@enf @obra @kiibohd I have never seen a more beautiful example of the 1970s » 1980s discontinuity in keyboard design.pic.twitter.com/zXXvB5ad7K
Writing a book about the history of keyboards: http://aresluna.org/shift-happens · Design manager @figmadesign · Typographer · Occasional speaker · He/him
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@enf @obra @kiibohd I have never seen a more beautiful example of the 1970s » 1980s discontinuity in keyboard design.pic.twitter.com/zXXvB5ad7K
heh. it looks like the modern one was introduced to comply with German law?
Yeah, it was a whole thing. I researched it somewhat and have a chapter about it (I used 3278 and PC as a similar example), although it’s still a bit unclear to me *why* everyone suddenly cared about those laws, particularly outside of Germany.
It's not a small market. Also, I bet that if a multinational company just gave up on Germany, they'd end up ceding all of Europe.
Yeah, I guess it was cheaper to adjust everywhere than making Germany-specific versions (like Apple did with PowerBooks)?
And even thought the German recommendations were in some way questioned as not that well-founded in research, they also resulted in a product that felt and looked and could be described as *better*. Whether this was keyboards’ brutalist phase or not is for the future to decide.
Arguably any new design, made with updated technique and taste would be better. Also, as an implementer, having a standard to work to is nice.

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