Some time ago, my hyper little beagle dog was crawling under my desk while I sat at the computer. She does this all the time and there’s never been a problem before, but on this particular night she decided to check out the cables from my computer. The next thing I know, my keyboard cable was in her mouth, and she had it bitten in half before I could get it away from her. Shortly thereafter, I was on my way up to Wal-Mart to get a new keyboard.
I would normally have gone to Office Depot or Circuit City to get a new keyboard because they have a wider selection. However, it was a little after 9pm when my dog bit through the cable, and those stores had already closed. I had some things I needed to get done on the PC that night, so I could not wait until the next day for another keyboard. Trust me when I tell you it was with great reluctance that I even went to Wal-Mart for a keyboard, but it was my only choice after 9pm.
I ended up buying a Micro Innovations Keyboard, model KB565BL, pretty much because it was the only choice for less than twenty bucks. It was $19.95, and the only other keyboards that this store had in stock were some $50 wireless keyboard/mouse combos, which I certainly did not need. I knew what I was getting wasn’t going to be as good as a Logitech or Microsoft keyboard I could have gotten for a few dollars more, but I needed an immediate fix to a problem.
This keyboard is heavier than my old HP keyboard, plus it is raised up a little higher so it is somewhat more comfortable for typing. It connects via USB, and Windows Vista didn’t need the included CD with drivers to make it work. This keyboard does have a bunch of extra multimedia controls at the top, but I never use any of that stuff so I didn’t bother with the extra drivers. I did notice that the Calculator and My Computer buttons did work without having to install anything extra, so that was kind of cool.
The layout of this keyboard leaves a little to be desired. On the good side, it has a giant Enter key, plus a slightly oversized spacebar, so it makes typing a little easier in that regard. What I don’t like is the tiny backspace key located above the Enter key. The backspace key is the same size as all the regular letter keys, and I’m used to them being double sized. On this keyboard it requires a little bit of an extra stretch to get to it.