[castor]

That's all i pay attention to. Sturdiness, and how many keys you can  hold down at once and still function. Basically, my distaste for all emachine keyboards.

I'd add key spacing and noise to that list. Used to have a crappy logitech kb, where you actually needed to be careful to hit the keys in correct angle, or risk nearby keys also registering a press - way too tight spacing, ruins error ratio/speed. And noise.. at least in office use its something to consider - at least in case of those more violent kind of typers (like myself)

[Enigmatic Entity]

the joys of large plastic spacebars...they need damping

[S-99]

I'd add key spacing and noise to that list. Used to have a crappy logitech kb, where you actually needed to be careful to hit the keys in correct angle, or risk nearby keys also registering a press - way too tight spacing, ruins error ratio/speed. And noise.. at least in office use its something to consider - at least in case of those more violent kind of typers (like myself)

Raised keys helps for confined keyboard buttons. It wont help all the way of course.

[LHN91]

I still hang on to a couple of those IBM model M's as absolute last ditch backup keyboards for the simple reason that i can pull it out of the attic, dirt and grime and excessive heat and all, bash it off the desk a few times, use it as a hammer, and still be able to count on it to work flawlessly.

[Davros]

plus all the keys have removable covers that you can put in a pillow case and throw them in the washing machine

[jr2]

It was sturdy, but with keypresses very similar to that of the ibm model m keyboard here.

That lets you press more than 3 keys at a time?

[Mongoose]

It definitely has the strangest placement for the backlash key that I've ever seen.

[S-99]

That lets you press more than 3 keys at a time?

I guess you didn't get what i meant. I didn't mean the actual physical ability to hold down more than 3 keys at the same time. I meant what happens with some crappy keyboards unable to handle more than 3 key input at the same time. Such a problem is a pain in the ass if you ever need to do the rare four finger salute (pretty uncommon for whatever programs out there that have a four key combination, but this problem i describe would make such a thing impossible), or play computer games (was a real pain in the ass when strafing while going forward and jumping and also trying to pull a quick reload in fps's (crazy fps day with emachine keyboard)).

[Nuke]

problem is you got to multiplex 104 bits (one for each key) into what typically is around 32 i/o pins (minus the ones that are used for communication with the computer) on whatever mcu your keyboard uses. you do this with a scan matrix, usually 8*13 (which only requires 21 i/o pins) for 104 keys. a column or row was connected to outputs and the opposite was connected to outputs. you power one of the input lines and then read each of the output lines for a 1 or a 0, then you repeat this for all the other input lines. older keyboards had the issue where these matrices were not well distributed (they matrix was directly mapped to the physical layout of the keyboard), so groups of close together keys would share a row or column in the matrix, causing them to interfere with eachother. so they started interleaving the matrix lines so that keys sharing a row or column would be far apart. for descent and fps games i would use the keypad or arrows for movement because wasd would clash with itself. i dont even think i started using wsad until quake 3 came out, because i was so used to using the arrow keys.

[Mikes]

http://www.deckkeyboards.com/ none better

[jr2]

That lets you press more than 3 keys at a time?

I guess you didn't get what i meant. I didn't mean the actual physical ability to hold down more than 3 keys at the same time.

I know what you meant.  I guess you didn't get what I was asking. Does that keyboard have the capability of sending more than 3 keypresses to the computer at a time?

[S-99]

Oh.

Unfortunately, i have no idea about the ibm model m. That was just for comparison of similar keypresses of the rather cheap (but built great for cheap) adesso mini to the ibm model m (both have clicky and raised keys). My older brother had the ibm keyboard i used every now and again for the few times i needed to use his setup (i typed on it, didn't game on it). His keyboard was great, i had no interest in it however, surprised he stopped using it (but at least kept it) and got a newer keyboard (he wasn't a gamer, i'll have to ask him why he stopped using it).