The Longest Possible Route

If this entry looks different to you, you've got great eyes! I'm using a new keyboard, and I wouldn't have guessed you could notice.

Yes, all the ones and zeros are being created by a new device. The best part is, what should have been the labor of at most an hour took me nearly a week to complete! It probably doesn't bode well for bragging rights as to my computer abilities, but one can't overlook the fact that I managed to find a solution to the problem.

First, it's January, and when things were good January always meant one thing: renewing my annual pass to the Fairplex Computer Show. They call it a show, but it's a swap meet, and every year I'd attend so many of the shows it was cheaper for me to get a pass for the whole year. Even when I didn't buy anything, I used to love roaming the aisles and seeing all the crap.

Not only was there tons of computer hardware and software, there was all the other crap that shows up at these things. Massagers, tools, even knives. Movies (adult and otherwise), cell phone providers, but I really liked looking at all the computer crap. And, every year or so I'd buy a new bare bones computer and upgrade my computing experiences.

Which leads, oddly enough, to this entry. I had a keyboard that I loved, but was beginning to suffer from years of use. It was black, which I enjoyed until the black wore off and I needed to rely on my touch-typing skills which never extended much past the ten-key keypad and the alphabetic numbers. I always had to look for things like the dollar sign, and I never mastered reaching the correct function key without looking.

Keyboards are very personal, for me even more so than mice. It's all about the feel, and I have to say it's been years since I've had one I really loved. That goes back to typing and a boring story.

Sometime in Junior High I took my first and only Summer School class. It was for typing, and I really don't know why I took it. But, I did. It wasn't even at my school, but another, "competing" Junior High a couple miles west. Some of my friends went there, so I knew about it, and there were football and basketball practices and games there as well.

The typing class was held in the lunch room, of all places. It was packed, and the instructor stood in front of us all on a podium and we each had a manual typewriter on the table in front of us. Yes, I'm that old. The first day I remember the teacher calling out, over and over, A-S-D-F-J-K-L-; and all of us slamming down the keys as she called them out. It was, as can be expected, deafening. Some time that first class, or the next, I learned to type "as sad as dad," and the only other particular I remember was when the class talked the teacher into showing us what it looked like to type sixty words a minute.

We were stunned. It sounded so fast, especially compared to our four or five words, and I don't know if I ever was able to type as quickly as she sounded.

I never did much typing for the next five years, nothing extensive. But when I started my first novel at the ripe age of twenty or so, I had a manual typewriter, a ream of blue paper about the consistency of tissue paper, and a bottle of Martel. By the time I'd given up, I also had arms Popeye would be jealous of.

Typing on a manual typewriter is good exercise. And, slamming the carriage return is gratifying.

When I started with computers, they had good, solid keyboards that were like electric typewriters. Those I liked, but there another thing of the past. Now it takes little effort to depress the keys, and while I guess that makes it easier to type quickly, I miss the feedback.

At those computer shows there were tons of keyboards for sale, most around ten bucks. When I decided a couple weeks ago to get a new one, I went to Fry's Electronics and keyboards are now much different. They all have extra features, for web browsing or the like, multi-media keys, programmable this and that, lights and the majority are wireless. I had no idea the cable running from the keyboard to the box annoyed so many people.

I eventually found one for about seven bucks that was as cheaply made as you can imagine. I remembered that I needed a PS2 connector instead of USB, and that limited my choice quite a bit. I guess many people now type incredibly quickly and need the higher speeds USB connections provide.

After less than a day's use, I was already unhappy with my new keyboard. It was white, which I wanted so I can see it in the dark, and it had the necessary PS2 connector, but the weight of my hands (to say nothing of my typing) bended the keyboard in the middle. Two days later, and keys were beginning to stick, and I was mad.

I bought the next-cheapest one, a "mini" keyboard, but when shopping I forgot that I wanted a white one with a PS2 connector. Instead, this new one is black and USB, and therein lies the problem. I have several computers all connected to a KVM switch, which doesn't support USB. For a couple days I had two keyboards since only my WXP computer recognized the USB keyboard. I didn't like the idea of having to crawl under the desk and swap all the time, so I bought an adaptor to let me use the USB keyboard with my PS2 DVM box.

The adaptor I bought, of course, was of the wrong gender. I went to CompUsa and marveled at the prices they charge for this sort of thing. I went back to Fry's and bought another wrong piece, then, finally got the correct adaptor and now everything's gravy.

Except the part about how I don't like how this one feels, and that the shift key on the right is too small. And, the "delete /  insert / pg up / pg down" buttons are next to the function keys instead of over the cursor control keys like they should be.

And, it bends when I lay my hand on it. But it does have buttons for web browsing that I will never use, so that's a plus.