Keyboard

Working principle of device: Once you flip a key upside down you would notice that there is a long hollow bar underneath it. Corresponding to the position of the long bar there is a deep hole on the surface of the keyboard. When the key is pressed into that hole the contact layers present inside of the keyboard come into contact. This contact completes the circuit and the letter mapped to that key gets fed into the system. Apart from the contact layers, there is a small rubber pad inside the hole shown in the photograph above. The rubber acts as a spring restoring the natural position of the key once it is released. 

Once we tear open the hind of the keyboard we see a green PCB towards the upper right corner. That PCB contains the LEDs for Number Lock, Caps Locks and Scroll Lock. The remainder of the region is covered by 3 transparent layers. The top and the bottom layers are electrical conductors and hence are called conducting layers. These two layers are separated by a non-conducting layer made up of plastic. The conducting layers are broken at certain points. Thus, when a user presses a key the upper conductor comes in contact with the lower conducting layer through the hole under the key. This causes a minor current to flow through the conducting tracks which in turn sends a signal to the computer. The keyboard contains its own processor and a ROM (Read only memory) which contains the mapping of the location of the keys on the conducting layers to the corresponding characters. This ROM translates the electrical signal into the resultant character.

Device installation: Most of the keyboard these days have got USB connectors. However, the older keyboard used PS/2 connectors. Whenever a keyboard is attached to the system, the operating system, of its own accord, finds a driver from the pre-configured folders and installs the keyboard. The connection is automatic and seamless to the end-user. 

Standard Configuration of device: The history of keyboard has seen many configurations but the most prominent one is the QWERTY style keyboard. Experts also argue the DVORAC keyboard is the most suitable one for comfortable typing and is salubrious in the long run (QWERTY keyboard is known to cause injuries to the muscles of the fingers used to key in the characters). In a QWERTY style keyboard the first 6 letters of the row above the home row consist of Q, W, E, R, T and Y. Normal keyboards contain anywhere from 101 to 104 keys. Keyboards known as the Ergonomic keyboards are designed to reduce physical injury to muscles involved in typing. They are among the coziest keyboards to type on. They can also be designed for use in specific applications such as in a machine that can be used in a specific orientation with the keys being placed in accordance with the usage and design of that particular machine. Apart from the arrangement of keys, certain keyboards also have LEDs that light up the keys so that it is comfortable to work in the dark and are known as backlit keyboards.

Cost: The price of wireless (Blue-tooth enabled) keyboards range from Rs. 1,500 to 2,000 while their wired counterparts come with a tag of under Rs. 1,000. However, it must also be noted that certain gaming keyboards can cost as high as Rs. 15,000!

Market share of different top companies: Logitech has captured almost 47% of the entire market share of the keyboard world. The following is the top five keyboard manufacturing companies:

Logitech

Microsoft

Lenovo

Dell

HP

Suggested models with cost of the top 5 Companies:

1.     Azio – MK Retro Mechanical, Levetron L70 LED Backlit gaming keyboard, KB506 vision backlit USB keyboard etc

2.     Cougar – Attack X3 RGB, 700K, Ultimus, Vantar etc

3.     Logitech – K230 Wireless, K480 Bluetooth, K100 wired PS/2, K120 USB etc

4.     Microsoft – Wired, Natural Ergonomic 4000 Wired, Wedge mobile wireless etc

5.     Corsair – CH9000114, Vengeance K70 etc