IBM keyboard makes writing a delight

LAST WEEK I read Andrew Thomas' article relaying Jack Schofield's thoughts about Linux. Golly, I may even have edited and published it.

Jack works for The Grauniad and I headed over to "Ask Jack". I do so every week anyroad, because he always offers solid advice on PCs for people.

For the last year or so, I've been using a slim little Genius keyboard and it's sort of OK, wasn't too expensive, but as Jack pointed out in his column, here, modern keyboards just can't take serious hack abuse. The letters of the alphabet tend to disappear.

Genius in front, IBM behind.
The Genius has lost its "a", much of its "e" and its "s"
is looking dodgy. Never mind the "o"
Too many Intel, AMD and Microsoft stories?

I did a wibble across the web for an IBM Model M keyboard. I've used those in the dim and distant past because I'm ancient. But I opted for a re-furbed IBM/R instead and bought one from this site. There's 10 left last time I looked. I almost bought two - but figure that I'll shuffle off the mortal coil before I wear out the one I bought. And it's got a 1.5-metre cable to boot! So I can hang myself if I die before I get my return on my investment!

What a delight the new keyboard is - yeah, OK it's a PS/2 connector but no problems plugging it via a PS/2 USB adaptor into a USB port. And despite what Big Blue said at the time, there's zero connection between PS/2 and OS/2.

A bad workman always blames his tools, but it is nice to have a solidly built keyboard which just ain't gonna expire under the INQ strain. Somewhere in a cupboard here at INQ Central I've an IBM Varityper and an AB Dick litho printer. Not quite sure why I'm hanging onto these old things, but think it must be appreciation for the engineering.

The IBM keyboard, the Varitype machine and the AB Dick printer all need power, so let's hope the lights don't go out all over Europe. ?

* INQblot Did you know that Jack Schofield and Andrew "Doctor Spinola" Thomas used to work together? I think that I must have known that already, because when Thomas and myself worked at the Other Plaice, I got Andrew to do the "Ask Spinola" column, even though yours truly mostly ghost wrote it. Andrew Thomas and Jack Schofield both seem to love Microsoft, but let's not hold that against them, eh?

* INQblot II Compaq keyboards were pretty good before 1992, too. You did realise the Q in Compaq stood for Quality, right?