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When I went from an Amiga 500 to a 486 PC, all I could buy were mechanical keyboards. I don't even remember rubber ones for sale back then. Were there any? Mechanical switches were taken for granted. And they weren't expensive.

Now you need to pay a hefty premium for mechanical keys? They're like three times more expensive (or even more) compared to the early 90's. Can someone explain to me why?

RealNC wrote:When I went from an Amiga 500 to a 486 PC, all I could buy were mechanical keyboards. I don't even remember rubber ones for sale back then. Were there any? Mechanical switches were taken for granted. And they weren't expensive.

Now you need to pay a hefty premium for mechanical keys? They're like three times more expensive (or even more) compared to the early 90's. Can someone explain to me why?

Back in the 486 days most if not all keyboards were buckling spring boards, which is what the newer mechanical switches aim to emulate. You can actually still buy them here. Rubber dome keyboards with created specifically to reduce costs since buckling springs weren't cheap. I think you'll find that if you adjust for inflation, they weren't as cheap as you remember.

The other reason of course is that mechanical keyboards are still a niche product so they don't have the advantage of a large market to drive costs down like membrane boards do. Even so, you can pick up a Cooler Master or Rosewill mechanical keyboard for as low as $50 if you keep an eye on deals.

And if you want something really expensive, look at Topre Realforce (capacitive switch) keyboards which are difficult to find for less than $200.

I didn't know what I was missing until a Gigaparts opened up in my town and I tried their high-end KBs. Some were definitely too retro for my liking though. They can have very different feels. Some are practically as clacky-sounding and loud as typewriters.

Excuse my ignorance, but if I take my Thermaltake MEKA G1 and put a ps2 adapter on it, will it function without any latency? Or does the keyboard need to be natively ps2?

same here, and I think the the ps2 allows n-key rollover.

I tried a few different cherries, and I found brown to be the best for me. I'm using a Das Keyboard, and love the feel. I also tried the cooler master quickfire cherry brown but preferred the feel of the das keyboard switches.

I use the Leopold, sold on elitekeyboards, with brown switches. Its similar to filco.

I also use MX Brown switches on a Rosewill keyboard. It works well though I have had a few issues with keys double-activating which I understand is not uncommon with Cherry MX switches.

higher quality mech kb's benefit from a higher actuation point and nkro.
even if usb is polled at 125 hz, i am sure the lag is not noticeable for typing.. unless there's some weird buffering

disregard the following for if you use lightboost:

do you notice any input lag difference with your mouse pointer in the windows desktop at the top vs the bottom of your screen? because there is a difference and that difference is greater than a 8ms polling interval

Isn't low-profile keyboard better than mechanical for games? Like Logitech Ultra-Flat, the only problem such keyboard is not anymore produced and clones aren't that good.

Corsair k95 polls 1000 times a second (1000Hz USB).