AllHardwareKeyboards

My Ideal Keyboard

I've already written a large version of this post but it got nuked due to a technical issue; here's another version, albeit shorter.

My current keyboard is a Logitech G19 and it features a lovely little built-in LCD screen, in addition to the array of extra keys that are typical on a Logitech device.

Before I carry on, I need to expand on the screen somewhat. The screen, photo of mine to the right (reminder: sort out the horrible image CSS), is useless due to the lack of software. Logitech ship some little pointless "applets", such as a clock, that aren't all too useful. I decided to change that and write my own called Like a G19 (ha, a pun!).

You can click on the link for more info, but briefly: LAG19 gives you a full visual WYSIWYG editor that allows you to place various controls down to show information. It takes the LCD screen from gimmicky-but-useless to extremely useful. I put a huge amount of time into it and yet I haven't worked on it for a couple of years, let alone released it. Shame.

I've always used mushy rubber dome keyboards, but not out of choice; it's just the prevailing tech for keyboards - even this aforementioned £130 keyboard. Back in the 1990s I do remember Nimbus computers at school and the buckling spring keyboards sounded awesome; not that I knew that at the time as I was an Amiga idiot and everything PC sucked.

I recently gave some mechanical keyboards a quick test at some computer shop and... loveliness. Not perfect, as they weren't buckling spring or Cherry MX Blues, but close. Just missing that nice, loud click.

I've been occasionally looking at mechanical keyboards for the past year and still haven't bought one. The problem tends to be the feature set: thery typically aren't complete enough. MX Blues, but no multimedia keys? Multimedia keys but no Blues? Blues, but no RGB lighting? It's so frustrating.

Although the Logitech G910 Orion Spectrum is mechanical, it uses some custom switches called Romer-G rather than the Cherries I'm looking for. Grr.

Here's what I want.

  • Buckling spring or Cherry MX Blue micro-switches
  • Full per-key RGB lighting
  • Macro keys (that can be assigned to anything)
  • Multimedia keys
  • USB ports

Someone give me what I want!