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Marcin Wichary

To celebrate the Kickstarter for Shift Happens going well, I thought I would show you 50 keyboards from my collection of really strange/esoteric/meaningful keyboards that I gathered over the years. (It might be the world’s strangest keyboard collection!)
12 Feb 2023 at 21:41 | Open on mastodon.online
70 comments
Marcin Wichary

This is technically a bit of a spoiler for the book, but a) a lot of them are not in the book, and b) the book comes out in half a year, and we’ll all forget by then!

Let’s start!

kickstarter.com/projects/mwich

12 Feb 2023 at 21:42 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

1.
I have a SafeType, thanks to a friend who noticed one about to be thrown away. This is among the most notable and interesting “ergonomic” keyboards, complete with mirrors that help you orient yourself when you’re starting out.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:43 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

2.
The Comfort System keyboard is another “ergonomic“ device that is honestly pretty frightening to look at (explaining the challenge of making keyboards like these). You can reposition and reorient each of the three parts independently.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:44 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

3.
I love these DataDesk Little Fingers keyboards with smaller keys because you can see exactly when iMac was introduced and how the company tried to “redesign” the keyboard to fit the new style.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:45 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

4.
This is another Mac “alternate universe“ keyboard - an Adesso ergonomic keyboard that feels like “what if Apple Adjustable still existed when iMac came around”?
12 Feb 2023 at 21:46 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

5.
This strange “medical” keyboard is more mechanical than you’d expect! I wrote more about it here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a. Cleaning required when flashing!
12 Feb 2023 at 21:47 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

6.
Once you’re done with your shift (no pun intended) at the hospital, how about some Pizza? This is i-Opener, one of the many shortlived internet appliances, this one with a gimmick that keeps on gimmicking.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:48 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

7.
Speaking of spacebar-adjacent gimmicks, I am mildly obsessed with how beautiful is this first NeXT keyboard from 1987, with a bunch of cool subtle things including a Command *bar* underneath the spacebar. As a matter of fact, I just finished writing an essay on it today!
12 Feb 2023 at 21:49 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

8.
This is Olivetti Praxis 48: perhaps one of the most beautiful among the most beautiful typewriters, and strangely similar in palette to the above NeXT keyboard. You could turn on this (electric) typewriter just by pressing any key. That’s pretty wild.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:50 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary

9.
This Olympia Reporter typewriter is not beautiful, but it has a lot of POWER THIS and POWER THAT keys that celebrate its marriage with electricity? Why is X and some other keys red? Those are the ones that auto repeat!

12 Feb 2023 at 21:51 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

10.
This is another typewriter, so proud of a functioning (erasing!) Backspace that it gives this a treatment I have never seen before or after.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:51 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

11.
This Turkish typewriter (another Olympia!) means so much to me – the small success of this article from 2015 was probably what was needed for me to start thinking about the book: mwichary.medium.com/what-i-lea
12 Feb 2023 at 21:52 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

12.
This keypad… is so bad.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:53 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

13.
This was meant to be mounted atop Commodore 64 (which I don’t have), an interesting reversal from the early typewriters being nothing more than repurposed music keyboards.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:54 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

14.
These two are taking this idea even further – mount these overlays on regular keyboards to turn them into new kinds of interfaces.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:56 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

15.
There’s also professional gaming. It was cheaper for me to buy QSENN keyboards and replicate what professional StarCraft gamers were doing in the 1990s, than to find a good existing photo of one of these keyboards.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:57 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

16.
And speaking of gaming – we’re all used to the thumb style of typing from the first photo that it was fun to discover the short moment where the gaming keyboards looked like the one in the second photo.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:58 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

17.
And a bit earlier, some game consoles tried to reinvent themselves as home computers with keyboard accessories. This is among the strangest of them: a “keyboard” to add BASIC to the Atari 2600.
12 Feb 2023 at 21:58 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

18.
I commissioned this “joystick” from @benjedwards and I am so happy with how it turned out. It’s technically a joystick without a stick, but software turned it into a one-key keyboard. It’s F11, currently mapped to muting/unmuting in Zoom. It’s *incredibly* rewarding to press.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:00 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

19.
Speaking of strange keyboards, this is my “space cadet” keyboard – a mini keyboard that outputs only spaces, and instead of legends, each key *feels* different. Wrote about it more here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:01 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

20.
And here is a keyboard I built and hid in my shoes, made for one very specific reason. Are you interested what it is? Check out the whole story here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:02 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

21.
This is one of the most rare keyboards I have – the strange abKey Evolution imported through a friend from Singapore – a keyboard that tried to reinvent perhaps one thing too many. Wrote more about it here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:02 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

22.

And this one from Commodore is not really that unique, except it has this fun property – it reverses the usual beige colour scheme making the keys inside darker. It’s kinda neat!
12 Feb 2023 at 22:03 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

23.
This is a really cheap Bulgarian keyboard with such a poor build quality it cannot be unseen! I wrote more about it here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:04 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

24.
Oh, it gets worse. This calculator keyboard is so cheap it’s not a keyboard at all – just an exposed PCB with a pen to complete the circuit. More about it here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:05 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

25.
And this is the opposite, an incredibly well-built IBM Model F banking typewriter with an enclosure made out of zinc. Hefty enough to stop a bank robbery? Perhaps. More here: newsletter.shifthappens.site/a
12 Feb 2023 at 22:06 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

Halfway through! I need a bit of a break. Is this interesting? Should I keep going!?

12 Feb 2023 at 22:06 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

26.
If your bank robbery goes poorly, you probably end up typing on this Swintec, transparent so that no contraband could be hidden inside. More about transparent tech for prisons in this Techmoan video: youtube.com/watch?v=O3Pfsndsih
12 Feb 2023 at 22:16 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

27.
This simple braille keyboard – Tellatouch – was gorgeous and important. Type a key on one side, and the right braille letter assembles itself on the other.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:17 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

28.
This is a more modern version of an adjacent idea. Connect this device to a phone line, and you can speak even if you cannot talk. (Also, I just love any time a keyboard lands itself next to a segmented display.)
12 Feb 2023 at 22:19 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

29.
The creators of this Seiko keyboard recognized a watch with a keyboard wouldn’t make sense – so you could dock your watch and type this way. (I don’t have the watch itself. Too expensive!)
12 Feb 2023 at 22:20 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

30.
Just kidding! Here’s a keyboard on another Seiko watch. It’s an index keyboard – you don’t touch the keys directly, just move the cursor left and right like on Apple TV – since the keys are smaller than 1mm.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:20 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

31.
This TI calculator for school use has tiny keys… in between other keys. What a strange thing.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:24 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

32.
This calculator went… a different way.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:25 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

33.
I love hybrid things and in-betweeners. This tiny Panasonic Toughbook asks a question: what if a BlackBerry keyboard, but twice the width?
12 Feb 2023 at 22:26 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

34.
This one, for TermiFlex, is a one-hand operation, inspired by phone keypads. There are three shifts under your long fingers!
12 Feb 2023 at 22:27 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

35.
Speaking of complex shortcuts, look at this Apple keyboard with Avid software keycaps. The icon on Z is my favourite. I don’t even wanna know what this function does.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:28 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

36.
One among many foldable keyboards – this one for Palm devices (RIP).
12 Feb 2023 at 22:28 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

37.
This Sony remote had a built-in keyboard for typing in MiniDisc titles.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:29 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

38.
And *this* Sony keyboard had two numeric keypads going in two different directions! One for typical calculator use, and one inspired by mobile phones to allow to chat as easily for people who got used to chatting that way.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:30 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

39.
Very happy (and also maybe also a little concerned) to report I am in possession of the entire ProHance lineup of the strange pointing device/keyboard hybrids!
12 Feb 2023 at 22:30 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

40.
But it’s amazing how rarely the graphical user interfaces and keyboards intersect. This here – an old AT&T terminal keyboard – is an exception, providing dedicated keys for window management.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:31 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

41.
I had to get this keyboard for a now-obscure Harris word processor, just because LOOK AT THE SHAPE OF THIS ENTER KEY.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:32 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

42.
I have seen so many keyboards, but only this one – from a strange titling device meant to be connected to your TV – treats uppercase and lowercase exactly like all the other shifted and unshifted symbols. (With the exception of keyboards for kids, I assume!)
12 Feb 2023 at 22:33 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

43.
Back in the day, keyboards were so expensive that you often started on a “training” keyboard that came without the machine connected to it. Here’s a training keyboard for a Linotype, which is itself a fascinating machine.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:40 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

44.
Here’s another one for the first popular line of desk calculators that predates a 10-key keypad.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:41 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

45.
(I also have the actual calculator, called a Comptometer. It’s beautiful, really fun to use, and honestly a work of art. A truly impressive machine from the bygone era. I bought it because I was so impressed reading what it can do.)
12 Feb 2023 at 22:42 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

46.
Here’s another practice keyboard, with a record to play to teach you how to type!
12 Feb 2023 at 22:43 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

47.
And here’s the most modern version of a practice keyboard I know of – itself a small computer. After that, the likes of Mavis Beacon took over teaching typing in software.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:44 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

48.
Speaking of the 1980s, keyboards from failed computers often found a second life as Radio Shack components you could reuse in your DIY projects. Here’s one from a home computer called Coleco Adam.
12 Feb 2023 at 22:44 | Open on mastodon.online
Marcin Wichary replied to Marcin

49.
While we’re speaking about failed computers, this is One Laptop Per Child’s interesting-looking keyboard. (I think OLPC is considered a failure? I’m not 100% sure. This computer is not in the book, so I haven’t researched that carefully.)
12 Feb 2023 at 22:46 | Open on mastodon.online
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