[Coco] [OT] Is it me, or are chiclet keyboards coming back?

[John Guin]

Heh - that device you described (using the MC-10 to display weather, news,
etc...) sounds exactly like every DOTCOM from the 1997 boom.  "Just download
our 5MB client and we will push data to you automatically!  We'll make money
automagically!"

John

-----Original Message-----
From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
Behalf Of mike delyea
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 8:14 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] Is it me, or are chiclet keyboards coming back?

I had a coco3 and an MC-10 that I had connected via a 30 foot serial cable
which I made myself (using a BBS program I copied out of the Rainbow and
some terminal program on the MC-10) that I used for testing possible BBS
configurations should my wife ever decide to let me go ahead and run a BBS.
Sadly, neither my marriage nor the BBS ever lasted.  I actually had a lot of
fun with the MC-10, though I did find it awkward to type with.  I guess the
original coco (which I never owned) would be similar to typing on the
MC-10.  I still think the MC-10 would be great for displaying a scrolling
news/event/weather information/time thingy for a captive audience (say the
foyer of a cheap hotel).  I also experimented with that application - using
the coco to update the info displayed by the MC-10.
Sorry for rambling, I thought of the chiclet keyboard on the MC-10 and the
memories came flooding back.

On 7/19/07, Steve Ostrom <smostrom7 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I never thought the keyboard design of the Coco 1 was bad.  I happily used
> it for many years.  What was bad was when the keys would begin to stick.
> Then it became a royal pain !!
>
> -- Steve --
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Rogelio Perea" <os9dude at gmail.com>
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 9:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Is it me, or are chiclet keyboards coming back?
>
>
> > For all the fuzz that many people threw against the original CoCo
> chiclets
> > keyboard, many of the modern day laptops and the kiosk PCs sport a
> > chiclets
> > keyboard... so go figure this oddity of human behavior. Many of us
> > remember
> > that the CoCo 1 was chastised to no end first because of the keyboard
> and
> > then because of its text screen; all other PC makers had REAL keyboards
> on
> > their computers: C=64, TI99/4A, Atari 800, etc...
> >
> > If there's one keyboard I really had problems typing on, it is the CoCo
> 1
> > F
> > Board 'melted' keys keyboard... not enough travel and keys with a weird
> > mushy feeling in their mechanical feedback. For my hands build, the
> > original
> > chiclets keyboard is *the best*, nice separation making it harder to
> > introduce typos... and I'm faster on those too. The later revised CoCo 2
> > and
> > in fact the CoCo 3 keyboard is also good.
> >
> > Today's laptop users have sacrificed typeability for thinness, the
> > keyboard
> > that came with the Tandy 1400? *that's* a keyboard; the Model 100 and
> 200
> > is
> > also a good example of sensible portability.
> >
> >
> > -=[ Rogelio ]=-
> >
> >
> > On 7/17/07, John Guin <johnguin at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Between the Mac notebooks (whichever the cheap ones are named nowadays)
> >> and
> >> now the Sony Vaio TZ, are chiclet style keyboards coming back?
> >>
> >> I thought the chiclet keyboard on the gray Cocos was hard to use, odd
> >> looking and a big reason people went with other brands which had much
> >> better
> >> keyboards.  I also remember people raving about the original IBm
> >> keyboard.
> >>
> >> So did I miss some hidden attribute of a chiclet that makes them
> >> desirable
> >> (again)?
> >>
> >> Just curious, and feel free to treat this as a rhetorical question,
> >> John
> >
> > --
> > Coco mailing list
> > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>

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