I just threw half a pint of Cherry Pepsi Max across my keyboard. It was the penultimate keyboard I’ll ever be able to use. I’m down to my last one.
I am very aware that I’m entirely wrong about keyboards. I am told, by just about every single person in my life, that I should be using a mechanical keyboard, with removable switches, clickity-clackity sounds, and probably enough neon lighting to open a nightclub. I do not. I use a Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A, with a blob of Blu-Tac over the Num Lock LED, and I have done so for as long as I can remember. And as of today, I’m down to my last one. When this one goes, that’s it. I’m done.
I’m not ashamed, and you’re not going to make me ashamed. The Microsoft MultiMedia Keyboard 1.0A is the best keyboard ever made. First created in 1997, its keys press with a whisper-quiet “shddd” and that is perfection. Yes, it has the most ludicrous array of “media” buttons across the top in a fancy arch, and no, I’ve never pressed one of them once in the twenty-ish years I’ve been using this keyboard. And no, this isn’t the “Natural” ergonomic version, it’s the regular-shaped one. I’m not a sicko.
I have had friends and co-workers react with genuine horror upon hearing of my use of this device. To not be part of the mechanical cult is, apparently, shun-worthy, and I accept that you too, reader, are now thinking even less of me. But worry not, for of the pile of six of these keyboards I bought when I heard they were no longer going to be manufactured, the one I’ve attached via its PS/2 cord to my PC today is my last. And after this one dies, I feel like retirement is my only option.
You know those authors who say that they write their books out long-hand, using the fountain pen they inherited from their great-great grandmother, and then some poor lackey has to type them up for the publisher? Or the writers who insist on using a 1930s Royal P typewriter, because they’re incapable of composing their prose on anything else? That’s me. Pretentious, dumbass me. The magic’s not in my heart, it’s in the Microsoft MultiMedia 1.0A.
(Look, I know, there’s controversy here that I’m not addressing. The official Microsoft data sheet for the keyboard calls it a “1.0a,” but the device itself says “1.0A,” and I won’t be budged from that capitalization. Sorry, you’ll just have to be offended.)
This is the keyboard on which I’ve composed my greatest works. It was on these squidgy keys that I wrote this extraordinary piece of games journalism, and chronicled my art.
Hell, this is the keyboard I’ve used for all my most beloved games, from Dragon Age: Origins to Prey, Half-Life 2 to City of Heroes. It’s the keyboard on which I finished Dishonored 2, and the means by which I conquered Titanfall 2. I’m far better at Fortnite on these keys than I am on my Xbox. This is how I spent those billions of hours in Skyrim. This keyboard is vital to my gaming life!
Over the years, I’ve been through so many makes of PCs, mice, monitors and speakers, but the keyboard has always remained the same. For years, I had to use a USB adaptor to plug the PS/2 cable in, although right now (because fate knows best) my current PC actually has a classic purple port right on the motherboard. I have literally no idea why. Surely there’s no one else this stupid?
But it feels right! Maybe you have a favorite make of running shoes that you insist on buying, because everything else makes your feet feel funny. (You should try barefoot shoes though, trust me.) Perhaps there’s a cushion you put on the driver’s seat of every car? A favorite pillow without which going to sleep is significantly harder? That’s my 1.0A. It feels exactly the right shape under my fingers, the keys are perfectly spaced apart for my hands, and the wrist rest clips on the front in a way that makes all other keyboards feel like a form of gentle torture.
Time is certainly not on my side. Despite the mysterious PS/2 port, Windows doesn’t like this keyboard very much any more. The first thing I do each time I crack open a new one (usually because either the one I’m using has become as clickity-clackity as your ghastly mechanical setup, or because—as with today—I’ve murdered the last one with liquid) is fix the crummy delay when holding down a single key. Except, in the ten minutes I spent looking before I started writing this, I have been unable to find the key delay settings in Windows! They’re gone! I just misspelt “They’re” and when I held down Backspace to fix it, it took a near interminable half a second to begin clearing the mistake. I’m searching on Google for a solution, and most of the results are, “Are you OK? Do you need anything?”
“So just buy a new one,” you might say, before realizing that it’ll only encourage me to keep working. Oh, poor sweet fool, if only it were that simple. When these things were new, they cost like $20. They were so gloriously cheap. When I bought that batch of six in 2013, it cost me $40 (plus $25 shipping!). That’s the greatest bargain of my life. Less than $11 a keyboard, and they’ve kept me going for 12 beautiful years. But right now, when I look on eBay, I’m finding used ones for $90! USED! (And to make matters worse, it’s listed as “Vintage.” It’s not fucking vintage! It’s as old as Fight Club. That is not a vintage film.)
In the last couple of years, when looking to find more back-ups, I’ve never seen a new one on sale for less than $100, which is ludicrous. Today, however, the best price for a new, unused version I’ve found is £32 ($43) and maybe I have to pay that? What’s that—a quarter of the cheapest mechanical keyboard you’d consider buying? Outrageous. Is my career worth this much?
OK, fine, I just bought it, alongside a second one I found for $20 that claims to be unused, but I’m suspicious. And with that, I’ve bought all the “new” 1.0As available on UK eBay. (PayPal was so suspicious of this activity that on buying the second one it sent alerts to my phone to make sure my account hadn’t been hacked by a deranged, 150-year-old criminal.) I refuse to believe there aren’t Microsoft warehouses filled with forgotten pallets of these things, lurking in a dark corner behind the crates holding Arks of the Covenant. Honestly, at this point I should be part of some ambassador program, appointed by Microsoft to herald the greatest moment in the company’s history, before it got distracted all over again by being evil.
And I still don’t care what you think. It’s so lovely to be on a brand new one of these lovely keyboards, the keys especially thuddy, the gaps between them not containing concerning amounts of fluff, and the insides entirely free of coffee and soda. I just need to figure out how to let it let me delete my mistakes more quickly, and I’m a happy boy. Until they’re all gone, that is, although I somewhat suspect that’ll be more than the universe can take, and everything else will go with it.
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