Useful...
I used to have a Compaq keyboard with nothing written on it. It was useful for learning to touch type. :)
PC buyers have become used to having to do most of the donkey work when it comes to setting up their machines, but Hewlett Packard has gone one better by supplying keyboards that are not just wireless, but letter-less and digit-less too. Just look at these pics from Reg reader Ian who said he has just received this pristine, …
Think computers on the bars in pubs. The biggest hazard facing a mechanical keyboard is getting a pint of beer spilt over it. Waterproof keyboards are essential in the hospitality environment. Here, before flat membrane type keyboards came out we used to have plastic films which covered the entire keyboard, but evidently they did it differently over there.
(The whole hospitality universe has gone touch-screen since.)
It's a pity that the seller doesn't ship to the US. Probably wouldn't be cheap even if they did.
(Yes, there probably is someone in the US with similar keyboards. I can't be really be bothered to look--they're no Model M. Yes, I've got a couple of similar ones with letters on.)
Now if someone's got a letter-less Model M... (and no, I don't mean "pull all the keycaps off" - it doesn't feel the same if you do)
... it's HP's attempt at a budget keyboard with dynamic OLED keytops. It needs to be plugged in.
And then fitted with OLED keytops at a rumoured $10 a pop (but only if there's any OLED bits left after Samsung and Apple have finished hogging them). For now they'll be shipping a set of stickers of what the OLED screens will show to complete the item. It's a bit awkward changing them all to the CAPS stickers every time someone presses shift, and then back again...
They do have budget pricing on their side though - Art Lebedev's Optimus Maximus keyboard costs a tiny bit more ...
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/keyboards-mice/9836/
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/optimus/demo/
Yeah, but with piano keys, the same key always make the same sound.
With keyboards, you notice how the different keys jump around all over the place depending on who's PC you use, and which keyboard they have. I especially hate having to hunt around for the @ and \ symbols and then give up and type their ASCII codes instead.
Also the collection of ´ different ` apostrophe ' symbols that you get from different keyboards and the fact that nothing appears until you press another key makes me extra happy.