How apple is giving design a bad name (article)
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For the record, you can still do “show all application windows” as Ctrl+F3 with the out-of-the-box settings, but I find that annoying when one press of F10 should do just as well.
It's CTRL + Down by default. In Yosemite, anyway.
Could be due to the glass surface?
The trackpad on mine is not glass.
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I think my most major beif with my trackpad (driven by Synaptics) is that the idiotic driver likes to "help" me and adjust settings for no good reason.
If it worked consistently, I wouldn't be so upset, but half the time it thinks I'm in Chrome and the other half it just breaks down and becomes a driverless dumb mouse input.
Filed under: Why are userspace programs allowed to crash system-space drivers?
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As I understand the term, the one in your picture isn’t a chiclet keyboard
I literally grabbed that picture from the linked Wikipedia article. Wikipedia disagrees with you.
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So we had 'suicide' as a verb and now 'wake' as a verb. Is there no word sacred enough that Americans won't butcher it?
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So we had 'suicide' as a verb and now 'wake' as a verb.
The latter is pretty old tho.
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Verb all the nouns!
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NOW IT IS STONE-DEAD.
As I understand the term, the one in your picture isn’t a chiclet keyboard — that would be this type:
[img]http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/9188629.png[/img]:killitwithfire.pdf:
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The PC Jr. keyboard was another infamous chicklet model, which was so unpleasant to use that it was described as being like 'massaging [a] fruit cake".
Still better than membrane keyboards like the Atari 400.
Amusingly enough, though, many modern keyboards just put a set of key faces on scissor-springs over a membrane keyboard. Definitely an improvement.
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It's CTRL + Down by default. In Yosemite, anyway.
Um … not on my computer. Oddly, [url=https://support.apple.com/kb/PH18766?locale=en_US]Apple's help pages[/url] agree with you, yet no matter what I try in the keyboard settings (other than actually redefine shortcuts), I can’t make Ctrl+arrow keys do anything of the sort.The trackpad on mine is not glass.
The one on my 2008 MacBook certainly has a glass surface, and so has the loose “Magic” Trackpad.Wikipedia disagrees with you.
Aha, this is where the confusion comes from:
[quote=Wikipedia]The term has changed meaning in recent years. During the first home computer boom of the 1980s, a chiclet keyboard was synonymous with cheap quality and a poor user experience. Nowadays, the term is neutral and refers low-profile, low-travel keyboards with simplified, flat bezel-separated keycaps that other than their appearance function like contemporary computer keyboards.[/quote]
(That’s the second paragraph of the page you took the image from.) I’d always understood it to refer to the original meaning, not the apparently more current one.many modern keyboards just put a set of key faces on scissor-springs over a membrane keyboard. Definitely an improvement.
It’s the scissors mechanism that make most of the difference, IMHO. Cheap keyboards with large plastic caps pushing straight on the rubber dome switches, in my experience, tend to be a lot less comfortable to type on than ones with scissor switches.
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Could be due to the glass surface? All the ones I’ve used on other brand laptops (admittedly, not that many) felt like they were plastic, and not as smooth.
Maybe. I've not got the patience to sort through exactly what the patent says to figure out what the core innovation is. I don't think it's the hinged clickable stuff; that's just a nice to have. The glass surface might well have more of an influence (because it doesn't absorb oil off your fingers) but it sure can't be the whole of it.
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So I did an event for a bunch of middle-school girls, and the university that hosted the event provided laptops for them to use.
Some of them will go far, I think:
- "What's this?" pointing to the clit-mouse. Upon my explanation: "Oh. But why do you need that if you have a touchpad right here?"
- "I like this keyboard, it feels nice and solid. The ones at school are really thin." "Oh, do you use macs at you school?" "No, Chromebooks."
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But why do you need that if you have a touchpad right here?
Some people may prefer one over the other, but I don’t really see the point of having both in one laptop — you’d buy one that has the pointing device you want even if it doesn’t have the other one, I’d think … ?
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@TimeBandit said:
@powerlord said:
8086 (aka XT)
The power button was a switch on the right side near the back.
I swear, the model I had put the power switch (the same style shown there) next to the 5.25" disk drive in the front.
IBM's own PCs (PC, XT, AT) looked like @TimeBandit's photo. There were a lot of clones that used the identical case and power supply, but there were plenty of systems that were different as well. Do you happen to remember the brand/model?
And I remember the huge "clack" they made when turned on or off.
I love that sound and feel. When you flip that switch, it feels like you just did something important. One of the things I miss about software-controlled power switches.
At least we have a nice Red Reset Button on ter front, fer easy access ya see.
Yep. And one of the big problems with all of IBM's systems and many of the clones. In the days of DOS, when a crashed app would crash the entire box, a hard reset switch was an important feature. Sure, you could flip the power switch instead, but power cycling the hard drive (especially in those days) was not good for the drive's bearings.
I managed to reboot the thing because I pushed what appeared to be a "play" button, wondering what media player it would start.
To be fair, Apple had been using that icon on their keyboards for the power switch and reset button for a very long time.
I'm surprised that simply pressing it on a running system forced a reboot, though. Mac OS (at least version 9 and later, which is what a blue iMac supported) should have popped up a dialog for shutdown/restart/sleep. Pressing and holding it would force a power-off (much like all computers today do.)
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@kilroo said:
@LB_ said:
Computers are supposed to put me in control, not the other way around.
I think that means you are not in Apple's target market. If you think you know better than they do what kind of experience you want from using a device, then...well, they'd still be perfectly happy to sell to you, but you're paying a premium for access to a user experience that you don't want...I use OSX every day at work. It does no more of the whole "I know better than you" thing than the Windows 7 machines next to it do.
To be fair, even based on my limited knowledge, I should have excluded OSX from that generalization. My understanding is that it is older versions of Mac OS, and most if not all versions of iOS, that do a more effective job of preventing you from getting at the fiddly bits; in OSX, while some kinds of customizations of the UI itself might not be possible, you're sitting on top of a BSD and can just go use that...you may well have MORE control than on contemporary Windows systems.
I can only speak from secondhand knowledge, though. I have done almost nothing with Apple operating systems since using computers in a school library circa 1995 that I could barely use for the word processing for which they were provided, because I had no clue how to use Clarisworks (I was used to Geoworks) and I kept trying to figure out how to right-click.
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I can only speak from secondhand knowledge, though. I have done almost nothing with Apple operating systems since using computers in a school library circa 1995 that I could barely use for the word processing for which they were provided, because I had no clue how to use Clarisworks (I was used to Geoworks) and I kept trying to figure out how to right-click.
So… about as relevant as talking about Windows 10 based on experience with Windows for Workgroups 3.11?
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@kilroo said:
I can only speak from secondhand knowledge, though. I have done almost nothing with Apple operating systems since using computers in a school library circa 1995 that I could barely use for the word processing for which they were provided, because I had no clue how to use Clarisworks (I was used to Geoworks) and I kept trying to figure out how to right-click.
So… about as relevant as talking about Windows 10 based on experience with Windows for Workgroups 3.11?
Close. About as relevant as talking about Windows 10 based on experience with Windows for Workgroups 3.11 and having listened to half a dozen people griping about Windows 10 and two people lauding it to the heavens.
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Windows 3.1 experience is very relevant to Windows 10. There's much less difference between the two than, say, them and Linux.
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I've never seen any Windows versioned 3.11, let alone named 'for Workgroups'. You must have confused it for something else.
This
I've used it.
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There's much less difference between the two than, say, them and Linux.
Since I was talking about Mac OS 7 vs OSX, I was relevant.
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Grandparents are fundamentally incapable of attaching more than one photo to an email.
My dad is capable of it, so there's a counterexample for you. My wife's parents, OTOH, don't have and are not interested in getting any form of internet access at all.What's wrong with including a numpad? I'm using this on a desk. I have the space.
I won't even buy a laptop without a numpad. I can't imagine using a desktop without one.When you flip that switch, it feels like you just did something important.
I think my in-laws still have one of those. I'll have to check next time I'm over at their place.The main thing I miss from the older days of home computing is processors that didn't get so hot that you had to have special fans to cool them. Kind of hard to avoid when you're doing orders of magnitude more stuff in the same amount of space, of course, but I miss the silence. Until you tried to read something from a floppy drive...
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I won't even buy a laptop without a numpad.
I find doing that makes the keyboard rather cramped. Or you have a monster “laptop” that's large enough to hold a full-sized keyboard inside itself.
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I've used it.
Not only did I use to use it in the early ’90s, I still have the original install disks from back then :)
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Or you have a monster “laptop” that's large enough to hold a full-sized keyboard
Yep, that's the kind I like. I find any non-full-size keyboard layout too cramped for reliable use. Probably because I'm a
typist instead of a proper touch typist, but the end result is that on anything less than full size I spend half my time hitting the wrong keys and correcting. And in that case, I might as well go with the numpad so I don't have to deal with the whole numpad-on-letters mess, which I hate with a passion.
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I just came here to say that I currently use an Apple keyboard on all my permanently installed workstations. And only one of those three is an Apple machine, and none runs Mac OSX. Two of the three keyboards have a numpad which I never use and where I think it's in the way.
Does that make me an Apple keyboard fanboï?
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15″ Laptops aren't all that big, either.
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whole numpad-on-letters mess
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15″ Laptops aren't all that big, either.
Yeah, but squeezing a numpad in there makes them feel cramped. Got one of those at home and it's not a joy to use; if your hands are centred to the device, they're offset to the keyboard. I end up touch-typing vp,[;ryr honnrtodj/
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15″ Laptops aren't all that big, either.
I used to have a 17-inch Packard Bell beast once. The screen estate and a numpad is fine, but finding a bag for the thing was a pain, and even then it weighed about as much as a sack of bricks.
(Un)luckily, it had one of those GPUs that liked to desolder themselves under heat, so it's likely beyond repair now.
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Not really, just a general weirdo
I like to regularly clean my white keyboards so they look fresh and clean. Don't judge.
one of those GPUs that liked to desolder themselves under heat
temperature can a GPU reach?
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I thought solid state circuits will fry around 120C. What solder would melt below that temperature?
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My 15" Lenovo has a numpad, it doesn't feel cramped and I don't hit the wrong keys any more often than normal. The size of the keys and the spacing is fairly similar to my Macbook Pro.
I didn't buy it because of the numpad though, I don't really care if that's there or not.
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Speaking of keyboards, why would you sell a desktop with a shitty laptop style keyboard that's completely flat with no travel?
I feel unashamed to admit this is one of my favorite keyboards:
Not much travel, sure, but who cares? It's a waste of work anyway. The keys feel soft but firm, with a clear pressure point so I can feel if I have actually pushed that key or not.
I like the MacBook Pro keyboards for similar reasons (though no numpad
); I still prefer it to this one any day:
http://adlib.blogs.com/andyblog/images/IMG_0019_1.jpg
Now that was a crap keyboard.Though the worst keyboard I've ever encountered is the one on my work laptop (HP EliteBook 840). It's literally unusable, just trying to enter your password on it is an adventure: Did it get this key press? Let's count little black circles... no, there's one missing. Which one was it? Let's start over again...
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I feel unashamed to admit this is one of my favorite keyboards:
Your opinion is bad and you should feel bad. This is the best keyboard ever:
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Never been fond of those curvy-type keyboards, the position of the hands feels weird. But then, I've never used one for long enough to get used to it.
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It's a waste of work anyway.
Taking away most of the exercise people around here get!
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@Maciejasjmj said:
one of those GPUs that liked to desolder themselves under heat
temperature can a GPU reach?A lot of the earlier nVidia cards (8800 series, etc) had shitty solder that would heat up and loosen connections. You could fix it by baking it in an oven at 400F for ~10 minutes without the heatsink/fan attached which would reflow the solder.
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See: the original XBox 360, and the towel trick. It was exacerbated in the 360 because the motherboard was quite thin and would warp, loosening the graphics card more
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I like the MacBook Pro keyboards for similar reasons
I like the Macbook Pro keyboard as it's a good laptop keyboard.
When I'm in the office though it's plugged into a standard HP Windows keyboard because it's better for use on a desk IMO.
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... numpad-on-letters mess ...
Has anybody in the history of computing ever used that?
I currently use an Apple keyboard on all my permanently installed workstations. And only one of those three is an Apple machine ... Does that make me an Apple keyboard fanboï?
Depends on which model. Some of the keyboards Apple used to sell look and feel great. Some (especially the current generation of chicklet+metal models) are much less so.
@Maciejasjmj said:
one of those GPUs that liked to desolder themselves under heat
temperature can a GPU reach?I've never heard of a chip getting so hot as to actually re-flow its solder, but I know of a few instances of manufacturing defects (probably due to bad soldering) where high temperatures cause a cracked solder joint to lose contact, causing flaky behavior or complete failure. After a cool-down, it makes contact again and the symptoms go away.
Repair requires the ability to re-solder a surface-mount chip, which requires specialized and expensive tools, so repair shops typically replace the motherboard and send the bad one back to the factory for refurbishing (where they have the necessary tools.) Either way, it's usually too expensive if the repair isn't covered by warranty or a service contract.
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This is the best keyboard ever...:
I haven't used that particular model, but I still use an old first-generation Microsoft Natural Keyboard and I've been very happy with it. It has a PS/2 connector, but fortunately my laptop's docking station also does so I can use it. When it dies, I'll probably upgrade to whatever version is available at the time.
But my all-time favorite (which I use on my PCs at home) is my old [URL=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_M_keyboard]IBM Model M[/URL] keyboard with its buckling-spring keyswitches. They're pretty loud, but the tactile feedback is the best ever. IBM/Lexmark hasn't made them for a very long time, but they are still being made by [URL=http://www.pckeyboard.com/]Unicomp[/URL] in a variety of configurations.
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Repair requires the ability to re-solder a surface-mount chip
Or just a run-of-the-mill oven.
Reballing is different and more extreme.
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Some (especially the current generation of chicklet+metal models) are much less so.
Mine are all modern ones. The older ones were shit.
I've never heard of a chip getting so hot as to actually re-flow its solder, but I know of a few instances of manufacturing defects (probably due to bad soldering) where high temperatures cause a cracked solder joint to lose contact, causing flaky behavior or complete failure. After a cool-down, it makes contact again and the symptoms go away.
Thanks, bending under high temperatures, that I can believe.
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I hated the "pro" keyboards they did in the pre-2000 iMacs and Mac pros. The keyboard on my aluminum power book was far better, and I hated when I had to use the other kind of Apple keyboard. Lengthy travel is worse for keyboard usability.
The chiclet style is good. All of my keyboards are chiclets, by choice.
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Back in the "good old days" of Pentium IVs that basically ran normally at the "about to melt" temperature, the widely-considered safe maximum was 90C or so.
Nowadays, due to liquid cooling and better case & CPU designs, I'd be deeply suspicious of anything that regularly ran over 75C. And my computer hits like 61C even when playing Fallout 4.
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Never been fond of those curvy-type keyboards, the position of the hands feels weird. But then, I've never used one for long enough to get used to it.
When I started, it did take a little getting used to. But then my wrists stopped hurting. Never looked back.
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I won't even buy a laptop without a numpad. I can't imagine using a desktop without one.
It's actually pretty awesome.
![http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/9188629.png[/img]](http://usercontent2.hubimg.com/9188629.png%5B/img%5D){kind=link}
