Surely even Microsoft can do better.

[unixronin]

A little background first.  I like, and have gotten used to, Microsoft’s “Natural” ergonomic keyboards.  I find them more comfortable to use, and I can type faster and longer without incurring wrist or hand pain.

For close to ten years now, I’ve been using this keyboard, the Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro, on both my Windows box and my Linux box.  For my money, it was the best and most comfortable (as well as most robust) of the line.  It used a standard mini-DIN keyboard connector, plus a USB connector for its built-in internal 2-port USB mini-hub.  Despite its extra features, you could plug it into pretty much anything that used a standard mini-DIN keyboard connector, running any OS — Windows, Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD — and it Just Worked.  But they discontinued it in early 2001, probably for cost reasons.  Mine have been getting old and tired, and most of its successors have been worthless junk with strangely mutated key layouts, festooned with arrays of idiot buttons and more “consumer oriented” additional controls than your average TV remote.

So, last year sometime, when I just didn’t have enough keyboard to go around and desperately needed an additional keyboard, I bought one of these, the Natural keyboard 4000.  It proved in most regards to be a reasonably worthy successor.  On the machines I connected it to, running Linux and Solaris x86, it Just Worked.  There were some glitches; I’ve never had so many “key logically stuck on” events on any other keyboard, and the key caps on the first one wore away to illegibility in less than six months of use, probably because rather than being co-injected as most decent keycaps are, the Natural 4000’s keycap legends are simple surface decals.  (To their credit, Microsoft sent me a new one under warranty, no questions asked.  On the downside of that, the replacement’s keycap legends are already beginning to wear off the way the first one’s did.)  But, on balance, I was acceptably happy with it, especially since with a little trial and error, I was able to relabel the worn-blank keycaps on the original one using a white-on-black tape cartridge in a Brother P-Touch labelmaker.  So I had two working keyboards for the price of one.

Then, earlier this week, I tried seriously for the first time to connect the original, now-relabelled keyboard to my Windows box.  I’d tried it once before, and it didn’t work, but at the time I’d written it off as a configuration issue.  But I’d recently found the Microsoft “Intellitype” software CD that came with the replacement keyboard, and decided to try again.

Now, Microsoft keyboard with Microsoft operating system, with Microsoft Update available to download drivers.  You’d think it’d Just Work, right?

You’d be wrong.

I tried first just plugging in the keyboard, making sure USB keyboard support was enabled in vorlon‘s BIOS.  The BIOS recognized the keyboard just fine.  Windows didn’t.  Once I got to the Windows-login point, it didn’t work.  Windows wouldn’t acknowledge that it existed.

I rebooted, reconnected the old Natural Pro, ran the MS software installer, and let Windows reboot, plugging in the new keyboard.  Windows re-detected it as a USB HID device, but it still didn’t work.  I told it to update drivers.  It still didn’t work.

Knowing how poorly Windows copes with hardware changes (“Key press detected!  Windows must now restart!”), I rebooted again, leaving both keyboards connected so I’d be able to log in if Windows still didn’t acknowledge the existence of the new keyboard ... which it didn’t.

I re-installed the software.  It demanded I reboot.  I rebooted.  The new keyboard still didn’t work.  I moved the keyboard to a new USB port, cunningly convincing Windows thereby that it was a brand new and totally different device.  Windows re-detected it, searched for a driver, installed what it assured me was the right driver, and demanded I reboot.  I rebooted.  It still didn’t work.  But this time it did, after re-detecting the keyboard yet again, put a new icon on my desktop for a keyboard control-panel accessory.  I opened up the new control panel to see if the Intellitype software was looking at the right keyboard.  (Yes, I still had both connected.  Note that I wouldn’t have been able to do ANY of this without both keyboards connected.)

Intellitype for the Natural keyboard 4000 was looking at the wrong keyboard, the mini-DIN-connected one that couldn’t possibly be a USB-only Natural 4000. I pointed it at the right keyboard.  The keyboard still didn’t work.

I don’t entirely recall all the steps in this, but eventually I ended up having to reboot the machine no less than six times, four of them forced by installers, to get the keyboard working.

SIX REBOOTS.  To get a Microsoft USB keyboard to work on a Microsoft OS, on a machine whose firmware already supports USB keyboards.  A process that would not have been possible without a working keyboard.  The exact same keyboard Just Worked the moment it was plugged into a Linux or Solaris machine.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Comments

[glitch25.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHHA

I laugh because my coworkers heard me yelp with great excitement JUST THIS WEEK. I had one of those love POS keyboards for my windows box, and between this lovely issue you mention and adding a KVM to the mix, I was fed up with it.

We had a couple of the old original natural style, but our pc's only have usb ports now. So I grabbed it and stuffed it in my desk for when I'd find a ps2/usb converter.

Monday, I found one.

I am a very happy man.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have several of those PS2-USB converters, but the ones I have are the opposite gender — they connect a USB device to a PS2 port — and appear to work only with mice. I tried connecting the keyboard to the PS2 port via one of those, on the previous occasion, and that didn't work either.

USB-PS2 converters

[ewen]

I'm pretty sure that most of those USB->PS2 converters, that come with some mice, are just mechanical plug convertors without smarts inside them. The "USB" device plugged in understands how to talk both USB and the PS/2 serial protocol, and selects the appropriate one based on what voltages, etc, it sees on its power/IO wires.

Ewen

Re: USB-PS2 converters

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, that's as may be; I've never cut one open to see. All I know is, I've tried several times to connect different USB keyboards to a PS2 port using a PS2-USB dongle that came with a mouse, and it's never worked.

Re: USB-PS2 converters

[ewen]

My point was that assuming they're just a mechanical connector convertor (which is my understanding of those USB-mouse -> PS/2 plug things), they won't work with any other USB device (including a keyboard) unless the USB device has built in support for also being a PS/2 device. IME a bunch of mice have that built in support, but few if any keyboards do. Everyone seems to assume either "use built in keyboard" (eg, laptop) or a USB keyboard is fine with basically no need for PS/2 keyboards any more.

Ewen

Re: USB-PS2 converters

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Ah, gotcha. Sorry, I missed your point.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I am tired and it is late, but my recollection is that for the mini-DIN 5-pin connectors, keyboards use pins 1-3-5, and mice use pins 2-4. So a mouse converter is a nobrainer, and the keyboard needs another set of connections. There is also the complexity of encoding the keyboard, serial signal to the non-USB mini-DIN port, the data stream is not simply pass-through.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Based on the available eveidence the problem is clearly that the keyboard is the wrong color. Or possibly that it is the wrong colour depending on your localization settings.

Yet another example of MS not getting it.

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

I have one of these split keyboards at work, too.

I love it...then again, I connect it through the old-sk00l (PS/2?) keyboard port, so avoid all these USB issues. :-)

[attutle.livejournal.com]

"What’s wrong with this picture?"

Your level of patience? Your willingness to jump through hoops?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Heh. :) Right when it finally came up and worked, I was about ready to write it off. "Hey, wait, it's working at last..."

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

What’s wrong with this picture?

You have a Windows box.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

*rimshot!*


You have a point. :) But it's pretty much strictly GameOS. (And I hope to make it entirely GameOS once I get babylon4 up, consolidate services from minbar, babylon5 and nijo onto babylon4, and have my way clear to do a complete clean reinstall on babylon5 with an up-to-date distro.)

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I do like the original Micro$oft (made by Logitec) ergonomic keyboards. I found some for sale in a bulk keyboard sale, and bought three for a buck about five years back. I am working on the second one right now. (_quietude_ spilled soup on the first one as she was working on my computer. It melted the mylar in a few places.) I have had some trouble with the Micro$oft labeled equipment I have purchased in the last several years, either it has intermittent issues, or it fails after 6-8 months. I bought a M$ keyboard/mouse for my Mac, I could only buy wireless, it was all that was available. It worked fine for about 5 months, and never worked again, even with new batteries.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That must have been some hot soup.

I had one or two of the original MS ergo keyboards, and while I liked them, I found them to be lacking in robustness. The problem that killed both of mine was that the key shafts galled in their guides, which caused sticking keys, and both of the non-conductive lubricants I tried for lubricating them (powdered graphite being obviously Right Out in that application) resulted in the key guides softening and breaking, or embrittling and breaking. The Elite of course had an utterly horrible keyboard layout for the sake of narrowing the keyboard by maybe an inch, but fortunately by the time both original ergos had given up the ghost, the Natural Pro was available.

I still think the Pro was the best, ergonomically, of the entire line. The 4000 is good, but not as good.