From: Joseph R. Grace <JGrace@TetraSoft.com>
Subject: ADB Keyboard --- a review.
Organization: TetraSoft International
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 17:43:43 GMT

A quickie review of the new keyboard.  These are of course my opinion.

The mouse and keyboard are in all respects better than the previous keyboard.  

The mouse is very nice (though a little small for the largest hands).  It is  
light and responsive.  Twice (?) as sensitive as the old mouse.  A little  
mousing goes a long way with the new mouse.  The two buttons are great ---  
since they click in a very short distance and have great positive tactile  
feedback.  They can also be pushed from anywhere on the button without strain.   
The mouse is seriously nice (unless you want an ADB trackball, I guess ;-).

The keyboard is nice.  I am already enjoying it better than the old one.  The  
layout is far better, especially for programmers.  Three major physical  
improvements have been made:

  1.  The 5 system keys (power, two volume and two brightness) have been  
recessed very nicely.  The five keys have been changed to buttons which have  
short clicking distances, look very nice and won't be inadvertently clicked  
when reaching for the numeeric keypad.

  2.  Four characters ("|", "\", "`" and "~") have been moved to the main  
layout of the keyboard (from the numeric keypad).  This layout change is a  
major boon for any programmers and UNIX shell users (since these keys are  
common shell and programming characters).  Can you say "YAY!" ;-)

  3.  The command keys have been replaced with a recessed command bar below the  
space bar.  This novel change is a major win.  The command key will be much  
more fun to use now that you don't have to move your hand to reach a command  
key (rather, just thumb it with a thumb).  The command bar is approximately the  
full length of the space bar, so it's easy to hit.  However, there are two  
minor problems with it:  1. the feel of the bar is mushy, lacks positive  
tactile feedback (even compared to the rest of the keyboard), and 2.  
(hard/impossible to remedy) for long hands (like mine) one's thumbs collide.   
This problem doesn't occur with the space bar since typically just one thumb  
(ever) is used to press the space bar.  However, the command key is  
functionally a shift-key (since it needs to be used in combination with other  
keys), so you want *both* thumbs to use it (and can't just let one thumb press  
it all the time).  However, I expect this problem to go away with practice and  
time.  The mush problem is not horrible, but I can imagine NeXT revising the  
keyboard to make the command key as responsive as the rest of the keys on the  
keyboard.  Overall though, the command key is a clear win (regardless of these  
imperfections).

The keyboard also has more tactile feedback than the old keyboard (and in my  
opinion is better than the old keyboard tactile-wise).  However, despite the  
improvements, the feedback could be improved (I think).  Perhaps, I am just  
used to my old IBM PC/AT (no flames, please :-) keyboard, and perhaps I've got  
tactile feedback ergonomics all backwards or something (so take the following  
with a grain of salt), but two features of the feedback irk me:

  1.  The tactile pressure threshold happens almost immediately when pressing  
the button, instead of steadily increasing and then releasing.  I would rather  
have <Touch><Pressing><Pressing><Pressing><Feedback><Contact> instead of  
<Touch><Feedback><Pressing><Pressing><Pressing><Contact> (since the feedback is  
hard to distinguish from the contact with the button and is too (in my opinion)  
abrupt).  The abruptness of the feedback seems to me to undermine some of the  
ergonomic value of tactile feedback.

  2.  The above problem is compounded by the following:  the key press is only  
acknowledged at (near) the bottom of the key stroke.  So, you *have* to keep  
pressing after the <Feedback> to complete the key press!  This feature seems at  
least slightly counter-productive to having tactile feedback since (in my mind)  
the tactile feedback release should coincide with the actual key press contact.   
Neither of these problems are critical by any means, but I do find them  
irksome.

Caveat:  there may be some significant (to this discussion) keyboard ergonomics  
of which I am ignorant, so my above concerns may be hogwash (Have I mentioned  
that? :-).  I doubt it though, since I *really* like the feel of my old IBM  
PC/AT (yes, I said it *again* --- are you annoyed yet :-) keyboard, and it  
exhibits the non-abrupt behavior which seems preferable to me.

However, even acknowledging the above feedback foibles, the keyboard feels good  
and (in my opinion) is much better than the previous NeXT keyboard.  And the  
mouse is awesome!

Cheers,

= Joe =
-- 
Joe Grace <JGrace@TetraSoft.com> (NeXTMail preferred.)
TetraSoft International   Business and Personal Productivity Tools for NeXTSTEP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware,comp.sys.next.advocacy