Unicomp Customizer Keyboard

Jake Seliger on the Unicomp Customizer keyboard, a modern version of the “buckling spring” keyboards IBM used to make:

Today, buckling spring keyboards are never or almost never shipped with computers. Fortunately, Unicomp has accomplished what Matias couldn’t and produced an excellent modern version in the Customizer. Keystrokes are crisp and precise. The “shadow key” problem that bedeviled the Tactile Pro is absent, and the Customizer itself is solid, recalling a slab of stone, unlike the fragile, mushy keyboards most PCs ship with.

The only downside is that the meta keys are for Windows, not Mac. You can remap them using the Keyboard & Mouse panel in System Prefs, but you’re stuck with that ugly Windows key. Unicomp might do well to sell a Mac-specific version, or to at least offer Mac-specific keycaps you could pop on yourself.

★ Thursday, 8 May 2008