Keyboards are a dime a dozen these days, and there are literally hundreds to choose from – chiclet-style, compact, full-size, gaming, mechanical, different colors; the possibilities are endless. However, one designer thinks that a simply-designed and elegant keyboard is all you need. The CODE Keyboard, as it’s called, is of the mechanical variety, but doesn’t come with that loud, obnoxious noise that plague most mechanical keyboards (though some people actually like it).
Software developer Jeff Atwood and Weyman Kwong of WASD Keyboards “couldn’t find a simple, clean, beautiful mechanical keyboard that [they] truly loved,” so they just built one themselves that fit to their standards. Needless to say, it fits with our standards as well. The CODE Keyboard is blazoned in an all-black, squared-off shell with white LED backlit keys to make it easy to type and code into the wee hours of the night.
At the heart of the keyboard are the “ultra-rare” and “hard to find” Cherry MX Clear mechanical keys that combine the actuation force that mechanical keyboard enthusiasts are familiar with, with a super-quiet click activation and tactile “bump” on keystrokes. The keyboard is sturdy as well, being built on top of a steel backplate for reinforcement; no intense coding session will bring the CODE Keyboard to its knees.
It’s also customizable. You can switch out keys for something more useful, or even switch out the Alt and Windows keys to work as Command and Alt keys for Mac users. You can also change the function of the Caps Lock key, as well as disable the Windows key. The keyboard can also register up to six keys at once, making it good for gaming, but even better for all those nerdy shortcuts.
Of course, as with any mechanical keyboard, and especially with the CODE Keyboard, it’s not cheap by any means. It’ll cost you $150 for either the 104-key or the 87-key (without the numpad), which is twice as much as what a typical user would spend money on. For those just dying to get better keyboard, as well as something a bit simpler and design-focused, the CODE Keyboard aims to be just that.
