[krylon]

I have a Model M at home, and while I find that the sound helps me keep my rhythm while typing, it can be really annoying in an office environment.

At my last job, being unhappy with the keyboard I had, I brought the Model M to work one day (it was just gathering dust at home). While typing was much more pleasant, I quickly discovered I had to stop typing whenever my coworker's phone rang. This, in turn, quickly became annoying for me, so at the end of the day, I packed it up and took it back home.

The Model M is one of the best keyboards I ever had the pleasure of using, but I would not like to inflict that level of noise to coworkers at the office.

(The best keyboard I ever used, interestingly, was a Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 made by Microsoft. I am not a big fan of Microsoft, but they really know how to build a great keyboard. Unfortunately, this was the only keyboard I ever managed to spill tea on... and on its identical replacement. I took that as a hint that some higher power might not want me to use Microsoft keyboards.)

[douche]

If you are so close to your coworkers that typing on your keyboard will disrupt their phone calls, you're too close.

If you have a real office, anything short of blasting Slayer won't disturb anyone else.

[Nursie]

Have you ever used a Model M?

With a decent amount of enthusiasm, a Model M can disrupt phonecalls being made in another room entirely.

Best keyboard ever, but I also don't take mine to work any more, out of consideration for my coworkers. Also it's really big and heavy...

[bogomipz]

Add to the Model M the acoustics of a typical open office plan found at most startups and its unbearable. Its not uncommon to have a startup in a concrete loft type space with a group of people who insist on using whatever the modern $200 hipster version of a "buckling spring" keyboard is. It's "cred" man.

[falcolas]

> using whatever the modern $200 hipster version of a "buckling spring" keyboard is

Those would be Topre switches. Which makes the keyboard worth more than $200. ;)

They are good switches, and do rely on a spring, but they are quieter. And more expensive.

[peatmoss]

Unicomp sells actual buckling spring keyboards. They bought the tech from IBM -> Lexmark. Not bad keyboards, and pretty cheap compared to some of the hipster keyboards. I got mine with hardware Dvorak layout.

[jcbeard]

WAIT, my Model M blasts Slayer at every keystroke. Doesn't yours? It also has Metallica's Kill 'Em All pre-loaded in ROM. I heard if you achieve a fast enough rate it'll go straight to Seek & Destroy :).

Seriously though, these keyboards are LOUD. Most of the folks at my office use very loud keyboards, but we don't mind. We all know that we type faster with them, and we all have noise canceling headphones.

[mdellabitta]

Pissh. A sufficiently sophisticated keyboard is capable of playing arbitrary music of the user's choice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pG83krAsXO8

[tomjen3]

A model m is just slightly less loud than a typewriter and you can type faster on it.

[krylon]

I do have a coworker I currently share an office with who would actually like blasting Slayer. ;-) (Interesting thought experiment: Can I type faster than Dave Lombardo can play the drums?)

[infodroid]

If open plan hadn't dismantled our offices and cubicles, we might still be typing on good keyboards at work.

[beedogs]

I still can't understand the impetus behind open plan. It's abominable.

[mrweasel]

It's extremely cheap to built and operate. Cleaning one large office is fast and hence cheaper, than 10 smaller offices.

Often the "lost productivity" isn't factored into the cost of open plan offices, mostly because it's to complex I think. Interestingly the gain from better communication is always factored in as a positive.

I do know people that prefer open plan offices. They all have headphone on for a large part of the day though. People that prefer an eerie silence, like myself, aren't normally not considered when planning office building.

[blacksmythe]

  >> It's extremely cheap to built and operate. 

The cost of the facility is inconsequential compared to the efficiency of the developers working there.

[avs733]

Assumptions about how culture is built

Peter Drucker is often attributed the quote "Culture eats strategy for breakfast". For some reason many organizations seem to believe that in the modern office, furniture will eat culture and turn it into an Aeron chair clone.

[gjvc]

"Culture eats strategy for breakfast". -- brilliant.

[pshc]

Theory I heard: We're stuck with open plan due to the ratchet effect. The high price of office square footage in cities locks it in.

[jsymolon]

Cheaper than partitions which was cheaper than permanent construction.

[VLM]

Its to signal low social status.

They might hate having to pay a lot of money, but they'll find a way to get even.

[krylon]

With the right combination of people, it can actually be quite fun and encourage communication, IMHO.

However, if people have to make or take phone calls, it can become really annoying quickly. Try to focus with two or three people sitting around you talking on the phone. Especially if one or more of these people talk to people who are on construction sites or inside industrial plants, so you have to talk rather loudly so they can understand you... On a few occasions (rarely, though), I have just put on headphones and listened to white noise to drown out their talking.

[vonmoltke]

The right combination of people doing the right combination of work. One of the ostensible purposes of open plans is to facilitate communication and collaboration. Unfortunately, every collaboration session throws off those around who are not involved.

[vollmond]

That's why I like open plan in small spaces -- IE, a conference room with 4-8 desks in it for a single agile team. All business-related conversations probably apply to all or most of the team anyway, and at least for a development team the phone chatter will probably be minimal. The walls keep you from distracting unrelated employees with your discussions, but the openness keeps the highly-relevant people in the loop.

[vonmoltke]

I have yet to see or work at a company organized like this. Usually it's dozens of people from multiple teams commingled in a single large room. Where I work now the entire company only has 8 people, but we have 5 different projects going on, of which I am only involved in 2.

[Grishnakh]

I actually wish, every day, that I had never gone into engineering or programming, and had chosen a profession that was more solitary.

[EliRivers]

It's cheap, and at one point it was hip.

[zodPod]

It's funny you mention that Microsoft keyboard. I was reading your story about the Model M and thinking "Yeah I'd love to switch to a mech keyboard again but I love my Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 by Microsoft too much." It has pretty much saved my shoulders because, instead of having to put them together to type on a normal keyboard, I have space to angle them out. It's great!

[aphistic]

I have an Ergodox I picked up from MassDrop that I absolutely love. I used to use an MS natural keyboard for some of the same reasons you mention and now I have the best of both worlds!

[krylon]

One thing I liked about the 4000 was that it was loud enough to give a reasonable feedback while typing, but not annoyingly loud (at least when alone - I never tried it in an office environment). And that pad to rest the palms one was amazing.

[amelius]

It seems there is a market for a silent version of Model M.

[derekp7]

One way to make it quieter is to put a bit of grease under the keycap -- that softens the sound that the spring makes when it buckles. However after a while the grease can leak down into the keyboard membrane.

Another method is to put a piece of dental floss down inside each spring. Supposedly that reduces the sound quite a bit.

[creshal]

It's hard, because the Model M relies on a steel spring buckling, which is inherently noisy. You can dampen some other sounds (like the keycap hitting the key's fixture, either with grease, or permanently with rubber rings), but with how little space there is in a key, it's hard to silence that particular sound.

IBM themselves went with regular rubber domes for their "quiet touch" Model M variants, which are unpopular due to not being mechnical.

[jypepin]

I always wanted to try the model M. What does the sound compare to, to be so loud? Cherry mx blue?

[fzzzy]

Much louder than the cherry mx blue. There's a spring inside which buckles sideways. The point at which it buckles provides the physical and audio feedback.

[creshal]

Which is the big difference to all the Cherry switches: Those are inherently linear (and quiet), some variants just have plastic latches glued to a side to emulate the clicking noise and tactile feedback (both of which useless, because they're decoupled from actual actuation).

[aroch]

Buckling springs are more of a deep clack instead of the sharper click you get from the MX blue / red, or a dull click you get from clears

[tomjen3]

A typewriter. Not quite as loud as a mechanical typewriter, but slightly louder than an electronic typewriter and, since you don't have to wait for the keys to come back, there is practically no limit on how fast you can type.