from Hacker News

A timeline of IBM keyboard history

by tart-lemonade on 3/30/25, 1:15 AM with 7 comments

• by wpollock on 3/30/25, 3:49 AM

  I was a summer intern at IBM Kinston NY, where the PC hardware was being developed. I remember being told by one of the engineers that IBM had decided to use standard components for the PC, except for the keyboard.

  The original keyboard was so bad (he said) it was also replaced, I think in 1981 or 1982. Apparently the group in charge had internal disagreements leading to a compromise design.

  (I have no proof of this and my memory is going, so any corroboration or rebuttal would be welcomed.

• by YeGoblynQueenne on 3/30/25, 10:50 AM

  >> IBM announces the 3161 and 3163 ASCII Display Stations, serial-based terminals in the IBM 3101 lineage that were capable of emulating various third-party terminals. They sported the first terminal-specific IBM Enhanced Keyboards, which typically have an extra key over ANSI and ISO PC-style Enhanced Keyboards, and ASCII-style ones like 316X's often uniquely have line drawing symbols on their numeric keypads.

  And of course you'll be playing rogue.

  https://sharktastica.co.uk/resources/images/terminals/Wyatt8...

  (Nethack came out two years later)

• by os2warpman on 3/30/25, 7:32 AM

  Keyboarding was taught in my middle school using Selectrics and my high school was equipped with Model Ms on Model 50s (oh, IBM).

  Those two sublime instruments of typing superiority made it so that when I type I type so quickly that people have thought I was pantomiming on several occasions.

  As far as I'm concerned IBM solved the text input problem over a half century ago.

• by chasil on 3/30/25, 2:26 AM

  I used an IBM keypunch machine in ~1985 to write COBOL programs in high school. We would wrap our completed deck of cards in a rubber band and drop the deck in a cardboard box. We would get the deck back with greenbar output the next day.

  I don't see keypunch machines here.

  Edit: The 029 looks familiar, but it's been a lot of years.

  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keypunch

  I also regularly use a Model M when I tether my laptop.

  This is also missing the Selectric typewriters. I used a Datamaster with an accounting package a couple years after high school.

• by neilv on 3/30/25, 6:46 AM

  Omission from the timeline: SK-8855

  Though they have a page for it: https://sharktastica.co.uk/wiki?id=lenovo8855

• by walrus01 on 3/30/25, 9:42 AM

  I'm pleased to see that this specifically includes the Thinkpad butterfly keyboard.