Most Expensive Keyboard (in the world perhaps)

Overly expensive keyboard is overly expensive - you can buy a complete basic desktop or laptop for that kind of price.

Anyway.

I'm thinking of going for a mechanical keyboard.

Membrane boards are squishy, whereas mechanical boards have individual switches as opposed to membranes and thus give you tactile and audio feedback for when the contact is made. Many reviewers have mentioned that their hands and fingers are a lot less strained after switching to a mechanical board, as they dont' have to press the keys all the way down anymore.

The Optimus Maximus doesn't say if it's membrane or mechanical, but I'd imagine that it's a membrane. Plus, I'd imagine that the feel of the keys woudl be wierd, being that they're individual little displays. The one thing I didn't like about my Razer Lycosa mirror, was that the keys felt too slick. The standard Lycosa had a rubber coating on each key, so they weren't slick, which is important when you're gaming and tensions run high. Slipping off a key and pressing something else is Teh Suck.

Now, there are plenty of mechanical boards out there, but none of them are cheap. Steel makes some, as does Logitech, Razer, and plenty more, some expressly designed for gaming, others are fore typic purists who used to use the IBM Model M keyboards (that some still use to this day, two decades later).

Why did the manufacturers switch over? Cost. The mechanical switches cost money and have to be soldered to the internal board, whereas a membrane board is as simple as having your bottom board with the contacts and vacuum-forming a membrane to fit over that. Easy to mass-produce, cheaper, and you can make more of them.

Membrane keyboards don't last as long, though. Not a problem, as you can replace a membrane board for about ten bucks or so at Wal-Mart. A mechanical board now runs at least sixty bucks, often much higher.

Hmm. Get something nice you can keep for a while. Actually, I might be able to hook you up if my Razer one ever gets here. Ain't due until mid-Feb. But I might use my current as the server keyboard. Dunno yet I'll let you know once I get the other keyboard.

Dude, what? You talking about your Logitech board?

So, there I was, looking at the Razer site, and thinking to myself, "Self, I wonder how a Nostromo and Naga combo would do."

Of course, that's a seventy-dollar keypad and an 80 dollar mouse, but oh well. That gives you all the keys you need to have all the buttons you woudl ever want at your fingertips, and you wouldn't even need the D-pad that the Nostromo has (the D-pad, it seems, is the one flaw I keep seeing in countless reviews).

Several reviewers and articles have suggested that teh era of using a keyboard for gaming is on the way out, and it woudl be beneficial to have dedicated keypads to fill the role - less deskspace devoted to a board that you usually only use liek 30-percent of, and that means that you can finally use your mouse in front of you and stuff, on that giganto mousepad.

I'd like that - my tiny desk is too small to fit a keyboard and mouse on teh tray, so I have to end up putting my mouse on the desktop itself, and that ends up burning my shoulder up after about an hour, as the height is too high.

Ergonomics, they matter. Since we spend most of our day wither in front of a workstation typing and stuff, or gaming on home rigs, it woudl behoove us to have gear that doesn't casue carpal tunnel, arm cramps and other such issues.

You don't play basketball with cheap shoes, you shouldn't play e-sports with cheap gear - even if you're just an amature.

Well well well. I have one of the most oldest keyboards a compaq mechanical (I think, don't qoute me on it.) keyboard that works great most of the time. Sometimes it locks up and I have to reboot the whole computer since it is a PS/2 serial keyboard, but it has the highest IRQ hardware priority then a USB keyboard. This means there is no lag in keystrokes when your computer resources run high. USB keyboards start lagging if resources run high, though you might not notice it, but sometimes your do. The benefit of having a USB keyboard is that it is Plug and Play device which does not require a system reboot like the serial PS/2 board. Anyways im getting sick of rebooting my desktop everytime my keyboard locks up. Need a new one (USB mechanical).

I'll take your old mechanical if you ever get rid of it....! Oh wait, PS/2 serial... Need the little adapter for USB, right? That is the round S-video-looking connector, right?

If I like it a whole bunch (bugs notwithstanding) I can always drop cash for a modern USB one.

Doing some critical revew anaylisis of some mechanical keyboards. Das Keyboard seems to be pretty top-grade, although it's more of a typists keyboard - top typing champions love these, and can average about 125 words per minute with these.

Not all mechnaicals are equal: It depends on the switches that they use for the unit - blue, red, black, brown. Blue are the budget noisy ones. Brown are quiet, but give you the tactile feedback, red and black are quiet and don't give you much feedback. All are rated for about 50-million keypresses. So, it depends on hwo much noise you want out of your keyboard. I dont' mind the noise, I got a noisy membrane board at work, and it helps to know that I've hit a key so that I can move to the next keystroke and all that.

Not that I consider myself much of a typist at all, looking at the screen while typing gives me fits, althoguh I do need to practice at it, and improve.

http://pckeyboard.com/

These guys still make the old IBM model M boards, rebadged, and they run 80 bucks. They also look very typical and normal. No special drivers, macro programming and any of that stuff. They also are beige, so you can see the keys in low-light without having to backlight them. They offer them in PS/2 and USB versions, also, which is important to consider, and PS/2 is a legacy port and not usually included on new machines - my laptop, for example, does not have one.

Throw Backs.

Okay, so I narrowed it down to Das Keyboard. May even get the Ultimate, which has NOTHING on the keys. No symbols, no letters, no numbers, nothing. Totally featureless keys.

To train myself up for that possibility (and to see if it works), I took a Sharpie to my keyboard and blanked it all out. As you can see, I can manage okay. About the only problem I'll have is the number row, which I left alone on my board for the time being. Oh, and brackets, but who uses those, anyway...? The only drawback I'm noticing now is that my fingers smell like permanent marker after awhile, and the ink rubs off the keys, so I have to touch it up evey so often. Is it a redneck mod? Yes. Do I give a flip? Not at all.

EDIT: I actually have an old PS/2 board in my box of old computer clutter, but it's a membrane unit. I'll keep it for if/when I manage to find a really old desktop rig for retro-gaming.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124045&cm_re=ps2_pci-_-15-124-045-_-Product

HA! Now I can buy a PS/2 keyboard and not worry about it at all. I wonder if they make a PC Card model for laptops.

Wife just told me that she's going to get me a Das Keyboard Ultimate S for my B-day. I'll take it to work. Despite being all that and a bag of chips, it's just a USB keyboard.