Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/05/14/solid-brass-octopus-escape-key.html
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Well considering the cost of a good mechanical keyboard that you would be putting it on… not bad.
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Heh. My first thought was that it was a combination tension wrench, rake, and hook pick. Wrong kind of “escape”
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Only $1352.00 to replace all 104!
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Well, your keyboard would look cool as shit, even if you couldn’t actually, you know, use it.
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People are always down on the ‘robber barons’; but do you know how hard you have to squeeze the poor to afford a full set of brass keycaps?
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It would still sting pretty badly if you wanted to replace any nontrivial number of them. My impression (correct me if I’m wrong, though I’ll probably regret the temptation of saying that) is that the current zOMG-serious mechanical clickmonster is a reproduction Model F(yes, ‘Model M’ it is you who are the chintzy cost-reduced version…) which will run you basically $400. You can spend more; but only on freaky ergo keyboards sold on the “y’know what’s really expensive? Carpal tunnel surgery.” basis; or astonishing-Japanese-wood-artisanship-actually-bolted-to-a-fairly-shoddy-keyboard-also-why-would-you-replace-those-keycaps?
Would Sir consider upgrading to sterling silver for a mere $60?
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How much for the Cthulhu key-cap? I want one, although I’ve not looked to see if such actually exists.
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Just looked, and no, it doesn’t, so there’s an opening right there. (Pun intended)
Nice, my gf loves Octopods so might get this. Related, i recently pre-ordered for myself a Mario themed keycap made of bronze though a hell of a lot more pricey than this octopus one but i had to have it.
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For those who live/work alone and want to continue doing so, yes, that’s the current hotness for those with the means.
For those who have partners or colleagues they do not wish to alienate with the deafening sound of their typing, the choices are more limited. The Matias Quiet pro looks great on paper but is made by a company that turns out overpriced cheap junk that will break quickly. In the land of Cherry switches, you need to specify not just one of the non-clicky switches, but also rubber rings under each keycap to mute the clack of the keycap meeting the base of the switch. Key travel suffers as a result.
After far too much research, I landed once again on buying a keyboard made 20 or 30 years ago – both the Apple Extended Keyboard II and certain Silicon Graphics keyboards were built using “Cream [or white] Damped Alps” switches. They feel heavenly but are whisper quiet. The Matias quiet switches are a rather mushy attempt to replicate their feel. The Apple option is fairly cheap - you can find one for less than $50 on ebay - but you will need to train your fingers to accept that the home row nubs are on the wrong keys. The SGI route gets you a standard PC layout with the home row nubs in the right place and no windows keys (this is a feature, not a bug, for me), but costs a minimum of $100 and $150 or even more is common.
In both cases, you’ll need a modern PS/2 or ADB to USB adapter - Imate adapters are becoming quite costly and a generic PS/2 adapter won’t work - budget $40 for a programmable adapter made by and for keyboard snobs, search the Geekhack forums. Another $10-ish will get you a new-old-stock Apple ADB cable, but here’s a secret - you can use any generic S-video cable.
Something like this would be fine for my keyboard, there are only a few keys that still have letters on them. It’s perfectly usable if one knows how to type.
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I want one heavy enough to hold the shift key down because… oh, wait… that what the caps lock is for.
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Not in this dimension.
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I name him… Qwerty, the (o)pressed one. And Qwerty shall be his name.
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The only escape (key) is Qwerty
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