During my research I’ve found many keyboards that felt awful, looked bad, or were conceptually bankrupt. But it was only yesterday that I found the vilest of keyboards, an idea so cursed that I almost don’t want to talk about it – as if even doing that would give it credibility.
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This is an early 1970s calculator called Royal Digital IV. It’s a basic pocket four-function calculator whose designers sold their souls to the devil, all in the name of cost cutting.pic.twitter.com/NtP8W6nDrC
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Those flat keys are not keys at all. Royal Digital IV is equipped with a tethered stylus with a metal tip. You’re supposed to use it to touch an… exposed circuit board.pic.twitter.com/DE7N3IGWjm
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Its creators had the audacity to call this grotesque invention “Magic,” showing a disconnect from reality that wouldn’t feel out of place in American politics of the last few years – since you’re basically scraping your way through basic math.pic.twitter.com/7J40sIhOcF
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But it gets worse. There was also a Royal Digital III, budget-deprived even more – so much so it remains the sole calculator I know of that shows only FOUR DIGITS.pic.twitter.com/qTT6R26Bhw
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Four digits is not enough, of course. And so, the poor, maligned keyboard had to help – a big plus “key” was cut in half, and another key was added. A scroll key, toggling between two halves of a number, was added.pic.twitter.com/GHnGkZOz1J
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Imagine needing to drag your cheap, unpleasant plastic stylus, and scratch a rectangle of metal… just to SEE THE WHOLE RESULT. It’s beyond gruesome.
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As with every proper beast, this one had many names: Royal Litton IC-90, Feiler FC-100. They all aged just about as well as you can imagine.pic.twitter.com/9PV1U9kVCA
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Luckily, as far as I can tell, there was no Royal Digital II or Royal Digital I. It was only the less fortunate alternate universes that were graced with the calculators that I assume had two or even just ONE digit – and more “keys” you’d have to claw to move between.
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In our reality, to add insult to injury, this was all in the early 1970s, the decade that gave us beam springs and Selectric II – lauded as possibly the most pleasant keyboards ever made, and ones whose design decisions inform keyboards even today.pic.twitter.com/P1Kcg4UOnL
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And then, somewhere among them, there was this calamity. Yes, eventually a Royal Digital 5 was made, with a more proper keyboard.pic.twitter.com/TjQH90ypS1
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But we’ll have to live knowing that Royal Digital III and IV existed once, these wretched, grotesque contraptions that were as far away from touch typing as humanly – or at this point, inhumanly – possible. And we can do nothing about it.
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End of conversation
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