This entry is about keyboards. Skip it if you don't wish to hear what I have to say about typing.

On Monday, Josh and I went to Re-PC in Tukwila. I've been going to their store in the industrial district of Seattle since I was sixteen or so, but I'd never been to Tukwila since it's entirely too far to bike. I ran across an XT keyboard while browsing the bins, and quickly fell in love with it. It's of the old 83-key variety.

There are several things awesome about it. First, it weighs about five pounds. This should never be underestimated. It's a sign that a keyboard has a substantial backing, and won't fall of your lap when typing. It also won't move around on the desk unless you intend for it to move, which is rather important.

Second, it has buckling-spring keyswitches. These are the best keyswitches, like, ever. Before I had ever felt one, I thought that they were rather overhyped. Even after I started, I wasn't completely convinced. I kept bottoming out the keys because I've grown up on membrane keyboards, where the press registers somewhere between the snap and when the key bottoms out. This has conditioned me to type rather harder than is necessary. Buckling spring keyswitches are different in that they positively register when the spring buckles, which also produces the keysnap feel and the sound. (Buckling-spring keyboards aren't exactly quiet, which is why I think my family will start to hate me sooner or later.)

Third, the XT keyboard has a borderline weird layout from the perspective of the AT-derived keyboards that we're conditioned to here in the 21st century. It has no directional (arrows, home/end, pgup/pgdn) keypad; you're supposed to use the arrows on the numpad, which is right where we're used to seeing the directional keys. Also, the control key is where we're used to seeing the capslock key, and capslock is off in a corner. This makes sense for anyone who's used to using control more than capslock, and I suppose that's many people. I really don't understand why capslock has such a primo spot in AT keyboards whereas control is off in the corner.

Josh also got me an IBM Model M keyboard, which is a standard AT keyboard with buckling-spring keycaps. It's awesome as well, but rather less so because of the substandard layout. ;) As soon as I can persuade Linux to grok the XT keyboard's signals, I'll be using it instead.

I probably ought to stop falling in love with keyboards. I have at least seven in my bedroom: one USB Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 which was my birthday present last year, one Teletype (with a delightful keyfeel but an unknown interface), one Sun Type 6 (icky, feels like typing on meat), two Wyse Terminal (one sort of sticky, the other with no snap at all), one XT, one AT, and one ADB (also sort of icky but not as much as the Type 6).

I ought to write about something from my own life, but I'd rather share this anecdote that my father told this evening.

My grandfather was a bank teller to rather rich people during the Great Depression. Banks were collapsing for reasons similar to now; people were taking out more money than they were putting in.

Customers came to his bank in particular, asking for their money back. Typical practice was to give the customer a cashier's check for the full sum if it was over a certain amount, in order that they not be mugged on the street. Al (my grampa) was a perceptive man, and saw that his bank could end badly if every customer closed their account. He asked his boss what to do.

His boss said, "Give them their money. In cash."

So he did. He saw the wisdom of this plan shortly. The customers would take their money, say, $50,000. That's a lot of cash to carry; several pounds worth even in hundred dollar bills. The customer would walk across the lobby and get to the door, where he would see hungry people outside who probably wouldn't mind having a load of cash in their pocket.

At this point they would usually have second thoughts about carrying so much money about in such an economic climate, and re-open their accounts.

Mood: amused

From the Smith (surname) page:

Following the failed Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland, which began around 1715, many Scots adopted the last name Smith to disguise their connection with rebellious clans.

I do believe that my ancestors (I'm fully a quarter Scots) were involved in that. So that means that if the Jacobite revolution had succeeded I might have a less common surname.

Happy Independence Day!

Yesterday (25-May-2006) was my grandmother's ONE HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY! It's not like she reads this or anything, I just wanted to broadcast that. It's pretty cool, isn't it?

Was going to ask her out a few days ago. But she's in New York until Sunday morning. I guess I'll just have to wait.

/me waits

I'm going to post the contents of my poetry journal in the future.

Here's what I wrote yesterday:

NO. 5 XBR SYS TBL RCDR CARD
Memento of an earlier age,
When something goes wrong
in a 5 Crossbar,
it spits one out.
Manila cardboard
cheap grey ink
dozens of meaningful perforations.

It's the chad--the holes--that count.
The writing just shows
which hole
is which
relay
circuit
selector.
The machine would do fine with blank paper.

What happens when you run out?
They aren't printing any more.
Will it matter by then?