1990 Chicago Tribune article on keyboards interviewing Key Tronic, Northgate and IBM managers

[leoc]

I found this 1990 Chicago Tribune article about PC keyboards by chance. [EDIT: try archive.is if the link doesn't work for you.] I searched and it doesn't seem to have been mentioned here previously so I mention it now. Sorry if I missed earlier discussions of it! Possibly interesting things include Jim Duffy, IBM's business manager for keyboards at Lexington, talking about imitating Selectric keyfeel and keytops and making his excuses for the PCjr, and Arthur Lazere, chairman of Northgate, talking about taking his PC company into keyboards, rejecting the IBM layouts, and finding a supplier in Japan which makes keyswitches he likes (surely Alps?), as well as sparring with Key Tronic sales & marketing VP Mark Tiddens about whether keyswitches should make noise.

[Invisius]

He found a company in Japan that made key switches with the sound and feel he liked. The feel is like IBM`s, but the click is louder.

Hmm, I wonder what company this could be.

Great article, interesting to see the small enter was a deliberate choice and that clicky vs silent rivalries were just as strong back then.

[Jesseg]

He found a company in Japan that made key switches with the sound and feel he liked. The feel is like IBM`s, but the click is louder.

Hmm, I wonder what company this could be.

Great article, interesting to see the small enter was a deliberate choice and that clicky vs silent rivalries were just as strong back then.

ALPSUU!

[sharktastica]

''People get awfully emotional about keyboards-it`s a very personal thing,'' said Mark Tiddens, vice president of sales and marketing at Key Tronic Corp.

Even in 1990, this guy knew what's up.

[depletedvespene]

…
Super interesting read, thanks so much for sharing. So it is safe to assume that IBM PC jr drove Northgate to make beloved keyboards that vintage keyboard enthusiasts still love until these days

Well, the PCjr's keyboard was total shiRt, way inferior to the stuff that was common in "home computers" of the time (think Atari 800XL and Commodore 64). Heck, even the Atari 400's membrane keyboard was better!

[depletedvespene]

"Mice, touch pads, trackballs and even voice recognition systems are making inroads as alternate input or control devices, but progress is slow."

That was 1990. This is 2020, and progres is still slow, indeed.

[zrrion]

But the layout was simply a result of trying to ''make the best use of the available space,'' Duffy said.

this basically confirms my suspicion that the vertical enter on the XT is really only like that so that it can pull double duty as the numpad enter, a lot of other keys appear to have been positioned awkwardly for a similar reason.
And the comments about layouts regarding northgate keyboards was neat too, I'm now convinced that the split right shift on northgate and focus boards is a result of holding onto the right shift from the XT layout more than it was a unique invention by northgate or focus.

What a cool article.

[Polecat]

Link goes to the current home page.

[leoc]

Link goes to the current home page.

The link to the article? https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct- ... story.html It works for me, on a couple of different devices, and for at least some other people. Try this archive.is link if you're still having trouble?

[Polecat]

Thanks, the archive link worked. Good article.

[Hak Foo]

I don't get the "XT-F Enter as Numpad Enter" argument... considering it had that bizarre 1x3 numpad plus instead.

You can definitely see the XT layout with very few adjustments in the 5251 Beamspring. That seems the more reasonable origin story.

I tend to wonder if the XT layout would have been so maligned if they had gone for more full-touch keys, like the 5251, instead of hat keys for every larger key. The ANSI-ISO dichotomy might never have gotten off the ground.

[sharktastica]

I don't get the "XT-F Enter as Numpad Enter" argument... considering it had that bizarre 1x3 numpad plus instead.

You can definitely see the XT layout with very few adjustments in the 5251 Beamspring. That seems the more reasonable origin story.

That's reasonably a part of the story. Given that the 5322 and 5324 Datamaster keyboards also had the same physical layout, it seems reasonable IBM also wanted to reduce manufacturing variance as much as possible by just adapting it into the F/XT. There is evidence of this hastily adaptation of the design with early F/XTs too, which had a "brainless" mainboard just like the Datamaster keyboards and the later F/5291 with a daughterboard that presumably handed producing XT scancodes via the Intel 8048 microcontroller it has onboard. Here's what I'm talking about. Plus, the 5291 and its aforementioned keyboard that landed in Q1 1982 was also probably also a factor since the F/5291 definitely required the 5251 layout as the 5291 is of the same family of terminals. As for why Model Fs would eventually be varied in layout the following year with stuff like the Displaywriter Type B keyboard and the 4704 series (funnily enough, both keyboards that look much more modern with ISO and ANSI 'motifs' creeping in), well, the former has its own beamer cousin to emulate and the latter being banking gear would definitely needed to be optimised for its line of work. I assume.

[depletedvespene]

I don't get the "XT-F Enter as Numpad Enter" argument... considering it had that bizarre 1x3 numpad plus instead.

You can definitely see the XT layout with very few adjustments in the 5251 Beamspring. That seems the more reasonable origin story.

I tend to wonder if the XT layout would have been so maligned if they had gone for more full-touch keys, like the 5251, instead of hat keys for every larger key. The ANSI-ISO dichotomy might never have gotten off the ground.

Yeah, but the 5251 had a proper (in modern parlance) "thin ISO" Enter key. The F XT had a 1×2 stepped key, and widened/stepped the ]} to 1.25 to cover the missing space in between.

I've mentioned this numerous times, and I'll repeat it: the F XT layout (the Datamaster layout, if we want to be pedantic) is disastrous and looks like it was made by a drunkard in a hurry. Even taking into account that two of its weirdnesses (the stepped, offset numpad 0 and the "2u" Lock keys) are actually improvements over the earlier 5251 layout it clearly apes, the abuse of stepping and the absurdity of widening an alpha to cover up the lackluster Enter key put it back down to being an inferior alternative to the 5251 layout itself.