nomnomnom

[mrissa]

I'm doing it again. This keyboard, black with white letters, has held out longer than the previous models. But S is gone, and C, V, N, M, L, .. K is almost gone. You can see the wear on D and , starting to kick in. It's not such a thing for me. I touch-type. I only look at the keyboard to see which letters my fingers have eaten. But if anyone else in the house needs to use this computer for anything, we're swiftly approaching the point of total uselessness.

Why those letters? They're not the most frequently used in the English language; they're not disproportionately present in my name or things I type often like "the" and "and" and "dear" and "hey." I don't sit with my fingers resting on the bottom row of keys. I don't spill things on them and have to scrub them off again. I just don't know what the deal is here. I don't mind that my fingers eat the letters; I just want to know why these letters.

Comments

[sethb.livejournal.com]

How much (and how hard) do your fingers rub against those particular letters when you type them?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's quite possible that if we rigged up force sensors, we'd find that I'm wrong, but my intuition is that I type harder on the intact upper row than on the eroding lower row.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Many of them are computer commands, not just keying in. You probably Ctrl-S a lot, and do Copying and Pasting and such. And you probably press harder when doing Operating System commands than flying through a story.

Just a guess from a former computer instructor.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Indeed, but Ctrl and X are intact, and Ctrl-x is one of my most frequently used commands, for either cut or send depending on what I'm using.

[sethb.livejournal.com]

How much do your fingers rub as you hit each key? (Just thinking about it as I type this, I notice no rubbing on the top row, some on the home, and more on the bottom.)

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

I love black keyboards - I spraypainted my keyboard black when I was 16 (yes, I was that kind of BBS geek), which really pissed off my non-touch-type friends when they wanted to use it. Eventually, they started selling them so I picked up a normal black keyboard.

Now, of course, I have a laptop at home, so I don't have much choice.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

ha! those are the ones that are coming off mine too. the S is pretty much completely gone, the L, M, and N are mostly gone (except the N is almost as gone as the S), and the A is on its way out. i never could figure it out, except i guess i use the s more often than i would have thought with plurals and so on. it's a good point about the commands, too. also, my control key is just about busted. not the lettering but the actual key. it don't work so good.

[brooksmoses]

Of course, now they sell ultra-high-end black keyboards with no letters on the keys.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

Easy way to get more data - switch to a dvorak keymap. (I infer you are still qwerty?)

The wear patterns in Dvorak over time might lead to additional hypotheses.

[brooksmoses]

The only one that's wearing out notably on my keyboard (which I've had since it wasn't this century, and used for writing my dissertation) is the N key, and there's just the faintest bit on the S and D keys, and maybe some on the C, V, and M keys if I look closely. Also the spacebar, which is worn most heavily of all; the spot where my right thumb goes is polished completely smooth there, whereas the rest of the keys are still properly textured.

I do not think the N key is due to lots of Usenet reading. Mostly I do not think this because I usually use either the spacebar or the mouse to go to the next message, not because I didn't do that much Usenet reading with this keyboard.

(Meanwhile, my even older IBM keyboard shows no signs at all of the letters wearing off. I'm given to understand that this is because they go all the way through.)

[atdt1991.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm like, BACK IN THE DAY WE SCRAPED THAT CRAP OFF!

Get off my ASCII.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

My h, l, i,o,n, are gone. Oh, also r. I am left handed, if that makes any diff.

[laurel]

Well, I'm sure you use "M" more than most people what with living in Minnesota land of Minneapolis and Minnetonka and muskies and all that. "L" is for lake and Laurel and lots of things. "C" is for convention and Corey Koskie and conversation and cats and . . . okay, I could go on and really have no idea though find it interesting.

They sell keyboards with no letters etc. on them for geeks who are especially proud of their touch-typing prowess.

[cadithial.livejournal.com]

Your nails will tend to hit more on the lower row. The impacts loosen the paint more.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

But you're unlikely to use Ctrl or X while normal typing, while you're likely to use S, C, et al in addition to their frequency of the alphabet.

Or maybe you're just mad at someone named Scvnmlk...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think I may be hitting the letters more directly with the home and bottom rows and getting the bottom part of the keys on the top. Which doesn't really sort out why F and J are intact when I've been known to sit and absent-mindedly rub them when I'm thinking what to type next.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

On my work keyboard, the A is half-gone and the S shows some signs of wear. I can understand the S, as I sign most of my emails "--S", but why the A and why no other key sort of baffles me. I don't think I mistype the S that often.

I take it back ... the left Shift key is also showing signs of wear, understandably.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Is he a Superman villain or one of my Czech uncle-in-law's relations?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am just as qwerty as when last you saw me, and thanks for asking!

Hmm. I'm not sure right now is the right time to learn a different keymap, though. I'm not having enough time at the computer to get done what I want to get done as it is.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Corey Koskie. Oh, Laurel.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's part of what's weird to me, too, is that Shift and Backspace and Ctrl are just fine!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Mostly I don't have very long nails, but perhaps the time when they're long enough to do that is enough over years.

[kalikanzara.livejournal.com]

Your Keyboard is Okay.

And yeah, there is a certain time and effort element involved, and the positive delta to my typo rate is irritating, but the one-key-off typos are at least comparatively unique. And my wrists and arms, which from time to time had been, um, irksome post day-filled-with-typing, seem less so.

Sadly, no toaster with every map switched. Sigh.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

The one that doesn't use the Ctrl key or the X.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Can't he be both?

[songwind.livejournal.com]

I am half hoping mine will start wearing away, just so I won't look at my keyboard and confuse myself anymore.

[mightyjesse.livejournal.com]

You know... on a grosser note, while none of my keys are wearing off (which wouldn't matter, as I am ALSO a touch-typer and the only user of this laptop.), I notice that my 1,2,TAB,Q,W,0,-,=,P, and ; keys are consistently dirtier than the others...

I think it's possibly because I am always EATING with the other fingers, and much more likely to wipe them off on a nappy before I commence typing... (Thereby removing the lotion that I have to slather myself with in order to get through these DRY Wisconsin winters...)

Now where's my windex?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

They're an essential nutrient for writers.

This keyboard has no ertyioashkl and n and only half of dfkb and m. My old keyboard has no letters at all. As for other people using it, well, think of it as a security system.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think somebody tried to serve me some ertyioashkl at a party at World Fantasy Con, but it smelled sort of like the siren love child of whiskey and mead, and I'd already had some of Teresa's lovely orange stuff, so I declined.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

Nail abrasion was my thought, too.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

and half a dfkb, of course, will kill your elbow cells if it's not properly prepared. so it's good to be avoiding that too.

[elsue.livejournal.com]

Never thought about this before, but I just typed a bunch of stuff and paid attention, and yeah, my fingers bend a bit more on asl and on the lower row, and my nails (which are currently just long enough to irritate when using a keyboard) hit. Interesting.

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

Wow. This happens with me too, except with R, T, N, and M.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

May I recommend an IBM M-Series as a permanent replacement? (http://matociquala.livejournal.com/616443.html)

Seriously.

They are the best keyboards on URTH. They are the Rolls-Royce aircraft engine of keyboards. A hundred years from now, the last ten people on earth still using keyboards will be using scrounged, salvaged, lovingly maintained Model Ms.

And you can use them for home defense.

This is my keyboard. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My keyboard is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it, as I must master my life.

Without me my keyboard is useless. Without my keyboard, I am useless.

[redbird]

As I recall, the last letters to fade out on your old keyboard were C and V (which was quite enough for me to orient myself when you lent me the machine to check email, but I am a touch-typist).

[laurel]

I actually hadn't thought of him in a while so went to look and see how he's doing. This article is from the end of January and it seems like you and Corey have more in common than just the Twins these days. He's still got post-concussion badness going on. Poor guy. I should look and see if there have been more updates in the Strib or somewhere.

I hadn't noticed this until now...

[thorintatge.livejournal.com]

I'm wearing down E, W, A, S, H, D, and L. None are gone entirely; the left side of each letter survives better than the right. M and N are beginning to fade, as is my left Ctrl key. With slight wear on my > sign and U. Whereas my completely unused numpad has dust on it.

[thorintatge.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks to eBay, I own a cell phone whose keys all lost their images before I owned it. It's not hard to figure out what's where, although when I loan the phone to people they sometimes have troubles.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. That does sound bad.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yikes, I would!

[clarentine]

I have already worn off many of the key symbols on two of the cheapo new Dell keyboards we got at work last summer. I'm hoping the laptop at home (MacBook!) will prove more durable.

[numinicious.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, despite years of typing, both my computers have all their keys intact... except for the "N", and the "O".

This probably is a projection of my soul onto the computer or something: "NOOOOOOO!!!"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Perhaps you should switch to, "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" for awhile for your keyboard's sake.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Pffft. I still have the Olivetti portable typewriter that I used from, oh, age 15 to 21 or thereabouts; and never mind the letters, it's the actual keys that are worn away. Stubs, I tell you, stubs: I was practically typing on the metal mechanics. And I had no fingerprints. On official police documents (don't ask) it says "Skin disease: unable to fingerprint", because I had entirely worn them away.