Paddy's "Things that cheer you up"

[chrisp65]

ha ha!

 

had to bloody search for that, most versions were 'straight'

 

couldn't find a shit version sung by a white american southerner with a mullet and cowboy boots sorry, some bloke in Brum had bought them all up off e-bay

[rjw63]

ha ha!

had to bloody search for that, most versions were 'straight'

couldn't find a shit version sung by a white american southerner with a mullet and cowboy boots sorry, some bloke in Leeds had bought them all up off e-bay

Mooney obvs

[dont_do_it_doug.]

$100 for a computer keyboard? Does it wank you off or something?

Note that he said keyboardS.

[Wainy316]

Highlight of my... At what intervals do you post these? Weekly?

[Folski]

Four out of four exams passed, was last night thinking I'd maybe got 2, turns out I was only close on 1 and had 60s in the others, great start to the day. 

[troon_villan]

Highlight of my... At what intervals do you post these? Weekly?

Do you have Instagram? (not to be confused with beloved poster Ingram)

She regularly posts vines of herself just.. sorta working out and stuff. Blatantly sexual. Squats and shizz.

[chrisp65]

[dAVe80]

 

You know they don't give a **** about anybody else....

[chrisp65]

 

 

ahh, to think I wasn't going to go because I thought £30 was too pricey

 

every time they play 'man don't give' I leave convinced that the revolution is just minutes away

[Folski]

Just bought Donkey Kong Country for my Super Nintendo - €32 inc. p&p.

[leviramsey]

$100 for a computer keyboard? Does it wank you off or something?

Note that he said keyboardS.

It's still a hundred bucks per keyboard.

But for the modern successor of the legendary Model M, it's well worth it.

The King of Keys

Next year, the Model M turns 30. But to many people, it’s still the only keyboard worth using. It was recently spotted on the desk of Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson, attached to a gaming PC whose graphic cards alone cost thousands of dollars. "The Model M is basically the best keyboard ever made," he told PC Gamer. YouTube has dozens of Model M typing demos, unboxing videos, and sound comparisons between it and other mechanical keyboards. Since its introduction, the Model M has been the standard to meet for keyboard excellence.

"I enjoy using an iPad, it’s a wonderful device; the Kindle e-reader is a beautiful thing," says says Brandon Ermita, a Princeton University IT manager. "But I could never write a story, I could never write my dissertation, I could never produce work with a touchscreen." Ermita is devoted to keeping the Model M alive: he recovers them from supply depots and recycling centers, sells them through his site, ClickyKeyboards, and runs a veritable Model M private museum. He estimates he’s put between 4,000 and 5,000 of the keyboards under the fingertips of aficionados over the past decade.

That layout of the Model M has been around so long that today it’s simply taken for granted. But the keyboard’s descendents have jettisoned one of the Model M’s most iconic features — "buckling springs," a key system introduced in the PC / XT. Unlike mechanical switches that are depressed straight down like plungers, the Model M has springs under each key that contract, snap flat, or "buckle," and then spring back into place when released. They demand attention in a way that the soft, silent rubber domes in most modern keyboards don’t. This isn’t always a good thing; Model M owners sometimes ruefully post stories of spouses and coworkers who can’t stand the incessant chatter. But fans say the springs’ resistance and their audible "click" make it clear when a keypress is registered, reducing errors. Maybe more importantly, typing on the Model M is a special, tangible experience. Much like on a typewriter, the sharp click gives every letter a physical presence.

Soon after its emergence, Model M clones flooded the market. For its part, IBM gave new versions of the keyboard only the barest of redesigns. As a result, nostalgia for the Model M spans generations. "People contact me often via email, thanking me for reminding them of when they were a 20-something engineering student back in the 1980s," says Ermita. Younger buyers recall rearranging a classmate’s keyboard as a middle-school prank — "I’ve heard that story a few times."

In 1990, IBM spun off its US typewriter, keyboard, and printer business into a new company called Lexmark. Six years later, Lexmark dropped its keyboard division during what Muyskens calls an industry-wide shift towards cheaper products. IBM continued to commission products from a factory in Scotland and, briefly, a company called Maxi-Switch, but the last IBM Model M — as far as we know — rolled off the production line in 1999.

You can still buy an official Model M for about $80, but it won’t wear the IBM badge. After Lexmark left the business, Muyskens and other former employees began slowly purchasing the keyboard’s intellectual property rights and manufacturing equipment, working under the name Unicomp. "We’ve had to change the electronics," Muyskens says. "The clamshell cover material was changed back in ’99. But pretty much everything else has remained the same."

For some, that’s not authentic enough. "We get asked all the time — can we sell [someone] an IBM logo-ed product? And the answer is no, IBM owns the logo," says Muyskens. He says IBM still orders some keyboards for existing commercial customers, but if you want the old-school logo, you’ll have to turn to eBay or people like Ermita. For others, the inherent superiority and versatility of the Model M trumps nostalgic notions of authenticity: some users are adapting them to work wirelessly with Bluetooth. One Reddit user posted a custom modification with backlit keys that evoke the over-the-top designs of Razer or Alienware. But with a limited supply, all Model M fans are typing on borrowed time.

"This is like oil. One day oil will run out. It’ll be a big crash," says Ermita. For now, though, that crash seems far away. The oldest Model Ms have already lasted 30 years, and Ermita hopes they’ll make it for another 10 or 20 — long enough for at least one more generation to use a piece of computing history.

The Model M is an artifact from a time when high-end computing was still the province of industry, not pleasure. The computer that standardized it, the PS / 2, sold for a minimum of $2,295 (or nearly $5,000 today) and was far less powerful and versatile than any modern smartphone. In the decades since, computers have become exponentially more capable, and drastically cheaper. But in that shift, manufacturers have abandoned the concept of durability and longevity: in an environment where countless third-party companies are ready to sell customers specialty mice and keyboards at bargain basement prices, it’s hard to justify investing more than the bare minimum.

That disposability has made us keenly aware of what we’ve lost, and inspired a passion for hardware that can, well, take a licking and keep on clicking. As one Reddit user recently commented, "Those bastards are the ORIGINAL gaming keyboards. No matter how much you abuse it, you’ll die before it does."

Having the pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard, as mine does, makes me insanely efficient.

[CrackpotForeigner]

I love it when people are nerds and don't care. I just thought of that. Don't know why. It just cheered me up, that's all. Thought I'd share.

[chrisp65]

I love it when people are nerds and don't care. I just thought of that. Don't know why. It just cheered me up, that's all. Thought I'd share.

 

you know what, I was scrolling down to post the same thing

 

love what you love, life's too short to worry about the styles, fashions and trends of the nay saying herd

[krisagg75]

the fact that at my new job i get payed weekly rather than monthly.

[islingtonclaret]

I really want a Model M IBM keyboard. The only thing that came close was the early 1990's Apple keyboards: there were two of them, the basic and the extended. Below is the extended...

 

 

Typing for programming really is a tight subject. These short/shallow keyboard fashions brought in by Apple are cack.

[dont_do_it_doug.]

the fact that at my new job i get payed weekly rather than monthly.

Sounds horrendous.

[dAVe80]

Spotting J Mascis in the TV show, Doll & Em.

[trekka]

The fact that I have tomorrow off.  I know it's probably going to pee down all day but I don't care.  I can finally get round to sorting out stuff that I put off (after getting up at 11am followed by a big fry-up).  

[Paddywhack]

I've started a new game at work. Whenever I go back to my desk, I spin my chair round really fast and then try and sit on it.

 

I've done it 3 times so far, 2 were successful, the 3rd wasn't a disaster but I did get a bit of the armrest up my arse.

[troon_villan]

Was never a huge Blur fan back in the day but Coffee and TV sounded excellent there on TFI.