The Weird Keyboard 262 Companies REFUSED to Make
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Date: 2025-05-10
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Comments and reviews: 20
Starchface
An undersized keyboard for children is an intriguing idea. I wonder why these are not commonplace. I've certainly never seen nor imagined such a thing, but it makes sense does it not Admittedly I am biasedwith my hands I should be looking for an oversized keyboard.
The trackball surround may comprise the self-cleaning mechanism described for the ball, in addition to securing it in place. Since you have an intact example, it should be possible to model it for 3D-printing, if you are into such things.
It looks like pricing went into two buckets, from that product showcase thing: about $50 for models with numeric pads, and $70 for the trackball-equipped models (equivalent to $11 million in 2025. Great video Clint. The production is top-notch as always.
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An undersized keyboard for children is an intriguing idea. I wonder why these are not commonplace. I've certainly never seen nor imagined such a thing, but it makes sense does it not Admittedly I am biasedwith my hands I should be looking for an oversized keyboard.
The trackball surround may comprise the self-cleaning mechanism described for the ball, in addition to securing it in place. Since you have an intact example, it should be possible to model it for 3D-printing, if you are into such things.
It looks like pricing went into two buckets, from that product showcase thing: about $50 for models with numeric pads, and $70 for the trackball-equipped models (equivalent to $11 million in 2025. Great video Clint. The production is top-notch as always.
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HenryLoenwind
You should make a mock-up keyboard that's scaled up by the same factor as a normal keyboard is scaled up from a Little Fingers. Then you can evaluate how it would be to type on a standard keyboard as a kid.
I vaguely remember trying touchtyping when I first got a computer with real keys and giving up within minutes as I physically could not get to the keys without moving my whole hand. I never recovered from being faster with and more used to sliding-hands typing, even as I learned proper touchtyping in school years later.
(Sliding-hand typing: You slide your hands into positions where one of the fingers is above the key you want to press without having a fixed finger-key mapping)
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You should make a mock-up keyboard that's scaled up by the same factor as a normal keyboard is scaled up from a Little Fingers. Then you can evaluate how it would be to type on a standard keyboard as a kid.
I vaguely remember trying touchtyping when I first got a computer with real keys and giving up within minutes as I physically could not get to the keys without moving my whole hand. I never recovered from being faster with and more used to sliding-hands typing, even as I learned proper touchtyping in school years later.
(Sliding-hand typing: You slide your hands into positions where one of the fingers is above the key you want to press without having a fixed finger-key mapping)
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ArcadeStunfisk
As a 5 ft 4 woman who can fit her entire hand around her boyfriend’s thumb, I appreciate Nusser’s desire to make something built for well, maybe not women but at least not adult men. I’m always on the lookout for smaller tools - smaller console controllers, smaller keyboards - because the ones built for adults (read: adult cis men) can cause pain and RSI with repeated use.
The book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed by Men’ (whilst ignoring trans and non binary audiences entirely which is incomprehensible) does a very good job of covering how urban and furniture design have resulted in a world designed for cis male bodies, and how women have to suffer around it.
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As a 5 ft 4 woman who can fit her entire hand around her boyfriend’s thumb, I appreciate Nusser’s desire to make something built for well, maybe not women but at least not adult men. I’m always on the lookout for smaller tools - smaller console controllers, smaller keyboards - because the ones built for adults (read: adult cis men) can cause pain and RSI with repeated use.
The book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed by Men’ (whilst ignoring trans and non binary audiences entirely which is incomprehensible) does a very good job of covering how urban and furniture design have resulted in a world designed for cis male bodies, and how women have to suffer around it.
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FletchBrendanGood
recognized it immediately in the thumbnail. I see yours is missing the circular retaining clip that goes around the trackball.
sitting right next to me at my desk, I have an ADB version connected to my PowerBook Duo Dock I. and I used it for years before that with a Performa 6116. mine never had the palm rest.
nice feature that one of the upper buttons was a click lock, so you could click it once to drag an icon or something, instead of having to awkwardly hold the mouse button down while scrolling
sadly the rubber on the trackball wheels disintegrated long ago, so it doesnt scroll so smoothly anymore
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recognized it immediately in the thumbnail. I see yours is missing the circular retaining clip that goes around the trackball.
sitting right next to me at my desk, I have an ADB version connected to my PowerBook Duo Dock I. and I used it for years before that with a Performa 6116. mine never had the palm rest.
nice feature that one of the upper buttons was a click lock, so you could click it once to drag an icon or something, instead of having to awkwardly hold the mouse button down while scrolling
sadly the rubber on the trackball wheels disintegrated long ago, so it doesnt scroll so smoothly anymore
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mortoopz
Damn you strange keyboard man. you send me down a rabbit hole, now its about 5 hours later and I'm surrounded by bits of ancient keyboards, with a multimeter, trying to probe the matricies, so I can put a new controller in one of them (old keyboards are so much nicer to type on than new ones. should be straight forward, but the buggers who designed them didn't think to just put things in a logical order. what do you mean you expect two keys next to each other to use traces next to each other why would I design it that way when I can use my psychic connection to that spider in the corner - aforementioned bugger.
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Damn you strange keyboard man. you send me down a rabbit hole, now its about 5 hours later and I'm surrounded by bits of ancient keyboards, with a multimeter, trying to probe the matricies, so I can put a new controller in one of them (old keyboards are so much nicer to type on than new ones. should be straight forward, but the buggers who designed them didn't think to just put things in a logical order. what do you mean you expect two keys next to each other to use traces next to each other why would I design it that way when I can use my psychic connection to that spider in the corner - aforementioned bugger.
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Kromaatikse
17: 00 If the X roller doesn't work properly when manually actuated, that's probably most of the problem you're having with the trackball. It's probably worth taking that area apart and inspecting for anything caught in the mechanism. It might only take one hair in precisely the wrong place to confuse the optical quadrature sensor, so that most of the time it only flips between two adjacent states instead of cycling through them all. Or the optical sensor itself might be faulty; it would be the same type as on a mouse of that vintage.
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17: 00 If the X roller doesn't work properly when manually actuated, that's probably most of the problem you're having with the trackball. It's probably worth taking that area apart and inspecting for anything caught in the mechanism. It might only take one hair in precisely the wrong place to confuse the optical quadrature sensor, so that most of the time it only flips between two adjacent states instead of cycling through them all. Or the optical sensor itself might be faulty; it would be the same type as on a mouse of that vintage.
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Eireman_on_Twitch
DeOxIt Fader Lube works great on sticky switches, and frees up all sorts of input gadgets. I keep it on hand for my audio mixer faders and MIDI keyboards, but it goes WAY beyond what the label says. My production machine has a Redragon keyboard with a Chinese clone of the Cherry MX Red keyswitches. After a couple years, it started to feel stiff on some keys, occasionally causing missed keystrokes of I was typing quickly. A drop of Lube on each key’s center shaft brought them all back to life, even better than new.
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DeOxIt Fader Lube works great on sticky switches, and frees up all sorts of input gadgets. I keep it on hand for my audio mixer faders and MIDI keyboards, but it goes WAY beyond what the label says. My production machine has a Redragon keyboard with a Chinese clone of the Cherry MX Red keyswitches. After a couple years, it started to feel stiff on some keys, occasionally causing missed keystrokes of I was typing quickly. A drop of Lube on each key’s center shaft brought them all back to life, even better than new.
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lastcarbon
Not sure why they decided to go with that arrow key layout. The only thing that I can think of is that Apple's keyboard offerings had a variety arrow layouts in the early 90s. The compact keyboards had them in a line and the extended keyboards had them in a standard arrow layout though. This layout is closer to the Apple's adjustable keyboard (or the Mac Plus keyboard) so its not as common on Mac. Perhaps it was something that they saw as a distinct feature Kind of an odd feature for a learning keyboard though
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Not sure why they decided to go with that arrow key layout. The only thing that I can think of is that Apple's keyboard offerings had a variety arrow layouts in the early 90s. The compact keyboards had them in a line and the extended keyboards had them in a standard arrow layout though. This layout is closer to the Apple's adjustable keyboard (or the Mac Plus keyboard) so its not as common on Mac. Perhaps it was something that they saw as a distinct feature Kind of an odd feature for a learning keyboard though
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mafl7291
Thank you for this video.
I recently bought a Sun Microsystems Type 6 keyboard thinking it was a standard PS/2 keyboard, only to find the 8 pin mini DIN connector.
I have not been able to find a little adapter/splitter like that anywhere online.
All I could find was a big adapter that includes a serial port (or vga depending on the model) from Belkin. Seeing that cable in your video gave me hope that I can hopefully find something like that, though I'm not holding my breath.
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Thank you for this video.
I recently bought a Sun Microsystems Type 6 keyboard thinking it was a standard PS/2 keyboard, only to find the 8 pin mini DIN connector.
I have not been able to find a little adapter/splitter like that anywhere online.
All I could find was a big adapter that includes a serial port (or vga depending on the model) from Belkin. Seeing that cable in your video gave me hope that I can hopefully find something like that, though I'm not holding my breath.
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probablyrajir638
It makes perfect sense to me that a keyboard designed for kids would make it's ctrlaltdel function a bit more obscure to use. Imagine a kid using the computer, you look away and they accidentally pressed the ctrlaltdel combo, freaked out and force closed the program they were using.
Putting in that small extra step would've prevented so many annoyances and headaches while also preserving the ability to easily use the ctrlaltdel combo if desired by a knowledgeable person.
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It makes perfect sense to me that a keyboard designed for kids would make it's ctrlaltdel function a bit more obscure to use. Imagine a kid using the computer, you look away and they accidentally pressed the ctrlaltdel combo, freaked out and force closed the program they were using.
Putting in that small extra step would've prevented so many annoyances and headaches while also preserving the ability to easily use the ctrlaltdel combo if desired by a knowledgeable person.
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papablastoise1128
LGR i wanted to let you know i appreciate all the hard work you do all in the name of entertaining us! i had some very troubling tooth extractions that have me down for a few weeks but throughout of all it your videos have kept me distracted from the pain and suffering so even if you don't see this i just wanted to say thanks!
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LGR i wanted to let you know i appreciate all the hard work you do all in the name of entertaining us! i had some very troubling tooth extractions that have me down for a few weeks but throughout of all it your videos have kept me distracted from the pain and suffering so even if you don't see this i just wanted to say thanks!
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Zarnubius
I've always wanted a trackball with 4DOF (3dof twist) and program in support to spin the cursor, that way you could angle right click context menus in different directions or just spin the cursor because it looks cool. Hardware wise it shouldn't be too hard to add another degree, software side though it'd be a gargantuan undertaking.
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I've always wanted a trackball with 4DOF (3dof twist) and program in support to spin the cursor, that way you could angle right click context menus in different directions or just spin the cursor because it looks cool. Hardware wise it shouldn't be too hard to add another degree, software side though it'd be a gargantuan undertaking.
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PikesPeace-w6q
What's funny is that some of those trackballs were really nice to use and very accurate. This particular one has weird button placement that would probably make them a pain but I found things like the trackballs used on the old powerbooks to be far superior the the awful no-button track crap we have today.
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What's funny is that some of those trackballs were really nice to use and very accurate. This particular one has weird button placement that would probably make them a pain but I found things like the trackballs used on the old powerbooks to be far superior the the awful no-button track crap we have today.
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tonycoffee7335
I grew up on win 98. I have been collecting retro game systems for about 15 yrs now, so i thoughtbit would be cool to get into retro pc gaming. I bought an older tan win 98 machine for cheap. And maaaan are old pc's picky. Lol
Having fun trying to get it to run. Been watching for years, thank you!
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I grew up on win 98. I have been collecting retro game systems for about 15 yrs now, so i thoughtbit would be cool to get into retro pc gaming. I bought an older tan win 98 machine for cheap. And maaaan are old pc's picky. Lol
Having fun trying to get it to run. Been watching for years, thank you!
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atomicskull6405
Currently I'm using a GMMK tenkeyless with Kailh box jades on single size keys and box navys on all the big keys like spacebar enter shift etc. The navys make those larger keys feel properly thunky when pressed like on a Model M where it has an additional spring in the second barrel under those keys.
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Currently I'm using a GMMK tenkeyless with Kailh box jades on single size keys and box navys on all the big keys like spacebar enter shift etc. The navys make those larger keys feel properly thunky when pressed like on a Model M where it has an additional spring in the second barrel under those keys.
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TeaAndFloppyDisks
As kids, we weren't so much learning on the regular keyboards, but busting keys gaming on them. :D I don't think I would have wanted a kid-sized keyboard as a kid, but I remember being fascinated by trackballs.
That was a fun video. I enjoyed the helper little fingers you brought in. :)
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As kids, we weren't so much learning on the regular keyboards, but busting keys gaming on them. :D I don't think I would have wanted a kid-sized keyboard as a kid, but I remember being fascinated by trackballs.
That was a fun video. I enjoyed the helper little fingers you brought in. :)
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ScarletSwordfish
I remember an old issue of MacAddict where they were doing a giveaway for a TrackBoard. I'm not a trackball user but I always thought these boards looked really cool. A few years ago I bought a Datadesk SmartBoard, which is a very good ergonomic keyboard and is my go-to for my classic Macs.
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I remember an old issue of MacAddict where they were doing a giveaway for a TrackBoard. I'm not a trackball user but I always thought these boards looked really cool. A few years ago I bought a Datadesk SmartBoard, which is a very good ergonomic keyboard and is my go-to for my classic Macs.
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Yukeake
We need more keycaps with Southwest legends. Particularly since the preferred switch orientation puts the LED to the South. Northern legends don't align with the LED, so backlit keycaps often aren't nearly so bright as they should be. I'd love a set of these with shinethrough and cherry stems.
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We need more keycaps with Southwest legends. Particularly since the preferred switch orientation puts the LED to the South. Northern legends don't align with the LED, so backlit keycaps often aren't nearly so bright as they should be. I'd love a set of these with shinethrough and cherry stems.
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johnhall7476
I am the proud owner of two Datadesk SmartBoard UPC5000 ergonomic keyboards and one Datadesk LittleFingers LF-2100 keyboard. All three keyboards have their original manuals and are fully functional. One SmartBoard has developed some yellowing, but they are otherwise in excellent condition.
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I am the proud owner of two Datadesk SmartBoard UPC5000 ergonomic keyboards and one Datadesk LittleFingers LF-2100 keyboard. All three keyboards have their original manuals and are fully functional. One SmartBoard has developed some yellowing, but they are otherwise in excellent condition.
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GingerNingerGames
I don't know why but a track ball really feels like it'd be better for browsing the internet than a mouse, no idea why I think that, but I DO think this keyboard would be great for a simulator cockpit keyboard because you wouldn't need to worry about having somewhere for the mouse.
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I don't know why but a track ball really feels like it'd be better for browsing the internet than a mouse, no idea why I think that, but I DO think this keyboard would be great for a simulator cockpit keyboard because you wouldn't need to worry about having somewhere for the mouse.
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