Keyboards

After my heretic last post I just have to add that this external Apple keyboard is simply the best I have ever had the chance to type on. Ever. It's orgasmic. I am talking about the aluminum one, the slim one, the sexy one. As if there was any doubt.

And just to put it into perspective: I am a keyboard fetishist. Seriously, I am kind of an old-school geek and the keyboard is my main input device. I type a lot, I use keyboard shortcuts a lot. A lot less since I got a Mac but still a whole lot. To make things really clear: I used Emacs for a long long time. And I loved it. That's “Escape Meta Alt Control Shift” for all you GUI wimps.

It all started on a VIC-20 and a C64 and a C16 and a Schneider (Amstrad) CPC464. Boy, those boxes (and their keyboards) sucked. I loved them anyway. The only excuse I have for the lack of taste is that I was too young and inexperienced to know better.

Then the Amiga appeared on stage. It was magic. It was as if the NCC 1701 had appeared in orbit. (I'd prefer the D model but you might disagree on this one.) The A1000's keyboard was the one that made clear to me what a good keyboard actually is, as I hadn't seen one before. Low key drop, low resistance, super crisp keystroke. It was almost like touching a girl's body for the first time. (And now I finally know the reason why they picked the name for that baby.)

After the demise of Commodore and the Amiga I refused to buy a new computer for a few years. PCs just sucked (and they still do, less though, nowadays) and Macs were too expensive (and from a technical point of view they sucked, too). Eventually, when the Pentium was introduced, I decided I had to bite the bullet and bought a superexpensive PC with a superexpensive monitor and a keyboard that was, you guessed it, just as superexpensive. In fact, it was the most expensive keyboard available in the store. And I deliberately typed on all of them before looking at the price tag. The store was run by a geek and I told him my misery about keyboards so he told me to go ahead and test them all. After doing so I pointed at the only keyboard I could at least imagine to type on, without any doubt the best one available. He just gave me a smug grin and said “good taste buddy, got enough cash on you?”. Still it was no match for the A1000 keyboard.

And now, many many many years later, after having typed on so many crappy notebook keyboards, after having been disgusted, after having been annoyed, after already having resigned on that matter, I have finally found a keyboard that puts all the others to shame. And it is sooo stylish. Thank you Apple, thank you Jonathan. And thank you Dieter, I guess.

Well, that should be good enough to get absolution, right?