2006-11-27 19:06:13.549766+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments
The Nagy Magical-Movable-Type Pixello-Dynamotronic Computational Enginetm:
While charming in its reticence, the buzzing beige rectangle under a desk hardly seems a fitting aesthetic legacy for what is inarguably the most important invention of the last 100 years.
With a little creative anachronism, this project aims to retrocentrically create a false historical heritage for the modern computer.
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment Re: made: 2006-11-27 22:00:09.921657+00 by: ebradway
For a while I thought about making a custom case out of good wood. I may do that yet with my little mini-ITX server.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-11-27 22:37:57.932524+00 by: Dan Lyke
I've been dreaming about a keyboard based off an old mechanical typewriter for years. It's cool that someone finally did it, although my memory is that there's no way I'd be able to type nearly as fast on one of those as I do on a modern keyboard.
#Comment Re: made: 2006-11-27 22:58:59.244154+00 by: ebradway
The travel on mechanical keyboards is pretty amazing. Of course, he's mounting the sensors at a point that requires only partial travel. Hopefully, the shift-key is disconnected from the mechanics because it would move the entire platen.
I'm still very much partial to my 80s era IBM 101-key keyboards. I still have one and should try to pick up a few more while they still exist. I use laptops for about 95% of my work now, so I rarely get to use a real keyboard...
And to digress... Why haven't laptop manufacturers managed to come up with a standard keyboard layout? I mean, it's worse than 1990 PCs. I have two laptops right here - one a fairly new Toshiba and the other a brand new HP. Both have wildly different keyboards. Toshiba decided to relocate the accent/tilde key down by the space bar and shifted the function keys slightly. I hit F1 instead of ESC on that keyboard all the time. HP decided to combine some keys so Delete is now on the upper-right and the Insert key now double-times with PrintScreen. On the toshiba, the delete and insert are down to the right of the space bar...