But there were no mice left, my monitor is on its way, and the keyboard selection was limited to a few Logitech keyboards suitable for people with wee little hands. Honestly, the things were only slightly larger than the laptop keyboard. What the hell's the point of that?
Now, I'm not a huge, strapping guy with large, knobby hands and elongated, alien-like fingers. I do find laptop keyboards to be cramped, but I haven't met anyone who would describe the things as spacious and comfortable. So I bought myself a new mouse and keyboard, to expense to the company.
Sure, a common task, nothing special. But I'm a writer, so I use the keyboard an awful lot. (As opposed to you mere coders, who use the keyboard once, maybe twice a day, and only to enter a few arcane symbols; but you know how writers are pansies, always bitching about typing all the time, and Carpal Tunnel this and Repetitive Stress that.) So, perusing the keyboard selection, I thought to myself "Dread Lord, mayhaps we should try one of those supposedly ergonomic split-key keyboards?"
Which gave me a few options. I quickly discarded the knock-off cheapo keyboards, as they felt soft and, well, cheap. Now, at home I use an old IBM bucking spring keyboard, and I love it. It's big, it's heavy, and the springs have a nice, solid click to them. It's also, unfortunately, much louder than your normal rubber dome keyboard, and I don't want to drive my coworkers insane with CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK all day long. I mean, I just started the job, right? But it's a great keyboard, one where you know when you've typed a letter, and one that can be used to deflect bullets and crush the skulls of your enemies. It has a big 'ol metal plate as a base, you see. Ok, fine, I do have a fetish for huge, weapons-grade input devices. What of it?
Back to the point… I'm left with two Microsoft models, the "Natural Keyboard Pro" and the "Natural Keyboard Elite." Sometimes, Marketing is more inane than usual. The most obvious difference between these two ego-enticingly name models is that the Pro has a ton of "hot keys," and the Elite doesn't. As I'm an experienced user, I scorn hot keys. I don't need a special button to open my email program, or change the volume, or open an internet connection. Those things are for neophytes. I don't even like the silly Windows-only "open Start menu" and "open popup menu" keys that have, sadly, become default "features" on most keyboards. So the thought of 19, nineteen of the damn things was galling.
So that leaves the Elite model, and that's what I bought. Which, of course, was a mistake. Because, you see, the Elite features an "Improved space-saving design." Translated from Marketing, this means that the bastards reduced the size of the arrow and Page Up/Page Down/Delete/Insert/etc. cluster of keys to approximately the size of Chicklets. Remember calculator watchers, enormously popular in the 80s? These keys are exactly as usable as the keys on those watches.
Oh, sure, I tried the keyboards in the store, but I was only looking at how the keys responded, how my hands rested on the keyboard, those sort of things. I just don't use the Page Up, Page Down, and Arrow keys unless I'm looking at a document, and I use them pretty much unconsciously. So when I plugged this thing in and really started using it, its awkwardness became painfully obvious. I simply hadn't realized how much I used those keys.
Obviously, this is a keyboard designed for mere computer dilettantes and coders, users who never, ever use Page Up. Why would you, if you only write two or three lines of code, each line being something like "if A > where Q4*(%)", and then call it a day?