Out of curiosity, I’ve been watching a few restorations of those spectrums, and I’ve noticed the keyboards having a rather peculiar construction, judging by today’s standards. They have 2 springs, the small one, as far as I understand, presses the membrane layers together, and the larger one returns the key into neutral position once the key is released.

I personally haven’t used any spectrums, yet I’ve encountered the very same construction on a keyboard of a Russian clone of said machines (namely, zx atas), and to this day I haven’t touched anything worse… The only way I can describe it is like trying to type on a piece of raw meat.

So, if anyone here had a chance to type on the original spectrums, was it this bad? I suspect otherwise since I haven’t heard of crowds of people requesting PTSD treatment, but the whole thing still somewhat bothers me 😅

  • Teknikal@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I had a ZX Spectrum + and the keyboard was pretty decent was much better than the rubber of the normal one. The Sinclair ZX81 probably takes the cake for worst overall as it was just a very thin membrane.

    • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyzEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      The ZX81 wasn’t too terrible, and I was also using Apple ][ systems at school at the same time. I think the worst part was the small size, but at least it still had a slight amount of feedback, and you could actually navigate it at a decent speed. Personally I would rate the idea of typing on a phone screen as the absolute worst thing I’ve ever tried to use.