. . . just links from HayYoo.com and DanKostecki.com
To gamers and anyone else who is particular about how their keyboard sounds and feels, there are few things more satisfying than the loud click of a mechanical key. Although there are modern mechanical keyboards, aficionados also now have the option of purchasing a brand new version of the IBM Model F board from the 1980s.
The Great Stalacpipe Organ is an electrically actuated lithophone located in Luray Caverns, Virginia, USA. It is operated by a custom console that produces the tapping of ancient stalactites of varying sizes with solenoid-actuated rubber mallets in order to produce tones. The instrument’s name was derived from the resemblance of the selected thirty-seven naturally formed stalactites to the pipework of a traditional pipe organ along with its custom organ-style keyboard console. It was designed and implemented in 1956 over three years by Leland W. Sprinkle inside the Luray Caverns near Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, USA.
The year was 1960, and phones were changing. It was the beginning of the end for rotary dialing, and buttons were the future. But engineers faced an important, looming question: what order do you put those buttons in? Turns out there were a lot of options. Before ultimately settling on the layout we know and love today, the brainiacs at Bell Labs ran tests with hundreds of dialers, keeping close watch on what layouts were the speediest, most accurate, and most preferred.
Apparently, the ultimate deciding factor was the ease and efficiency of manufacturing.
Creative is selling a PC keyboard with a built-in musical keyboard. Guaranteed to be the must-have Christmas gift of 2009 – NOT!
DUMMR.com 