What's going on inside your keyboard?

Despite the incredible technological progress (especially in the field of computers), there is one aspect that has remained extremely undeveloped. This is a key aspect of the future, which in 1987 was much better than in 2017. It's about the keyboard.

Keyboard History

The keyboards that people use have been getting worse and worse over the years, despite the fact that the computers they connected to became better and better. However, the appearance of mechanical keys, which can now be found both on gaming keyboards and on laptops, gives hope that long-forgotten technology will finally return to the mass market. The keyboards that people use now are almost as good as they were when they were used by their parents. Only now you have something to choose from. However, finding a suitable keyboard for this type is much more difficult than you might expect.

The two main types of keyboards

To date, there are two main types of keyboards used everywhere: mechanical and membrane. The first are equipped with buttons with spring mechanisms, while in the second there are pressure-sensitive pads that are located on the plastic membrane. Membrane keyboards have gained popularity in the early nineties, as they are more resistant to spilling liquids on them, they are much cheaper to manufacture, and also allegedly more tenacious than mechanical keyboards, since they have fewer moving elements. And the smaller number of elements means that there is less chance of problems. Membrane keypads can also be much smaller, which is why almost all notebook manufacturers prefer them. Membrane buttons can be found in virtually every modern keyboard for a personal computer, in the joystick for the game console and even in the remote for the TV.

New life of mechanical keys

However, the membrane keys do not produce such clicks, which are typical for a mechanical keyboard, so enthusiasts began to gradually switch to the good old mechanical keyboards. At first they were only obsessed fanatics - people who tracked the oldest keyboard models on the Internet and spent huge sums of money on them. Then the movement joined the gamers. Gamers love mechanical keyboards for their durability and the ability to cope with the most aggressive pressures. And when gamers entered the game, what happened in the beginning of 2010, one company stood out against the others in an attempt to meet the growing demand. This is the key maker Cherry - a company that was organized in 1953 in Illinois.

The most popular mechanical keys

• The Cherry Black keys have been produced since 1984. If you ever call someone from a phone in one of the stores, there is a high probability that you used these keys. However, gamers did not much welcome the high resistance to pressing such Black keys in the eighties. For them, three other species were much more attractive, which have since become so popular that they were used in the manufacture of virtually all keyboards.
• Linear mechanism. The Cherry Red keys have a linear mechanism, and it is ideal for frequent and fast presses, which gamers often use. These keys are identical to the Black models, but they require much less effort to fully press.
• Tactile mechanism without a click. The keys Cherry Brown are ideal for "machinists". When pressed, a sort of push is felt, so if you type on such a keyboard, you will know exactly at what point your key press was read by the keyboard.
• Tactile mechanism with a click. The keys of Cherry Blues are very similar to the previous model and are also ideal for "machinists", but they are also incredibly loud. If you work for such a keyboard, then you have a feeling that before you is a real old typewriter.

Problems with satisfying demand

Unfortunately, Cherry could not cope with the ever-growing demand for such keys, so by 2015, companies producing mechanical keyboards had to launch fewer products on the market, raise prices and look for alternative keys. It was then that the clones appeared. These are keys that are felt quite like Cherry products, but they can break if used too often and actively. Naturally, this is by far not the best option for those who press the same key several thousand times a day. The company Das Keyboard was subjected to severe criticism when it turned out that she secretly switched from the Cherry keys to other, cheaper and more affordable modifications.

A new beginning

The company Razer chose a different approach to solving the problem of lack of keys. Instead of purchasing clone products, the company decided to take and start producing its own keys. In 2015, the first Green keys appeared, which were an alternative to Cherry Brown. In 2016, Razer Orange keys appeared that were identical to Cherry Blues, and in February 2017 the company announced the release of the Razer Yellow line keys, which, as you might have guessed, will replace Cherry Red. However, they are identical only from a technical point of view. They may even sound the same, but users around the world report that the difference between the Cherry and Razer keys is significant. Therefore, if you like mechanical keyboards, then you will have to experiment a little with different models to find the one that suits you best.