Articles on Motherhood | Topics: motherhood, moms, mom
by Alice Kerr
This isn't your Mom's Ordinary Keyboard The Five Latest Trends
In Computer Keyboards
There was a time when keyboards existed only on typewriters. The keys worked in a fairly straightforward manner: the user pressed the key, the key forced a 'stamp' to press the letter onto the paper through an ink ribbon. Well, today our keyboards have numerous functions and uses. We use them to input information in computers, word processors, microwave ovens, car lock codes, and home furnaces just to name a few. Along with advancements in overall technology, keyboard trends in advancement have had to keep up in order to supply the proper combination of durability, accuracy, and practicality. Though the trends are numerous, there are five big trends in the key functionality on keyboards.
First is the use of dome switch keyboards. Dome switch keyboards make use of a combination of membrane and mechanical keyboard. Under a plastic dome or bubble, two circuit board traces are brought together. The top of the bubble gets a coating of conductive material. Then, when you press the key, it collapses the dome. The collapsed dome shorts out the two circuit traces and completes a connection that tells the keyboard to enter the character. To help with conducting, the pattern on the PC board is usually gold plated.
The dome switch keyboard technology is common in mass marketed keyboards. It is considered to be nice and quiet, but there are those who complain that it feels 'mushy' compared to some other key tendencies. The dome switches are also known as direct switch keys.
A second trend in keyboards is the capacitive keyboard. Keyboards that are capacitive are made so that stroking a key changes the capacitance of a pattern that gets printed on a PC board. This change in capacitance allows a pulse or train of pulses to be sensed. Whereas dome switch keyboards are covered with a conductive material, capacitive keyboards cover the pattern with a thin, insulating film. Capacitive keyboards are low in cost, wear well, and resist water, wear, and dirt. They are used commonly in the keyboards for PC's.
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The third big trend in keyboard technology is the mechanical switch keyboard. This type of keyboard actually uses real switches under each key. Depending largely on the way the keyboard is built, they have varying responses and travels. Because it gets expensive to pace a switch at each key position, mechanical switch keyboards have fallen a bit out of public favor. Though sometimes considered to be loud and noisy, they are some of the most reliable keyboards.
Fourth in keyboard trends are the Hall Effect keyboards. These keyboards get their name from the use of magnets and the Hall Effect (a potential difference on opposite sides of a thin sheet of conducting material in the form of an element through which an electric current is flowing) instead of actual switches. When the user presses a key, a magnet is moved; this is detected by a hall-effect sensor. Hall Effect keyboards are highly reliable and can take on millions of keystrokes before reaching failure. They are most often used for applications where ultra-high reliability is crucial, such as aircraft cockpits and nuclear power plants. They can also very easily be made totally waterproof and resist large amounts of contaminants. They are, however, very expensive since a magnet and sensor is needed for each key on the board, as well as custom control electronics.
The fifth trend in keyboard technology is the membrane keyboard. This type of keyboard is generally flat. They are most often seen on appliances and machines like microwave ovens, photocopiers, and car lock keypads. Commonly the design is made up of three layers. The top layer, which is the one the user touches, has the printing on the front, while the back has conductive stripes printed on it. In the second layer, or spacer layer, the front and back layers are held apart so the do not make electrical contact. The third or back layer has conductive stripes printed on it perpendicular to the ones on the front layer. These perpendicular stripes form a grid. When the button is pushed, the finger pushes the front layer through the spacer layer to close a circuit at one of the grid intersections. This closed circuit tells the computer that a particular button as been pressed.
Keyboards have come a long way since typewriters lined the desks in newspaper offices. They will continue to advance as long as a need for durability, reliability, and variation in function continue.
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