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Do you even 10-key, bro? Our homage to the classic keyboard standard, Ars Technica

Do you even 10-key, bro? Our homage to the classic keyboard standard, Ars Technica
    

      ¯ _ (ツ) _ / ¯ –

             

A bygone relic of an old computing era? Or a productivity must? We dive in.

      

                  

While going through a full, cleaning sweep of my home office — something I know I’m not alone in doing lately — I had to blow dust off quite a few forgotten items. At my house, this included a range of electronics I haven’t used in years: an Amazon Echo Dot , an Ouya , a burner phone full of discontinued Google apps , and so on. Beneath all of those was a surprise: an extra – key pad for my wireless, daily driver keyboard. This model, a wireless Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard , breaks its 20 – key portion into a separate, wireless piece, which I’d apparently put away and forgotten about. I mentioned it in the Ars “staff” chat channel for funsies, with some sarcastic version of “who even uses these things anymore?” What followed was an explosion in 20 – key-number-pad opinions that I hadn’t anticipated but should have expected. This is Ars Technica, after all. If something accepts any form of electrical current, we can find a way to make it a “stop everything, let’s hash this out” conversation piece. And hash we did, with staffers recalling decades of – key anecdotes and memories. What follows is a slew of Ars’ – key sentiments that range from “indispensable” to “disposable. Mavis did not teach (me) typing I’ll start with my own take, which includes some personal PTSD (the “T” stands for “20 -key, “of course). As a child of the American suburban s, my earliest keyboard memories come from public school computer labs flush with fresh Apple computers. I spent much of my adult life assuming these had been supplied directly by Apple in a savvy promotional move to get students hooked not only on computers in general but on Apple’s machines, software, and OSes. But my cursory research only points to one clear Apple-to-schools movement in the s focused squarely on California —Since Apple struggled to get federal lawmakers to move the needle on nationwide tax credits for computer donations.

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