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2023/10/21 01:21:21
Subject: What is the style of keyboard used by the Imperium?
Has QWERTY survived since the DAOT, or do they use Swedish style/European which I believe is just QWERTZ? How do the tech priests enter commands? How many WPM can Ciaphas cain type?
2023/10/21 08:45:10
Subject: What is the style of keyboard used by the Imperium?
You should imagine a great variety of keyboard types in the Age of Imperium. A great number of old unearthed relics, copied over and over, and new ones haphazardly put together for a limited need, and then used beyond the original needs, much to the consternation of the users.
And not least, a great number of extremely primitive means of command input (morse keys or rollers numbered 1-99 and much else suchlike). In the example of rollers numbered 1-99, if you shall enter 300, you will have to remember to put three rollers on 99, and one roller on 3. It would be an easy operator mistake to overlook this and enter 99 three times and end up with 297 instead of 300. Which spits out unsmooth issues to be overcome.
Think large, think vast, think insanely varied. And oftentimes, think of something not user-friendly. And think old and decrepit, poorly maintained, with some dead keys.
You'll be lucky to find yourself at the hands of a QWERTY-esque keyboard. Sometimes, you'll be lucky even to have symbols on the keys. Imagine many small keyboards to have a large number of hidden symbols unlockable by pressing certain buttons in specific orders.
And amid all this disappointing mediocrity and outright lousiness, there will be a few gems of excellent keyboards with futuristic layouts.
Forget the ease enjoyed by ergonomic standardization. Embrace the wonky clumsiness and the maddening variety and the rudimentary designs. Embrace the need to pray to the Machine-Spirit when you get stuck.
Deus Ex Mechanicus
This message was edited 11 times. Last update was at 2023/10/21 09:30:23
With so many things I would say, it depends. Keyboards themselves are not complicated devices. I they are a bunch of switches in a box. Given how fundamental switches are to life I imagine that the tech is not lost or in any way a problem to make. The issue will likely be what they are connected too.
At one end anything with an external keyboard will likely be easy to fix or replace, although the exact layout will probably change from forgeworld to forgeworld and be a matter of holy scripture and considered an art of divine communication with the machine spirit.
At the other you have integrated or specialist systems with integrated input device, where the machine is so complex and ancient that the method of communicating with it is the privilege of only a few tech priests, and feeds in to the original joke that spawned the whole idea of the ad mech.in this case I imagine a wide range of keyboards and other input devices that were created for a single situation that made sense 10k years ago, but is now lost, and kept only because “it is written”.
In many ways the thought experiment gives a lot of insight in to the satire of the original 40k universe.
Think large, think vast, think insanely varied. And oftentimes, think of something not user-friendly. And think old and decrepit, poorly maintained, with some dead keys.
You'll be lucky to find yourself at the hands of a QWERTY-esque keyboard. Sometimes, you'll be lucky even to have symbols on the keys. Imagine many small keyboards to have a large number of hidden symbols unlockable by pressing certain buttons in specific orders.
And amid all this disappointing mediocrity and outright lousiness, there will be a few gems of excellent keyboards with futuristic layouts.
Forget the ease enjoyed by ergonomic standardization. Embrace the wonky clumsiness and the maddening variety and the rudimentary designs. Embrace the need to pray to the Machine-Spirit when you get stuck.
Deus Ex Mechanicus
Sounds like every mech keyboard event and forum. Although in 40k ISO vs ASNI wars probably get much more deadly.
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
2023/10/21 18:18:21
Subject: What is the style of keyboard used by the Imperium?
Ok, who won the DAOT for rights to create uplink neural nets to Titans? Apple or Compaq? No wait, Lenovo or Dell? I say Gateway personally, given their affinity for claiming their products would never expire or become obsolete.
2023/10/21 18:30:41
Subject: What is the style of keyboard used by the Imperium?
We also know dataslates exist, which are basically larger, bulkier ipads or kindles, so you have some sort of touch screen UI's. And doesn't Mechanicum boffins use all sort of gestural / haptic interfaces, so that they dont even need to use anything as primitive as a keyboard for many tasks?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/10/21 18:33:00
"The larger point though, is that as players, we have more control over what the game looks and feels like than most of us are willing to use in order to solve our own problems"
2023/10/21 19:33:08
Subject: What is the style of keyboard used by the Imperium?
yes the QWERTY keyboard is in 40k, it is in the Bequin novel if I remember right, they find an emporium of ancient artifacts and the curator mentions how some are still in use such as the QWERTY keyboard, also a probe from the CCP was there too I think, been a while since I read it.
Cadre Coronal Afterglow w1;d0;l0 
