The Click, The Clack, and The Choice: A Deep Dive into Keyboards

Talking to Myself About Keyboards, Terms, and Other Stuff

Disclaimer

I will not be discussing technical details like firmware, PCBs, microcontrollers, or the mechanics of a Keyboard Matrix. Everything I talk about here is simply what I genuinely think about when I decide to buy a keyboard.

(Maybe in another blog, we could dive into the technical side of things.)

First of all, The Terms:

General

• ISO (International Organization for Standarization). Interestingly, this term doesn’t just refer to the organization; the word “ISO” comes from the Greek word isos, which means equal.
• ANSI (American National Standrds Institute).

Keyboard Types

• Membrane Keyboard
• Mechanical Keyboard
• Hall Effect Keyboard

Material

• PBT (PolyButylene Terephthalate).
• ABS (Acrylonitile Butadiene **Styrene).
• POM (PolyOxyMyethylene)

Profile (Most Popular)

• Cherry Most Popular
• OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) Standard
• SA (Sypherical All)

you could see the rest from here.

Switches

• Linear
• Tactile
• Clicky

How to choose a Keyboard

Now that we’ve listed the terms you should know deeply before diving in, let’s talk about how to actually choose one (based on my personal preference).

When I specifically talk to myself about buying a keyboard, I genuinely think of just three things:

1. The Funtion
2. The Feel
3. The Material

Each of these has its own specifications

1.The Funtion

This depends on two main factors:

1. What do i wnat this Keyboard for?

here we could think of this as what you’re setting on your machine to do? Do you work for a bank? are you just gaming? do you Code?

Whatever you do, that’s the most important and first thing you should ask your self abou because it determines something else like :

Keyboard Layout

You will see a lot of options here, ranging from 100% down to 40% (I think). But before talking about layouts, we need to know what determines them. A layout is defined by these four things:

1. number of keys
2. their arrangement
3. their size
4. precense or absence of certain sections

Now what is the main sections of the Classic keyboard?

any modern keyboard is often devided into :

• Alphanumeric which means Numbers and letters
• Function Row these are the F1 ~ F12
• Navigation Cluster these are :

1. Insert
2. Home
3. PageUp/PageDown

• Arrow keys
• NumPad
• Modifier Keys

1. CTR
2. ALT
3. Super
4. FN

Most of these sections can be removed or rearranged, but some cannot. This brings us to Keyboard Sizes.

Keyboard Sizes

The 100% Keyboard

This one is the standard and the classic one and most often will be one of these two things

• ANSI 104 Keys.
• ISO 105 Keys

The numbers 104 and 105 come from the fact that the ANSI keyboard has 104 total keys, while the ISO has 105. There is a physical difference between them, but we will talk about that another time.

btw this Either ANSI 104 or ISO 105 is a Full-Size Keyboard, it has everything from what we just saied that keyboard genuenly has. and they use is as a main reference for the other keyboards.

there is an other thing (classic) but not actually a classic called TKL (Tenkeyless), this Tenkeyless Keyboard doesn’t have a numpad, but anything else exist.

Why it’s name is TKL?

this name is separated in two things

1. Tenkey, and this is the name of the number Pad
2. less, Well, it’s just “less” of it!

Note TKL knowen also as The 80% keyboard

The 75%

Here things be less Official (from our main standard) and when they say that it’s 75% they actually mean that this is a 75% from the 100%.

this 75% one keeps the F-row and and Arrows, but he decrease the the spaces between the keys.

The 65%

This one removes the Funtion Row but keeps the arrows

The 60%

This one removes the :

• Funtion Row
• Arrows
• Navigation Cluster

and here the Layering concept invented to our post! Let’s now go to the other purpose to choose the keyboard under It’s Funtion.

.2 The Switches

here we have a lot of talks because here you will find a lot of depates about which switch is the most perfect switch and actually this is a none sense depate, because it depends on the person Preference..

first of all we already alked about Three types of Switches, i will list them again here and talk about each one separatley..

BUT before also talk about the three types of switches let’s talk about the :

Switch Standards & Manufacturers

When you start your journy in finding your perfect keyboard you will hit with your face on one of these terms..

• Cherry MX red
• Kailh Box white
• Gateron Yellow
• TTC Gold Pink
• Holy “moly (sorry)” Panda

These names actually contain three things..

• The Company
• The Switch family
• The Switch type

A pref of history

At first, keyboards were just tools for offices and computers, and many companies made their own completely different switch systems like IBM, Alps, Cherry.

Then Cherry GmbH Created the Holy Cherry MX, In The 1980s, and this become extremely important because Cherry make, A Consistent switch Size, A consistent stem shape, And a consistent mounting system, which allowed keycaps and swithces and keyboards to be comaptible with each other, Over time Cherry MX becomes the Defacto standard of the mechanical keyboard world.

Read here if you want to read more about the switches anatomy.

Then during the 1990s and early 2000s, membrane keyboards took over because they were cheaper, and mechanical keyboards almost disappeared from mainstream use.

Later, gaming companies revived mechanical keyboards again using cherry MX switches, especially MX red and MX blue, then Cherry patents expired, and this actually changes everything becuase companies like Kalih Gateron and TTC Started making..

MX-style switches

which copied the Cherry MX standard while improving or changing parts of it.

Eventually:

• Kailh focused on innovation
• Gateron became famous for smooth switches
• TTC focused on premium factory feel

newer companies like HMX focused on enthusiast smoothness

But all of them still mostly followed:

the MX ecosystem

So today, even though Cherry is no longer the “best” to many enthusiasts,The entire modern keyboard hobby still exists on top of the standard Cherry created decades ago.

If you want to know more, search for “Cherry MX switch documentation”.

So but what about the COLORS??

The story behind the colors

Actually colors is a heavy topic becuase the market right now arent depend an actually color to represnt a function or a feel or whaever, so the market been have a lot of variants and a more New but not complex naming patterns, so we will talk in a simple way about the basics and i will left a link to another blog that talks deeply around this specific topic.

The famous switch colors originally came from Cherry GmbH Company, so Cherry needed a simple way to distinguish, between different switch feels inside the same MX family, so instead of giving a long technical names they used COLORS.

• Red is Linear
• Brown is Tactile
• Blue is Clicky

And eventually, the entire industry copied this system.

Important: the colors are NOT standards, this is extremely important! Peopel often think that Red means exactly the same everywhere, but this is not right, the colors are more like **General conventions. For example, Cherry MX Red And Gateron Red are both Linear BUT not identical, they are differ in smoothness, Spring weight, Sound, Material, Wooble, lubrication, and Travel Feel.

If You’re enthusiast, search for advanced switch guides.

Linear

Linear switches are so named due to their smooth and consistent travel, the feeling you get from pressing a linear switch is the same as all way down the keystroke untill you bottom out. the force needed to push the switch remains unchanged and there are so other features like “Sound” or the tactile bump that characterizes the othehr two switches.

If you have no idea what switch is in your mechanical keyboard, it’s probably linear, as it’s the most popular switch type. Additionally, even if you’re using a membrane keyboard as opposed to mechanical, membrane switches are categorized as linear as they have the same lack of tactile or audible feedback.

When it comes to ideal applications for linear switches, they work well in everything, not getting in the way of gaming, working, or general computing. However, the problem with making something that works for everything, is that it’ll never be perfect for anything. Which leads us to the next key switch type.

Tactile

Tactile switches differ from linear switches in that there is a noticeable “bump” in the keystroke. This bump is most commonly at the actuation point, which is typically around halfway down, but it can be anywhere. The most commonly known tactile switch is the Cherry MX Brown.

The bump happens because you get to a point during the keystroke that requires a tiny bit of additional force to overcome, and once you overcome it the rest of the keystroke is normal. This bump helps to add a little bit of additional feedback. Many people, including the guy writing this article, find the bump to be satisfying. Additionally, if the bump is at the actuation point, you know exactly when the keystroke is registered. Those who type a lot can use this to train themselves to stop bottoming out for a far gentler typing experience.

So, we finally have some physical feedback, but what about an audible cue? For this we must talk about Clicky switches, a cardinal sin for office workers, but a popular choice, nonetheless.

Clicky

Clicky switches are functionally similar to tactile switches, with the same bump partway down the keystroke. Unlike the tactiles switches however, when you overcome this bump, there’s a click noise, and this noise is distinct from the normal sound of a switch.

This is because there’s something physical happening inside that switch. There’s a piece of plastic inside the switch that is normally attached to the cross-shaped piece you can see when removing keycaps. In clicky switches, this piece can move, so when you overcome that tactile bump we mentioned, it suddenly slaps down into the bottom of the housing. This is what creates the click you love or hate so much. The Cherry MX Blue is the best-known variant of clicky switches.

I know your brain might be overwhelmed by all this, but there is one more “brain damage” you should take before leaving! Check out this blog for a Beginner Guide To Switches Anatomy

Let’s recap:

We were talking about the three main points: Function, Feel, and Material. We’ve covered Function and Feel…

Now Let’s talk about Material!

The Material

For me it depends on how much money could you spend on a keyboard.

That’s it here are some cool resources about this topic :