"Originally, the plan was simply to document the variety and publish online some of the rich history of the Model M keyboards," he says. The force of the bent spring pushes the key cap (and your finger) back up.Įrmita began Clicky Keyboards to prepare for upcoming online academic database projects for Princeton. As you press the key, you feel progressively stronger resistance until the hammer snaps down on the electrical contact and the spring collapses. It's a simple design: a key cap mounted on a spring mounted on a hammer. IBM patented the buckling spring key switch in 1978. The means of activating that contact is mechanized. Keystrokes register by way of electric signals sent from a contact beneath each key, which are sent to the computer through a wire.
Computer keyboards have no lever and no type bar. Typewriter keyboards feel the way they do because each key connects to a lever that, when pressed, acts on a type bar that presses ink to page. Though somewhat antiquated, these old keyboards still showcase some nice innovations. That "feeling" is exemplified by the Model M, and has helped create a surprisingly large market for a 30-year-old piece of equipment that weighs five pounds. Mechanical (or clicky) keyboards improve typing speed and help eliminate carpal tunnel syndrome-but the real draw is the tactile feel of typing on a real keyboard it's the reaction of feeling the physical switches under the keys. He finds, buys, rebuilds, and then sells IBM Model M keyboards to nostalgic, discerning geeks through his website. But no one better understands that romantic pull, or works harder to preserve it, than Brandon Ermita.Įrmita runs Clicky Keyboards, a side job to his regular gig as Princeton University's IT manager. That signature click-clack-probably louder than it should be in polite office society-generated by rapid-fire key presses with your flying fingers is something mostly lost to our touchscreens and our modern, ultra-slim, low-travel keyboards. Few things in the computing world are as viscerally satisfying as typing on an old-school mechanical keyboard.
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