Wow, this was way crossposted. I trimmed all but team.net,
because I'm not subscribed to the others. Why am I replying to
all of team.net? Oh well.
I love M$ Natural Keyboards. They're one of the few things the
company ever did right. Well, the first iteration of them is.
I bought one years ago because it was a cheap alternative to the
more expensive ergonomic keyboards available. I type over 100
wpm and used to type over 130 wpm, and the repetitive stress on
my wrists eventually got to the point that my wrists would hurt
after a few minutes of full-speed typing.
Anyway, the original M$ Natural Keyboard is great. The keys
don't have the best tacticle feedback that I've experienced, but
they're certainly adequate. When you use the keyboard, the
wrists will remain straight instead of "knock-kneed" (opposite of
bowed) like they end up when you type correctly on a standard
keyboard.
My typing slowed a bit when I first got it, because I was used to
the layout of a normal keyboard and would often do things like
hit t, g, and b with my right index finger if my left index
finger was busy with r, f, or v. The slowdown is not really that
significant, though - I still do over 100 wpm.
If you can't find an original M$ Natural Keyboard, the new ones
are ok, but M$ screwed them up to some extent by changing the
arrow key and insert/home/page up/delete/end/page down block. On
the newer keyboards they look like this:
/\ ins del
<-|-> hom end
| pgu pgd
\/
instead of:
/\ ins del pgu
| del end pgd
|
<- \/ ->
The tactile feedback on the new ones is improved from the
original, but the key layout really annoys me and I've avoided
buying one.
My brother has a Dell Natural Keyboard (appears to be OEM'd from
M$) that has the improved tactile feedback but without the
changed layout of the keys I mentioned. You might try finding
one of those.
Probably more information than you wanted, but hey, I like this
keyboard. It solved my wrist pain without costing $200-300 and
I can type fast on it as well. I have one for home and one for
work.
OS2C: I'm doing an EVO Phase I school on 2/2. Anything I should
know ahead of time to be ready for? I expect it's a lot of runs
and will kill my half season used kumho tires.
-matt
On Tue, Jan 22, 2002 at 04:35:30PM -0500, Matt Murray wrote:
> The keyboard is getting a little sticky/slow/dirty. I don't think
> that quart of Redline Power Steering fluid pouring into it did it
> a lot of good. :^) Okay, it wasn't that bad, but if I'm going
> to upgrade. . .
>
> So anybody use a "Natural Keyboard" that Microsoft sells? This is
> a version with a lot of hot keys, but most aren't really my top
> priority.
> http://www.computers4sure.com/Product.asp?ProductID=71114&iid=342
>
>
> But there is a Microsoft Office keyboard, with various hot keys
> to Word, Excel, etc. but doesn't have the layout of the Natural
> Keyboard, it is a standard straight line keyboard.
> http://www.computers4sure.com/Product.asp?ProductID=326926&iid=34
> 2
>
> Opinions and thoughts welcomed.
>
> TYIA,
>
> Matt Murray
>
> mattm@optonline.net
>
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--
matthew c. mead
http://www.goof.com/~mmead/
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