Tactile Keyboard FAQ

A keyswitch is tactile if it has a bump in its response to finger pressure at or near the engagement point where the keypress registers and before the key bottoms out at the end of its travel. A keyboard is tactile if it is made with tactile keyswitches.

The mass-market keyboards shipped with most computers are not tactile. Until the mid-1990s they used to be; then computer manufacturers discovered that it was possible to manufacture keyboards much more cheaply using rubber-dome switches that give no feedback. So-called "soft-touch" keyboards became the norm.

Why a tactile keyboard? Why not settle for soft-touch?

The fundamental reason is ergonomic. Tactile feedback makes it possible for a typist to stop pushing down before the keys bottom out, reducing total effort by up to a (measured) factor of two.

The lowered effort substantially reduces the risk of RSI, and there field evidence that people with RSI may achieve reduction in symptoms or even complete remission of RSI by using tactile-feedback devices.

Even people without RSI often find they can type faster and more accurately on tactile devices than on dome-switch keyboards that don’t supply anything but slight uniform resistance or a meaningless click before they bottom out.

Some tactile keyboards are marketed as high-end equipment to serious on-line gamers. The reduced effort is believed (rightly or wrongly) to shave precious milliseconds off one’s response time.

There’s a little more to tactile-keyboard fandom than than ergonomics, though. Like tribes that have formed around other classic designs, the tactile, mechanical-switch keyboard has become a marker for traditions and attitudes that evolved along with it, including a certain reverence for timeless excellence in engineering, a belief that paying more for quality is worth it, and a disdain for competing designs that, while putatively more modern, are felt to be cheap and junky and ephemeral by comparison.

The archetype of the tactile keyboard, the Model M, is both tactile and clicky; that is, it gives not just touch feedback but an audible keypress sound as well.

The model M is particularly favored by old-school computer hackers (and by people who want to be like them) as a timeless classic of design, and a vast improvement over most of its successors. A close parallel to this community of feeling elsewhere is the cult of the 1911-pattern .45ACP among pistol shooters.

But the Model M is not the only tactile keyboard. Hallf a dozen small companies produce mechanical-switch keyboards with varying degrees of tactility. These are sometimes less expensive than a model M and come with fancy featrures like LED backlights and media keys, but are not usually anywhere near as long-lasting.

Beware, though, of some tradeoffs. Tactile keyboards are relatively expensive to manufacture, rugged, and can last a long time (it is not all that unusual to see 35-year-old model Ms still in use, having outlasted generations of computers). Because of this and the fact that they’re a minority preference, making a profit on them is difficult. Vendors tend to be boutique operations with very little engineering budget; the devices are made only in small runs and thus sell at boutique prices.

Despite these inconveniences, most tactile-keyboard fans will never willingly use a non-tactile keyboard.

A tactile keyboard is most likely to benefit you if you’re a computer programmer, writer, or in some other job that requires you to type day-in and day-out. Affection for tactile keyboards is particularly common and strong among programmers.

The most important distinction within this category is whether the keyboard is also clicky - that is, gives auditory as well as tactile feedback within microseconds of when a key makes contact.

The archetypal tactile keyboard, the IBM/Lexmark/Unicomp "Model M", is very clicky. Many tactile-keyboard fans swear by it and will use nothing else - even used 30-year-old Model Ms are sought after and can command high prices at auction. The design is still manufactured under the Unicomp brand name. Much more on the Model M can be found at the Model M Wikipedia entry. Usual caveats about Wikipedia apply.

Another tactile-clicky design that cast a long shadow was the Northgate OmniKey, a line of keyboards similar to the Model M that was produced between 1987 and 2005 by an otherwise undistinguished PC manufacturer. After Northgate folded, these continued to be sold for a few years (until not later than 2011) under the "Avant" brand name. OmniKeys and Avants are now harder to find than Model Ms, but in their day had a fanbase nearly as fervent. Examples are still in production use in 2021, often jealously guarded by their owners.

More modern tactile designs are usually (but not always) silent.

The tactile properties of keyboards are mainly consequences of how the keyswitches (the active parts under the keycaps) are designed. You can learn the basics from reading the glossary later in this document; a much more detailed technical explanation of keyboard and keyswitch types is at The Mechanical Keyboard Guide.

The main drawback of tactile keyboards is that they have to be made with true mechanical switches, and are significantly more expensive than the dome- and scissor-switch designs used in most keyboards today. They have higher manufacturing costs per unit due to increased mechanical complexity, and because they’re a minority taste the production runs are smaller, pushing up prices.

Not everybody instinctively learns to use the feedback tactile keyboards provide; some people just find them pointlessly stiff and unpleasant. Sometimes more experience will change this.

Some people find the Model M family too noisy and are better served by tactile but non-clicky devices.

Before the "New Model M" in 2020, the Unicomp USB variant of the Model M had not had a design refresh in a long time. Some Unicomp USB variants also seem to be prone to cabling problems due to insufficient strain relief at the keyboard end. See the Model M Troubleshooting Guide for details. It’s probably best to get a New Model M and dodge all these; indeed Unicomp’s website now deprecates several of its own older models.

We’ve already alluded to "tactile" and "clicky". Here is a list of terms that will be helpful when you browese web resources about keyboards:

If the Model M does not fit your needs but you want something that approximates its feel, I’ve found Kailh Box Pinks to be an excellent ersatz of buckling-springs. They have lower actuation force (not unlike a Model F switch) that an M switch and don’t have the M’s metallic ping on the upstroke, but the tactility is surprisingly similar.

Many people recommend tactile-clicky Cherry Blues for people pining for the buckling-spring feel. I think Kailh Box Pinks are significantly better.

Kailh Box Pinks play very nicely with the GMMK hot-swap keyboard. I have one of these combinations and I consider it best-in-class for switches with Cherry cross-mounts.

Variants of the Model M are still sold by Unicomp, which makes them in the same factory with the same tools as when IBM originally produced the design in the 1980s. These are the only keyboards in production to use true buckling-spring switches.

Some people may also value the fact that you can get the Unicomp in a variant with a nipple mouse, a feature otherwise almost impossible to find on a full-sized keyboard. This means you can move your mouse pointer without taking your hand off the home row.

Unicomp proclaims "Anything else is just an imitation!" and it is generally conceded that they have a point. On the other hand, the Unicomp designs are conservative to the point of stodginess and lack features likle backlighting and media keys that some people value.

Several other vendors make tactile keyboards using newer (non-buckling-spring) mechanical-keyswitch designs.

Here are some vendors to investigate. Most use the same line of "Cherry" keyswitches; there are a few less common brands such as Topre and ALPS.

This list is not complete; there are a lot of small vendors targeting the gaming market that seem to appear and disappear like mayflies. Most are producing fairly interchangeable Cherry-based designs in snazzy black cases. You can learn as much about these as you want to at r/MechanicalKeyboards and geekhack.org (see below).

This FAQ was originally written for the Tactile Keyboards community on the new-defunct G++ web forum.