, red for esc and 'system
>> requests' and orange for insert). But this is just to make a geek happy.
>
> I do not know if that will work under Linux, you might want to check out
> how the colors-thingy is set up. The keyboard I've got is the one with
> no colored lights, so I can't test it, but all the other extra features
> of this keyboard are configured via Windows-only "cloud" software and
> require an initialization sequence to be sent. The Python script that
> is available for Linux only enables the macro keys and the Fn + media
> key combinations, AFAIK.
>
> The Windows software will also auto-update the firmware in the
> keyboard,
Say what? Since when does a keyboard need a firmware update?
Hmm. Maybe the USB controller stuff, but still, ...
> and some people have had problems with initializing the extra
> keys under Linux after updating the firmware. I've never run the Windows
> software, and my keyboard works fine.
>
> The keyboard model with no lights is also quite a bit cheaper, so you
> might want to do some research before you get one with lights. You
> could of course ask Razer for the information necessary to enable that
> functionality yourself, but they seem quite uninterested in Linux.
Can you tell what the micro-controller is? Maybe try re-programming it?
The fun thing about mechanical keyboards is that it should be rather
easy to rip out the controller in the keyboard and put your own
controller in. Keyboard controllers are not hard, and programming one
might even be a fun weekend project.
Well, except, I guess, for the USB support. That will take a bit of
study in advance, I guess, and may eat more than a single weekend. USB
is way overkill for keyboards, really. Convenient in some ways, but
overkill.
>[...]
--
Joel Rees
Be careful when you look at conspiracy.
Arm yourself with knowledge of yourself, as well:
http://reiisi.blogspot.jp/2011/10/conspiracy-theories.html
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