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The 10 Worst PC Keyboards of All Time

Missing keys. Misplaced keys. Misshapen keys. These computers made typing confusing and uncomfortable--and sometimes nearly impossible. Aren't you glad you're not using any of them today?

Benj Edwards

10. Commodore 64 (1982)

The Commodore 64 sits on a mile-high pedestal in the adolescent memories of millions of people, but its keyboard design--shared by Commodore's earlier VIC-20--was incredibly clumsy. One glance at it reveals three major flaws. It was visually confusing, with too many symbols printed on each key. The computer's anti-ergonomic 2-inch height made it extremely hard on the wrists of untrained typists. And the keyboard's layout leaves much to be desired, with numerous examples of poor key placement. For example, the Home/Clear key sat directly to the left of Delete (Backspace), resulting in users' making repeated accidental hits and sending the cursor back up to the top of the screen. In addition, the layout was peppered with an unusually large number of nonstandard keys such as Run/Stop and Restore. Luckily, most C64 owners remained oblivious to these problems: More often than not, they used the C64 for playing games with joysticks, saving the heavy computing work for dad's IBM PC.
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