The 'Worst' Keyboard Ever Made 101
Marcin Wichary, Design Manager at Figma, writes in his newsletter: At this point it's probably clear that every time I say "the worst keyboard ever made," I am being cheeky. These are not the worst keyboards ever made. There is no worst keyboard; the world of keyboards is just too complex for this to be possible. Even more importantly, though, I believe there is always something you can learn from a keyboard you don't like. Sure, the Ukrainian keyboard has an atrocious build quality, the TI calculator keypad is weird to press, and the abKey is far from a Revolution. But there are things in either of them that can surprise and delight.
Who is this person? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who is this person? (Score:5, Insightful)
And what on earth is Figma? Are they qualified to comment on the relative design merits of different models of keyboard?
If s/he has fingers then they're qualified.
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Anyone who used an IBM PC Jr "chiclet" keyboard is qualified.
The chiclet keyboard was even worse than a 2015 MacBook.
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Does a pentadactyl cat count?
I suppose you could train it to.
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Exactly what 'qualifications' are needed to comment on the design of keyboards?
Re:Who is this person? (Score:5, Informative)
It's an ad for a book about keyboards. Don't pretend that anyone reads the article. It doesn't matter who that person is or what's in the article. Just start reminiscing about bad keyboard designs. If you need some inspiration, the article has pictures and descriptions of some pretty bad ones.
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Don't forget to lace the comments with plenty of, "back in my day" for that authentic feeling.
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Talking about "Back in my day"
The Atari 400 keyboard would have to be up there for being one of the most unusable keyboards. It really really sucked.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
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Exactly what 'qualifications' are needed to comment on the design of keyboards?
I don't remember the entire list of 'qualifications' but I do remember that an intense, flaming and near religious hatred of the Apple Inc. multinational technology company is item number one. Item two was an intense, flaming and near religious hatred of the Microsoft Corporation.
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I'm poking more at the editing of the Slashdot post than at the author of the article. They successfully wrote an interesting review of some quirky keyboards. My complaint is that the Slashdot post namedrops a person and a business as if I should have any idea of who the hell they are. You can get away with that if the post is about "Jeff Bezos" and "Amazon", but not when it's about "Marcin Wichary" and "Figma".
A better lead-in would have been: "Marcin Wichary, a designer who for the past several years h
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Oh I don't know "is your name Thomas" would be a good starting point
https://www.youtube.com/user/C... [youtube.com]
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The one they mention doesn't even look that bad. Yeah it's basic and the moulds are obviously either hand-made or well past end-of-life, but compared to some of the crap out there...
Re:Who is this person? (Score:4, Insightful)
And what on earth is Figma?
The company that paid for this post?
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A subsidiary of Ligma.
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At this point it's probably clear that every time I say "the worst keyboard ever made," I am being cheeky.
You would know the level of qualifications that are needed for the article.
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Figma nutz.
Send it to Apple (Score:2, Flamebait)
It looks considerably better than any of the shitty keyboards Apple have made this century.
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Which was WORSE than the preceding Commodore PET 8K
Re:Send it to Apple (Score:4, Informative)
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Lets not even discuss the Ti-99/4.
The Ti-99/4a keyboard felt great. It wasn't a full size keyboard by todays standards but back then nothing was a full size keyboard.
What made the keyboard a horror to use was the lay out of the keys, specifically the reset key. As with most keyboard of the time each key did triple duty. In this case it was the += key that also served as the reset key. To reset the computer you had to hit the function key and the += key. The problem with this arrangement is wher
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It looks considerably better than any of the shitty keyboards Apple have made this century.
What sets Apple apart is not their horrible design but their arrogance.
Despite a tsunami of complaints about their keyboard, they refused to fix it for five frick'n years.
Oh, there were so many (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh, there were so many (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a ZX81, yes it was awful... the Thomson TO7 was the worst one ever.
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Oh, yeah, The Thompson. That one's way up there.
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You need to try a laser projection keyboard if you want to experience truly awful.
Re:Oh, there were so many (Score:4)
Agreed. My first thought was that the worst keyboard I've ever worked on was the ZX-81 [wikipedia.org]. If you've never seen one in the flesh you have to understand that not only was the keyboard a really crappy membrane-type of deal, it was also tiny (like an oversized calculator).
Thankfully Sinclair included shortcuts for everything so you didn't kill yourself, but it was still pretty awful.
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It manages to be _considerably_ worse than a touchscreen keyboard.
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And in the summer every time you got close to being ready to run the program the frelling thing would reboot because it overheated. My roommate scavenged a metal player from the broken hockey game in the basement, we screwed it to the tiny and utterly inadequate heat sink, and then it would work long enough to let you get really, really frustrated.
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Not to mention the unreliable cassette tape data storage method, where the only way you knew if the program loaded was when it finally started. Sometimes it might take 5 minutes, or 10. Or you'd have to do full rewind and start over. But if you rewound it fully, it would time out on the blank leader at the beginning of the tape, so you'd rewind it in the deck, then take the tape out and wind it by hand so the tape was jusssst visible.
Man, I hated that thing.
Re:Oh, there were so many (Score:5, Funny)
The original Sinclair ZX80 was a really bad one. Same with the Atari 400. The IBM PC Jr was a flop partly due to the awful keyboard. Many of the generic PCs of the late 80's early 90's came with god awful keyboards.
Ahh, the Sinclair. It's one of those things you buy, decide it sucks, and give it to someone else you want to punish for some small grievance.
In my case, it was the kids.
They say "Daddy, I need a computer!" and I could answer "You have a computer you hardly ever use. Go play with that."
This was one of the things that encouraged the kids to get a good-paying job and move out, so it did serve a purpose.
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I can see that Childeric taught you well
All the Membrane Keyboards were Horrible (Score:4)
My first "real" computer was an Atari 400 which was actually the best of the membrane keyboard devices. It wasn't terrible for putting in some text and numbers but it was totally unacceptable for any kind of programming - not that keystrokes were generally missed or nor was it a non-ergonomic size (it also had raised edges around each "key"), just that the limited travel and funny feel (you could feel the plastic deform under your fingers) made it unnatural for any kind of continuous typing (like programming).
The ZX 81 had a truly awful keyboard in every sense of the word. It was too small for anything but two finger typing, it was hit or miss if the keypress would be accepted or if a bunch of repeated keypresses would be recognized. It was also weird because along with ASCII characters, the BASIC programming statements were built into the keyboard so you ended up spending a lot of time staring at it and not at the screen. Oh, and the keyboard was terrible quality - they tended to wear out after around 10 hours of typing. The only saving grace was that I bought my first one for $25 (and I bought another a few years later for $10 still new in the box).
There was quite a cottage industry built on making replacement keyboards for the ZX 81 but I never heard of one that worked much better than the original (and they all cost at least $150).
I still have one of the ZX 81s, but it's really nothing more than a paperweight because the keyboard is completely NFG.
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too small for anything but two finger typing
And too big for thumb typing.
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This was the early '80s, Thumb Typing hadn't even been thought of.
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My membrane Model M keyboard begs to differ that all membrane keyboards are horrible.
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??? I thought the Model M had a bucking spring.
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A buckling spring that presses on a membrane :-)
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The original Sinclair ZX80 was a really bad one.
The Sinclair wasn't so bad if, instead of your fingers, you used the eraser end of a pencil to hunt-and-peck.
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As bad as this were, the early TI 99/4 was the hands up winner. Not because it's keys were worse, but because there *wasn't* a key under the right pinky; L was the end of the row.
The result was your hand *constantly* shifting to the left by one, resyktubg ub ttoubg ytter bibsebse , , ,'
I forget whether the custom processor ran a hideous subset of the PDP-11 instruction set, or merely claimed to be inspired by it . . .
hawk, now suffering flashbacks . . .
oh, put the original trash-80 in the running, but nowh
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All of which are wonderful compared to laser projection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
My vote goes for the ZX Spectrum (Score:3)
I haven't even used this thing and I already hate it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Here's a keyboard I saw, scoffed at, thought about some more, scoffed again, continued thinking about it, and eventually bought. And in the end, *I love the thing*. Worth the weird journey of uncertainty. https://drop.com/buy/planck-me... [drop.com]
Re:My vote goes for the ZX Spectrum (Score:4, Interesting)
I haven't even used this thing and I already hate it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The famous dead-flesh Sinclair keyboard. I was employed as a progammer for these things. As you might imagine, we used a separate machine to work on and downloaded the games over a cable. Spending a working day typing on that would do bad things to your head.
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The dead flesh keyboard wasn't too bad in the scheme of things. A big step up from the ZX81/ZX80.
The black ones they put on the Spectrum+, Spectrum 128, etc. were much worse.
Re:My vote goes for the ZX Spectrum (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as the Spectrum keyboard sucked it was quite amazing for its time, because the machine was built down to a price. It launched for £125 (about 500 Euro in today's money) which was considerably cheaper than almost anything else, except its own predecessor the ZX81 (which also had an awful keyboard). For reference the Commodore 64 was released at £300.
That was the 16k version which was quickly abandoned as it became clear that most games would need 48k. The keyboard was a poor input device but the machine was relatively slow so it often didn't matter, and it carried over a feature from the ZX81 where pressing a key would print an entire word by default. For example pressing "L" would print "LOAD" so at least for BASIC programming the number of key presses were minimized.
It wasn't very powerful, the graphics were quite limited and not suited to games, it didn't even come with a joystick port (it was an optional extra) and the only sound was a 1 bit built in speaker. But it was cheap, so they sold a lot of them and there was a decent library of software. Even some half decent games.
For some reason Sinclair never could do keyboards. Even later, more expensive machines like the QL were total crap, and by that point a decent rubber dome keyboard would not have been all that expensive. The QL was amazingly bad though so the keyboard was to be expected.
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Even later, more expensive machines like the QL were total crap, and by that point a decent rubber dome keyboard would not have been all that expensive. The QL was amazingly bad though so the keyboard was to be expected.
I had forgotten about the QL keyboard. Talk about cheap tat. It always felt like the keys were about to fall out.
IBM PCjr (Score:4, Interesting)
Game.
Set.
Match.
Re:IBM PCjr (Score:4)
OK yeah, that's pretty bad. Review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Pfft! The whole machine was bad. I remember seeing it in an IBM store with a whole bunch of expansions [brutman.com] hanging off the side. It was a miracle it didn't fall off the table and kill someone.
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Except you will find that Thomas/Chyrosran22 thinks the projection laser keyboard are the actual worst by quite some margin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
He's not a fan of the Maltron either
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
You want REALLY bad keyboards? (Score:5, Informative)
...Das Keyboard branded models, from Q model upwards started REQUIRING software that read every single keystroke for RGB and "smart" RGB actions support. They not only made it closed source, but also ACTIVELY BAN AND SANCTION any open source project that attempts to reverse engineer their RGB protocol for avoiding controlling their RGB LED functionality, most likely to hide the flaws of their own software and firmware which is just one of the worst practices I've seen in peripheral security.
Models include the 5Q, 5QS, X50Q for instance. These 100+ usd pieces of kit pretty much have "keylogger" as an undisclosed
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Not just Das Keyboard. Although their keyboards work without their software, Razer's is a 500MB install and Corsair's iCue is a gig.
It would be okay if you didn't need it, but some functions of the keyboard only work with it. It should be possible to define things like macro keys from the keyboard itself.
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Don’t forget about Razer making you create an account before their software will run.
Re: You want REALLY bad keyboards? (Score:2)
Apple butterfly (Score:3)
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Only if you use the wrong sort of bread.
Clear winner (Score:3)
Timex Sinclair 1000 / Sinclair ZX81
A tiny, hard sheet of plastic with flush pressure-sensitive keys. Imagine someone drawing a keyboard on an index card, then having to type on that.
The good news was that with 1 or 2K of built-in memory, it didn't take much typing before you ran out of space.
The Odyssey 2 had a similarly awful keyboard, but at least it was nearly full size.
How to make your own ZX 81 Keyboard (Score:2)
It's ridiculously easy to do - I did it a number of times going back to the late '70s when keyboards (or small matrix keypads) were really expensive (especially for a kid/university student).
The Keypad consists of a matrix of metal tapes, the topside being in the "Y" direction and the bottomside in the "X" direction. For special keys (ie shift, ctrl) you'll have to play around with the pattern of the tapes so that you can hold down the special keys while pressing one of the regular keys. I'm assuming th
I wasn't aware that a competition is on (Score:2)
But now that you mention it, that explains a lot.
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Reddit /r/keyboards are devoted to the idea all keyboards are bad.
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What do they recommend instead? A Neuralink interface?
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they don't recommend anything, it's classic reddit negativity.
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Untold numbers of rare and expensive IBM terminals were scrapped so these fools could brag about their mechanical keyboards.
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Anything that facilitates posts on Reddit is bad.
Commodore PET (Score:2)
Worst keyboard (Score:3)
Iss thd connnntedst stil opem?
Alphabetic order keyboard (Score:2)
My wife will love that... not me.
Find the keyboard that met your need.
I'm torn (Score:2)
- Pc Jr
- thin membrane 'keyboards' on some older devices including some gas stations
- the second last iteration of macbooks
I think macbooks have been at par with the PCjr keyboard until the most recent version which got slightly better.
Re: I'm torn (Score:1)
Touchscreen virtual "keyboard", mate. With "keys" a sixth the size of your fingerss,aybe invisible borders, and no haptic feedback of any kind.
The worst. Bar none. If you even count them as keyboards.
The fact that you even *need* autocorrect ... Not want. *Need*.
No doubt, the worst keyboard is (Score:2)
the one in school covered by some sort of plasticy dirt cover that made it feel like you were typing through a condom, or what you figured a condom must feel like, since you were 12 and hadn't ever seen one in person.
Which is the only thing worse than _any_ silicone keyboard.
Virtual Keyboard (Score:2)
Honestly this one is the worst. As a touch typist, I have to look at the damned screen then look up to see if I made an error then fix or continue. I occasionally really pisses me off.
[John]
All normal keyboards are horrible trainwrecks. (Score:1)
Show of hands: Who here has his underarms protruding from his belly at the with of a keyboard without numpad, wrists comfortably hovering two inches above the desk, with fingers slanted at an angle, all equal in size and strength?
Because that is what keyboard manufacturers seem to think we are shaped like.
Worserer. Way worserer. (Score:3)
Then I discovered the Elektronica MK-52 calculator (80s Russian attempt at a HP clone). THAT has the worst keyboard ever - makes those others feel like IBM Model Fs in comparison. Construction quality has to be felt to be believed.
They made millions of them - yet as far as I can tell it's pretty much impossible to use. You can still get new-old-stock models on eBay for about $25 (shipped from the Ukraine).
Atari 400 (Score:2)
Easily the worst; waterproof is all it has going for it.
Hmmm. (Score:2)
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I remember seeing those advertized and thought they looked cool. Were they really bad?
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Worse by a long long stretch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
maybe not the worst but the one I hate the most (Score:2)
I have a safe with a stiff membrane digital keypad. It will often stutter when I press a digit, entering two digits instead, then beeps loudly, scolding me for getting the combination wrong. I can't shoot it 'cause the guns are inside. Maybe it knows this....
At the other end of the spectrum I'm typing this on a 122 key IBM Model F from 1985. A typing experience which can be described as luxurious.
TRS-80 Coco3 (Score:1)
The TRS-80 Coco3 had a TERRIBLE chicklet keyboard that had no discernible way of knowing whether you actually pressed a key or not. It was also loud and clumsy and just awful to work with.
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The Coco 3 actually had a descent keyboard.
http://www.computinghistory.or... [computinghistory.org.uk]
I think you mean the original Coco 1.
http://www.computinghistory.or... [computinghistory.org.uk]
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I actually meant the coco2... that's the one I got for Christmas in 1983, according to my dad.
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I actually meant the coco2... that's the one I got for Christmas in 1983, according to my dad.
No, CoCo 2 had a regular style keyboard. The CoCo 1 had the really bad chicklet style. 2 and 3 both had normal keys. You can see all three on here: http://members.iinet.net.au/~i... [iinet.net.au]
Romanian CIP keyboard (Score:2)
The Romanian "CIP" Spectrum clone had a nerve-wrecking keyboard.
Hard plastic chiclet buttons, a very weak spring underneath. A plastic divider was separating 2 tall metallic leaf contacts that would touch when the key was pressed.
The tall metallic leaf contacts were supposed to be gold plated over cooper plating. The gold plating was so thin that it scraped away in the 1st month exposing the copper underneath which will oxidize. You had to violently press the keys to scrape away the oxidation and make the c
My worst was (Score:1)
I nominate the Teletype KSR32 (Score:3)
stiff, inconsistent, for numbers and punctuation you have to shift the keyset and then shift back. yeah, I'm old.
Challenge accepted, anyone? (Score:2)
I've encountered a couple that might be serious contenders.
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Atari ST (Score:2)
I've encountered quite some keyboards along the way, but I'd have to vote for the Atari ST (I had the 1040 STF) as having had the worst keyboard. Its feel was sort of rubbery, undefined. And those slanted keys at the top, easy to hit a neighbor along the intended one.
Some modern keyboards don't feature proper F-keys or Escape, a definite no-go for me.
My favorite keyboard remains the original IBM, of course. Sun or DEC keyboards were quite nice, too, as was their hardware generally.