Discussion on:

10 IT relics I really miss

Try out MECHANICAL keyboards. Those old IBM keyboards weighed a few pounds because they were mechanical. I have a Cherry keyboard and it is great. Just google "mechanical keyboard guide" and it'll help you decide which keyboard to get. I'd suggest a Ducky or DASkeyboard.

I've used the old IBM and Gateway Omni keyboards, and recently bought a DasKeyboard. I highly recommend it if you want a quality product with a great touch. Also, Logitech makes some really quality mice with a good feel and excellent features. Both Logitech products and DasKeyboard are not inexpensive, but as much as I use them they are well wroth the money to me.

I still use one of the old IBM keyboards. This one was manufactured 24 years ago and still works great. It is HEAVY and the keys have a satisfying >click when you type. How many computers have I gone through since 1988?

I have had new employees come into my office just to look at it. I worry that someday the connector will be obsolete and I'll have to use the Made-in-China junk that passes for keyboards today.

I still use my early 80's Model M as well. The feedback is excellent and they will last pretty much forever. There's no 'windows' key of course, but ctrl-esc does the same thing and it also doubles as a home defense weapon (it really is that heavy and solid)

Are you using the old 5 pin keyboard connector that preceded the PS/2 connector? WOW!

Let's see: An IBM keyboard plugged into a 5 pin to PS/2 adapter plugged into a PS/2 to USB connector, plugged into the USB port on the back of the computer. Hmmmm... It seems you wouldn't have to worry about air flow behind the system. Plugging in that IBM keyboard will keep it about 4 or 5 inches away from the wall!

Good Grief - I made that mistake once very long ago and was the a job to get everthing back together again - I did but had a lot more respect for it thereafter!

Yeah, the old keyboards were pretty complicated inside, but at least you could clean them without everything mushing together into a blob.
The old keyboards had real plastic and metal parts instead of little capacitive cushions inside cheap plastic blocks.

Whe I was a tech, we'd take the keyboard, remove the keycaps and immerse the whole mechanism into a cleaner. Of course this stuff was probably deadly, but that was back in the 1980s when no one thought about stuff like that. With new keyboards, the plastic stuff melts into a sticky blob that smells like airplane glue.

That and a can of silicone spray could make one easy to type on and blinding fast!

Way back when in my college years I worked repairing keyboards and shipping them back out. At that time keyboards weren't considered disposable like they are now and were expensive enough to justify sending them out for repair rather than running down to Radio Shack for a quick replacement.

It's a real keyboard LOL. But it makes such a racket, probably because I've a heavy hitter, that it drives the office mates nuts. Can't use it at home, drives the wife nuts. So sometimes at lunch, when everyone is gone, I take it out and bang on it a little. It that weird or what?

I was using a public-access at the library the other day, and every time I started to type a reply to a comment, the lady next to me (who left her headphones on the table so loud you douldn't not hear them) would growl at me to "stop banging on the damn keyboard!" these things can't be more than 3-4 years old. Thing is, people think plastic is quieter than metal. It's not. If you don't believe me, come to my kitchen ijn the theater and I'll let you hear the difference between our older (metal) faucet and the newer (plastic insides) one.

I'm usin an old Compaq mechanical keyboard - I'll NEVER give it up!

DEC LK201. They put the control key to the left of caps lock (where it belongs). Everything felt "just right". Words and pictures cannot adequately describe this "keyboard of the Gods".

UNICOMP bought the patents from IBM and still cranks them out from a little factory in Kentucky. They sell the classic Model M, variants, and also a monster 122-key thing. An extra 20 custom keys might be nice. http://pckeyboard.com/page/category/PC122

I have a Model M13 (M + Trackpoint) I bought from a thrift store as a teenager and cleaned up, but right now I'm on a Das Keyboard Ultimate S, which is much quieter and easier on my roommates. I still prefer the actual M feel, though.

I went to the website you mentioned, and it says: Shipping Weight: 6 pounds!!! That's about right.. You could use it as a weapon if you wanted...

Really? Real "computer stores" still exist? Perhaps where *you* live (let me guess, Silicon Valley), but here, nothing that constitutes a *useful* location. Sure, there are the storefront shops that are little more than places to drop-off your virus-laden Windows machines to be scrubbed; they might have a handful of overpriced and/or non-useful video cards, perhaps an anemic hard drive or two (usually priced 3x what they're worth). And forget WorstBuy or RadioSlack; one never *was* intended to be much more than an appliance store, and the other has turned into little more than a crappy cellphone store (ANY parts, computer or non-computer, have been pretty much abandoned).

When you had proper computer stores, it was easy to quickly find parts to fix somebody's home or small-office computer; just pick up a part on your way home from work, it could be done right away. Not even a matter of "instant gratification", more a matter of fast repair and getting someone back up and running sooner. So much for the hype of "Just-in-Time" supply. And perhaps you'd rather use cash rather than running up your credit card debt. Nope, can't have that either.

nt

They might not be everywhere, but there are plenty physical computer stores around me. In person stores never competed with the great deals you could get from NewEgg, TigerDirect, and Amazon if you could cool your heals for a couple days.

In Dallas, we've got Fry's, Microcenter, the original CompUSA (I believe is still here), and a mom and pop place or 2.

in austin, kind of for commercial places more than anything, but it is where i get most of the stuff for our school. they are in san antonio too. fry's is not bad as well, but they are more big box now

Head over to South east Asia anytime and you can feast your eyes on all parts imaginable.

When I was first getting started I used to go down to two or three stores here in the NJ metro area and get all the parts I needed to build the machines i was using, not to mention the two USED parts stores where I would stand there and drool over the USED 100 MHz Evergreen chips that would take my 50 MHz 486 and turn it into a Pentium MoBo, WOW!!!
We never had a Fry's here but we did have CompUSA, and when almost all those stores (except for a few) went belly-up I LITERALLY CRIED!!! That was where I would stop by during the work day (I was driving for a living then) and spend 15 or 20 minutes just basking in the electron fields and recharging my soul, then I could go back and finish the day of driving crabby little old ladies & gents to their Dr. appointments, AHHHHH!!!

I suppose it's part of the problem with living in an economically depressed area (lower Hudson valley) of an economically depressed state. Once IBM went belly-up the already critical economy died. Once a major chain goes bankrupt, none of the others can make enough money by filling the void.

Here in the suburbs of Chicago, we are fortunate to have CompUSA, Micro Center, Fry's, and CDW. I guess that is the benefit of living near a big city: You can find pretty much everything you want nearby!

Rick

a physcial location, that would be awesome. i get a lot through them, but through a sales rep

We've got...umm...well...uhhh...Fry's in Atlanta, CompUSA in Raleigh, and not much else. Any local computer store lasts, at most, two to three years, and they all have abysmal selections.

Although there is 4 Ts computers in Augusta. Their selection stinks, but they stay in business selling Dell & IBM refurbs.

I'm fortunate enough to live 10 minutes from a Microcenter, & there's a Stone's computer store in the same shopping complex. Also a Computer Builder's Warehouse across the road, but I don't find much that suits me there. What I like especially about the MicroCenter is the Tech Manager, who is always happy to talk shop.

"Computer Builder's Warehouse!" Yeah! That's a name for a computer store. I'll buy that for a dollar.

We have a Microcenter in NORTH Jersey (somewhere) I think. Computer Builders Warehouse, NOW THAT's THE KIND OF STORE I COULD LIVE AT!!! Where DO you live I want to move there!!!!! New Egg is GREAT, HOWEVER, it doesn't feed the soul, if you understand, then you are the kind of person who can read C code like a Mag, if you don't understand then, well I feel sorry for you!

The few that have good selections, are in the part of the city that is mostly furniture stores. The wrong type of crowd, and its heavy traffic and a run down area, so people don't like to stop there or go there. They would do much better on the east side of the city where many of the big and small stores are.
Kind of a difference between the old way, where stores were lined up down a street, and the new way, where entire city blocks are dedicated to shopping and parking lots.

I do kinda miss the "computer store". First it was a real store. Then, like when we lived in Houston, it was a guy with a mini-storage warehouse. He pulled up the door on Saturday morning - like Storage Wars - and we commenced to shopping. Cases over here, power supplies in that pile, stacks of mother boards, etc.

Maybe this will work - an ancient Doonesbury comic that shows how it was back then at the Computer Store. And to some extent, it's still like this.
http://raceabilene.com/misc/comics/Liveware.jpg

Yes, the emphasis is on _little_ but I went into my local Ratshack a couple months ago (and I live in a very low population area) and they actually had up-to-date Arduinos and some Propeller kit. It was slightly more expensive than on the interwebs, but the instant gratification of buying my first Arduino and an Ethernet shield and walk out of the store was well worth it!

Sadly, I haven't had enough free time to tinker too much with it yet, but I have tinkered with the dev platform a bit on my Linux workstation at home, and it seems to work great! I built a small 1/10 second timer with it - my output was some 40-year-old HP LED buffered displays... Next up will be interfacing an LCD display from a 20-year-old Fujitsu desk phone...

TigerDirect, CompUSA. BestBuy still has lots of goodies. While Radio Shack is still useful to the hardcore hardware guy. There are also these mom-pop's that sell refurbished rackmounts and switches to small businesses.

Of course, this only applies if you don't live out in the sticks. (The money you saved on a new home was eventually lost on your commute.)

PS: Kapersky and Microsoft Security Essentials, both free. There should be no reason a PC is "virus-laden" these days. Get a Mac if you're going to be frequenting "those" sites.

Around here, we call it Radio Control Shack, because about all you can get there is RC gear and telephones.

God, I miss Allied...

I can recall as a Chinese tourist visited a Canadian Radio Shack and my being despised by a shop staff who verbally assumed me was not buying or could not afford anything from them.

Because of one person's behavior?

How very American...

The man despised me should be of management grade and could sufficiently represent the company.

The way you were treated in that store is more about the franchisee than about Radio Shack itself.

Home Depot and Lowes sells network devices and supplies now. Also surge protectors and audio/video equipment. So maybe the Shack has outlived its niche.

nt

... that they could NOT keep an inventory. If they had 20 or 30 hard drives on hand for example, and they did not sell them fast enough, a couple of months later, the manufacturers came up with a faster, bigger and cheaper hard drive. The store had to either sell them at a loss, or keep very low inventory. Loss of profit, loss of customers, loss of business... The End.

1. Yes, they're there, but very hard to find as over 99% of them no longer exist due to people buying vendor systems like Dell and HP from Walmart and the like.

2. Most consoles require you tie up the television now, while a good game is on your monitor. Also some of us don't like the way they do some of the console game controllers, we prefer joysticks or mice. Not all that many come available for both due to vendor lock in set ups.

3. Mobile apps are dinky things for phones not for me to use at my computer, but they install on your system or play over the Internet. I gathered what he was talking about was the games you played off the CD, so you could play them on any computer instead of having to buy another copy to take on holidays or pay a fortune in Internet access fees - we pay by the MB in most of the world.

4. Yeah, dell has a few towers that can sit on the desk on their side, but their few real desktops are thin style and won't take full size expansion cards. But his complaint isn't that good as you can buy decent desktop cases from a few suppliers, but only on-line.

Really? Try 5-1/4" Floppy, or even 8".

the point is you didn't have to install the software so it didn't mess up other software on a system. It just ran, it didn't hose your configuration, or mess up 10 programs that worked fine before you installed the new software. Worse yet you uninstall software and it breaks 10 other pieces of software.

a major installation of the client on your system and it then has compatibility issues with the system or hardware for a variety of issues.

Many programs, not only games, require .NET framework to be installed. Many others, particularly games, may require Open GL to be enabled, or Direct Graphics, etc. Any of these can refuse to "play nice" with your other programs....

Could virtual machines be created to run games or would this slow things down? How about dual boot setups?