I have two friends who have those IBM keyboards and they are somewhat quieter than my Dell Quietkeys.

Another nice thing about the IBMs is that they have the standard key layout. No odd sized keys or non-standard key placement.

I have several IBM Rapid Access Keyboards...they are the only ones I've ever liked. I'm not sure how they compare to these "Stealth" versions, but they layout (sans Rapid Access buttons) and wristrest are the exact same setup.

I really like the comfort of these keyboards and the response/clickiness. It's not quiet, though. Nothing like my silent laptop keyboard at least.

I'm looking to buy another one, but don't need the access buttons this time around, so maybe I'll get the one you posted and let you all know how it works out.

The thread that goes on and on...

Just installed a Logitech Cordless MX duo - much quieter than my previous Logitech Internet KB and optical mouse.

As I said, the KB sure seems to be quieter, but the most noticeable difference, is that the scroll wheel on the MX700 mouse is much quieter.

Scroll, I mean stroll on down to your local supplier and check 'em out. Got mine at Future Shop online for $99 + GST Canadian (delivered - onsale). I think that's about $72 US.

Sorry to resurrect this thread...

But a large part of the typing noise is how you type, no? Maybe that is so elementary that everyone already does that, but if you type more fluidly, you can really cut down the noise and keep your speed almost as good by just concentrating on not thumping the keys.

yeah, this guy in one of my lectures yesterday was thwacking his lap top keys as hard as he could; you could probably hear him typing from anywhere in the lecture hall.

But even if you hit the keys softly, they can make quite a bit of noise, like my keyboard does.

Kind of like "sneaking" across a ceramic tile floor in tap shoes

I've been searching for a quiet, very cheap keyboard. I often drop ashes or coffee on my keyboard and don't want to spend $30 for a keyboard that won't last two months. I just installed an A4Tech KBS-720, and I'm very pleased.



It's not that quiet, but man is it cheap : less than 4 euros ! And it's much quieter than the previous one (cheap one too).

SLM measurements :
A4Tech KBS-720 : 39db(a) @1m (hitting de 'D' key repeatedly).
Old keyboard : 44db(a) @1m (same protocol).

The noise is lower in pitch, more like "flof-flof-flof" instead of "clic-clic-clic".

It's great for the price.

Is that the real layout? Or is the pic from some manufacturer site?

Cheers,

Jan

The keyboard on the picture is mine. But obviously if you buy it in the USA you won't get the azerty version .

So that is French layout then? I can't see why it's so different from the QWERTY-layout...

Jan

It's not that different, but you can type accents. There's nothing more irritating than trying to send your friends an e-mail from the USA with a keyboard that doesn't have accents .

French keyboard layout.

Well I'll be hornswaggled!

I never knew there were different keyboard layouts for other countries!

Does this mean there's a special keyboard layout for spanish, german, swedish, polish etc speaking nations?

Of course I'm just the stereotypical USA-centic American who always considered that every keyboard is a qwerty keyboard until now so please be nice to me...

AFAIK, there's many different keyboard layouts for different countries.

I've got my own preference of keyboard for standard QWERTY setup though:



And to make it even more interesting, I'm trying (just starting) to learn the Dvorak layout.

Well, using the link Kostik provided, I can link You this Microsoft service.

Cheers,

Jan

While I was in France for a conference this summer, I had the curious experience of using some French Macs. As Kostik and others know, the layout of the keys is a bit different. However, on these Macs, the system interpreted the keys as if they were US/UK QWERTY. Thus, I (and most of the other participants who were not touch-typists) had the peculiar cognitive dissonance of having the QWERTY spatial map but physically labelled with the AZERTY layout.

At the end of the conference, I discovered the mapping could be dynamically changed, so I switched to French so I could happily hunt-and-peck visually.

You have to press Shift in order to get the numbers? I see that the numpad gets more use...

Cheers,

Jan

C'mon, you can't be serious about that! What about all the special letters used in other languages?All the other alphabets in the world? I'm speechless...

For languages using the latin alphabet, you're correct in the assumption that many are QWERTY-based. All swedish keyboards are QWERTY, but with a slight modification, due to the fact that swedish has three additional letters: å, ä and ö.

Yes we have to use the shift key to type numbers, so most people use the numeric pad (at least I do). This is why I hate typing numbers with a laptop, cause they usually don't have a numpad.

This brings me back to the good ol' times of MS-DOS, when we had to use a driver to get the french layout (keyb.com, I remember the command line was "keyb fr"). If this file was missing you had to type with a qwerty keyboard displaying the azerty layout, which is, as Tragus said, a bit confusing.

The other languages that use cyrillic or japanese letters, numbers and symbols I can understand. I just sort of assumed (without ever conciously thinking about it I guess) that anyone that used the standard "english alphabet" would use the qwerty keyboard.

all those extra accents and letters aren't needed anyways; we get by just fine without them and you should too!

I realize that that was meant as a joke, but in a way it is kind of frightening......*realizing that this is neither the time or place to discuss this...*

BTW, I dare you to go to France and say that in public...

And Ralf, You are forgiven, I might have been a bit harsh, sorry.

If accents aren't needed, I wonder why some americans try and use them when they use french words, and use them incorrectly .

Correct spelling of french words often used in english (will or won't be displayed correctly depending on your browser and settings) :
- à la
- voilà
- déjà vu
- bon appétit
- c'est la vie

Please note that accents are not mandatory when using french words in english. If you don't know where to use them, just don't use them, or you will look silly .

Okay, sure. They might get upset, but then I'll pull out a hand gun and they'll all surrender and I'll be the new ruler of france. Then, I will add anti accent laws to their constitution while the UN is debating what to do about me. I will then surrender france to the UN in exchange for $4,000 to build a silent watercooled dual opteron machine.

Sorry kostik, but we have very advanced security methods here for dealing with stalkers and the such. If you could provide me a brief description of yourself and your name, I will ask everybody not to let you into the building.

I was informed yesterday not to let a blond haired guy named tyler into the building cuz hes stalking a girl on the floor above me. He must be a pretty lame stalker if he has to be let in.

was that a siemens-fujitsu mb you were refering to? Is it very good?

I am looking for a uATX

D1683 Fujitsu-Siemens Computers

Great idea with the mouse. I read of a company in Germany that produces wooden keys for keyboards and mice. Would they be quieter somehow? This was just for the look/feel of wood, not for quietness, I don't believe, but it may help.

Ooh, you'll love it!

I'm also looking for a new silent keyboard.

I have some special requirements though:

- must be split adjustable (i.e. tilt vertical and horizontal are adjustable for the split, not for the whole keyboard)
- must be thin/flat (not raised a lot above desk level)
- must be available in FIN/SWE keyboard layout somewhere
- must be quiet of course
- keyfeel must be supergood for fast 10 finger touch typing

I've been trying to look around, but split keyboards are very few and far in between and most are not adjustable.

I'm currently using Cherry Corp MX 5000 with a separate num pad (makes the width of the keyboard more narrow, which is really good for shoulder saving mousing).

It's a killer keyboard with superb touch/feel, but it's noisy as hell and my wife complains in the evenings if I use it.

I have tried the following keyboards already:

- All Logitech keyboards
- All Microsoft ""
- All Keytronic ""

I might be willing to give up the adjustable split if the keyboard is really low profile and has nice split design otherwise (and is quiet).

Does anybody have experiences, links or comments on models I should try?

I've been wanting to try out Goldtouch adjustable, but it's not available to try out in Finland (closest reseller in Sweden never replied to my mails):

http://www.goldtouch.com/purchase/keyboard.html

Anybody got experiences with Goldtouch keyboards?

My friend has the FingerWorks Touchstream LP and it works really nice in general, but it's almost impossible to use in the Finnish winter, when the air gets really dry and static electricity plays haywire on that keyboard.


regards,
Halcyon

PS Kostik you can wash your coffee splashed keyboards with normal dish washing fluid and water. You can get better results if you remove the keys or the upper layer. Just rinse them properly and hang them out to dry in a position that lets the water drip out. I've washed several lab keyboards like this and none of them were harmed by it.

Add one to the list above, please:

- "résumé"


My brand-new-today Logitech Elite keyboard is quiet, but far from silent. The sound quality, however, is much more pleasant than most others I've heard. Most importantly, the tactile feel wins my approval, where the popular Microsoft keyboards certainly do not.