[TriLUG] keyboards

[Jeff T. Riffer via TriLUG]

There's a ton of good advice on mechanical keyboards. I'm surprised no one 
mentioned the awesome Gateway AnyKey keyboards though! I used those for 
years, periodically replacing them until about 2 years ago when it was 
becoming harder and harder to find a unit that was in decent, working 
condition.
They weren't mechanical but they had a ton of extra keys, and the firmware 
of the keybaord allowed you to not only remap a specific key to another key 
(thus allowing pretty much total remapping of the keyboard at the hardware 
level), you could create macros mapped to a specific key, and some other 
cool things. And this didn't require any drivers so it worked with whatever 
OS or application.

 	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gateway_AnyKey

I ended up replacing mine with a Roccat gamer keyboard, which is marketed to 
gamer dweebs, but actually has some comparable details. I'm currently using 
a Roccat Ryos MK Pro

 	http://www.roccat.org/en/Products/Gaming-Keyboards/Ryos-Series/Ryos-MK-Pro/

It's bulky and full of useless crap but has several nice features:

1) Hardware macros and remapping, though special software is needed to 
initially set them up
2) USB hubt built in (2 ports)
3) Built-in headphone and microphone jacks
4) Illuminated keys, useful for when in "dark room" mode

They offer is in multi Cherry-MX switch colors.