On Sun, 10 Mar 2002 15:34:24 +0000 Tony Firshman
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> On Sun, 10 Mar 2002 at 06:48:31, Al Feng wrote:
> (ref: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
>
> >On Sun, 10 Mar 2002 09:03:21 +0000 Tony Firshman
> ><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
> > <original C84 QL membranes - snipped>
> >I presume by "clear" you mean window glass clear
> Yes. I have seen this sort of plastic on many other computers - eg
> Apple
> powerbook, AST Premium exec notebook, and all the PC keyboards I
> have
> disected.
> > -- your "clear"
> >membranes are _not_ a "pure" vinyl ... count your blessings!
> >
> >After swapping out my fourth [!?!] membrane, I was more than happy
> to
> >pony up the funds for the maligned-by-others Falkenberg keyboard
> >interface [the earlier Scho(e)n & ABC keyboards with proprietary
> >interfaces did not seem like a wise choice].
> I never saw a well manufactured Falkenburg. The pins to the 8049
> socket
> were very badly thought out. The cable clip to the pcb was
> unbelievable
> - was wrong with a sH type socket. The quality of the pcbs and
> manufacture varied from dire to ridiculous. One board I saw had the
> two
> layers so misaligned that the pins of the chips etc had to be bent
> sideways to even touch the pads on the solder side. This says a
> lot
> about the attitude to quality. I spoke to him about this, and he
> got
> them done on the cheap by a university contact - he said.
Wow! I guess I should count MY blessings that the Falkenberg KB
interface which I received worked-out-of-the-box without any apparent
problems.
I'm sure that I would have bought a Di-Ren KB interface (heck, it _was_
cheaper, after all ... but, I bought my Falkenberg interface less than
two months before I _heard_ about the Di-Ren!), but there was no need for
a second interface; AND, more to the point, being in the hinterlands of
the QL world, they were not readily available to me.
Heck, if I lived in New England (or, England) and could actually see
ANY-/everything demo'd ahead of time, I would probably own a lot more QL
related hardware/software ... or, certainly, different hardware/software
... GOOD reviews always seem to be few and far between; and, when there
are reviews, the highlights are REALLY HIGHLIGHTED and the things that
need to be worked on did not seem to be mentioned.
For example, I own a fairly early QXL card -- nice, but it wasn't
stressed (mentioned? ... oops!?!) that the screen image was reduced
(i.e., equivalent, at best, of a 10" when viewed on a standard 14" VGA
monitor) ... nor was it mentioned that TURBO wouldn't compile on it with
the silly (IMO) comment that Sbasic was just as fast ... perhaps, but I
still don't know how to stack multiple SuperBASIC programs in SMSQ, and I
do know how to make QRAM (or, derivative) stack multiple, executable
programs ...
I *know* (for example) that SMSQ/E is BETTER, but I doubt that I could be
convinced to buy it, now, without first seeing what it can/cannot do
compared to the plain-jane variant because what the enhanced version of
the OS can do still might not be what I want as a perceivable
improvement.
> >I was a candidate for an aftermarket keyboard/interface within
> 5-minutes
> >of pulling my QL out of its box BECAUSE I find the stylized key
> tiles to
> >have been the design effort of someone who did not type.
> >
> >BTW. The perceived "problem" of the key caps was mitigated by
> >gluing/piggy-backing REAL key caps on top of the original key
> tiles.
> I never have any trouble with the kbd - esp after the WD40
> treatment.
> ..... but maybe I am jut a bad typist.
> The current PC keyboard I am using now (Alps) is much worse than any
> QL
> kbd.
The significant problem [which *I* found] is the SHAPE of the top of the
QL's tiles ... if you are a moderately fast typist, you are not looking
at the tiles AND your fingers are not locked onto the tiles, either; so,
you will inevitably be striking the top edges of the cupped portion ...
or, at least, I was doing so.
Al
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