Aaaargh! Spending a fortune on keyboards!!

vaio

Get yourself down to your local computer fair and see if you can pick up an old IBM keyboard.

Mine cost £4 and is still going strong after 15+ years and also has the advantage of weighing a ton and having proper click keys

Little_John

OK
It isnt a case of poor method or the way the keyboard is being used it is a case of the way the letters are applied to the keyboard, they will be applied to the surface and the use of the keyboard causes them to slowly wear off.

test yours rub your finger over a key and see if you can feel any differance between the white/black bit and the section where the letter or text is. I have 2 cherry keyboards, 1 is a normall one the other came from a travel agent and a standard keybard that has had additional markings applied to some of the keys as they have additional functions in the booking systems.

The extra marking are done profesionally but they are slightly raised and give a rougher feel to that section of the key the manufacture markings are smooth and wont rub off the others will after time. I have seen keyboards form heavy use where the lower edge of the key has worn away but the markings are still in place.

The single finger typeing wont help your son get him touch typeing asap if you can but it wont cause any aditional wear to the markings on the keys.

My laptop keys are slightly rasied and parts are wearing off. an excelent sugestion from vaio older Dell and IBM keyboards are very well made we used to play tennis with over the work benches when it was quiet keyboards as rackets.

Microsoft and logitec make reasonable keyborads but they also wear off.

webhamster

use the old clicky ones , or a microsoft one those last for ages like.

ormus

ive got one of those MS ergonomic elite keyboards. had it about 5 yrs now. all the keys perfect.
(needs a good clean though!) i should have got one of those plastic covers.

vaio

Little_John wrote: »

.......an excelent sugestion from vaio older Dell and IBM keyboards are very well made we used to play tennis with over the work benches when it was quiet keyboards as rackets.........

From the feel of mine you could certainly use it as a racket and use a house brick as a ball

solidly build is so much of an understatement, as I said previously, 15 years (in work) and still like new (or would be if I cleaned it)

BillScarab

I'd definately agree about the old IBM ones, I used one that originally came with a PS/2 for years. It was a superb bit of kit. Having said that at home now I use a cheap one that came with a PC about 8 years ago and the letters haven't worn off yet. Even though the keys originally had a slight texture to them which has now worn smooth on the more popular keys the letters are still visible.

No idea what you're son is doing to wear the letters off so quickly though.

You can get old IBM keyboards on ebay quite cheap

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-Keyboard-PS-2-Model-No-KB-7953-and-Mouse_W0QQitemZ160095598953QQcategoryZ33964QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

ABH_3

I have in the past always sugested to friends and family to buy 'Cherry' keyboards due to their durability. However, after experiencing the keys rubbing off of a couple of their keyboards and then experiencing a 4 week turnaround to get a replacement. I don't do that anymore.

I sugest buying a couple of Microsoft keyboards, they each come with a 5 year waranty. So if during those 5 years, the keys go blank, just ring microsoft UK up and have them ship you a new keyboard. If you do this once or twice, they may ask you to ship the old keyboard to some 'special' department they've got for 'durability testing' (wel that's what they told me anyway). Either way, it has goto be cheaper than buying new keyboards ever x number of months.

Your Son might even benefit from learning to touch type, so he's not using this thumb to press letters.

Freeware:
http://typingsoft.com/all_typing_tutors.htm
http://www.northcanton.sparcc.org/~technology/keyboarding/freeware.html

HTH

Lesley998

Thank you all for your informative and useful posts!