“They’re not like normal keys,” my consultant friend Michael Canyes complained of the ones on the PC itself. “They click on and off like switches.
“A good key,” he said, “gets stiffer as you press down. But the IBM’s are either up or down.”
Some cynics have a theory. Maybe IBM didn’t want the PC to steal too many customers away from the Displaywriter costing several thousand dollars more. Yes, keyboards are a matter of taste, and unlike Michael, I can stomach the switchlike tactile feedback. But the shift location is inexcusable. IBM in effect admitted its goof; the IBM AT, a more powerful cousin of the IBM PC and XT, appeared with a much-improved keyboard.
At least the original IBM PC’s keyboard surpassed that of the tiny, chiclet keys on the first PCJrs. Reluctantly—after sales were flagging—IBM replaced the chiclet-style boards with more conventional ones.
Pity us “users.” Even terminals intended for mainframes and minis can be turkeys. I actually favor my Kaypro board over a terminal—from Digital Equipment Corporation—which Waters once was using with a big mini at work. Blame the old-style programmers who didn’t grow up with word processing. “Most can’t type like a secretary,” says Canyes, “so the manufacturers often skimp on the touch.”
And isn’t it strange? You can buy an electric typewriter with adjustable touch for $200 but not get it in a computer costing fifty times as much.
I asked David Eisen why he hadn’t raised the touch issue. Wouldn’t bad keyboard matches hurt productivity?
“That’s more the companies’ problem,” he said. “We’re more worried about health.” He can’t recall a flood of complaints from Guild members about keyboards with the wrong touch.
Union people, however, have talked about another change, flat keyboards, now popular in Europe. The tops of U.S. boards commonly slant at fifteen degrees. And Waters tells of an experiment where, given the ability to change the angle, most participants settled for the fifteen-degree one. A caveat, however, is in order. Maybe the people ultimately would have done better with a flat board and plenty of practice on it. Perhaps you want an adjustable board. But for me, anyway, it won’t matter as much as touch.
Another issue is the QWERTY keyboard versus the more modern layouts.