[typing]
Greetings! This is another quickly-made video.
Sort of as an addendum to my PCjr review, which I did a little while ago.
And in that review, of course, I reviewed the PCjr, and also covered the keyboard which I had at the time,
which was this one right here. This was the second keyboard that came with the PCjr.
And you'll definitely want to watch that review if you want to catch up as far as what I'm talking about here,
but there was an outrage at the very first keyboard they came out with.
You know, basically, the accusation was that is was crap.
And so they came out with this one, the model number 7257.
And yes, it is battery-powered and wireless, as were all PCjr keyboards.
And of course, you could hook in the cord right here
to go into the back of the PCjr, if you didn't want to mess with batteries, which--
I really need to find one of those cords.
It takes four AAs and it wears it down pretty quickly, but, uh, anyways...
It was still pretty much junk.
But the thing is, I wanted to kind of cover the original keyboard that it came with
and at that time I did not own one,
but, uh, a couple of months ago
I was able to find one on eBay, and I'm actually just now getting around to trying it and that is this one right here.
This is the original keyboard that came with the PCjr when it was released in 1983.
And the big deal was that it used so-called "chiclet" keys, which are these right here.
And they're very different from normal keyboard keys, which--
the one that came after this, you know, used a little bit better kind of keys.
You know, they were still rubber-domed keys. They weren't clicky keys like the IBM PC had,
but they were, you know, a step above... this.
So, I was always wondering what in the world was thing like to use, and well, we're about to find out.
The first thing I noticed when I got this thing was that it...
you know, they call it chiclet keys.
and it's called that because of the Chiclet gum, which is actually kind of similar looking
in appearance to these keys.
But, you know, when I got to pressing on them, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting.
Um...
I heard some people compare it to calculator keys, but I've never felt calculator keys that feel like this.
When I think of calculator keys, I think of something like the Spectrum here by Sinclair.
Um, you know, British computer and stuff.
Anyway, it has rubber keys and these are what I feel on a lot of calculator keys.
I guess cheaper calculators.
So this is kind of what I was expecting, I guess, because I heard these called chiclet keys as well,
but it's not.
This makes sense calling them chiclet keys because it actually does feel like Chiclet... keys. [laughs]
Feels like I'm pressing candy or something. Um...
I guess this one might be similar to some calculators, kind of like the TI calculators.
Except that it's thicker, and it's that thickness that really bothers me,
and I could see how it would bother anyone else too.
Um...
Not sure how well this is showing up on camera, but, uh...
Yeah.
The other thing that really bothers me about this is the fact that there are no markings on the keys themselves.
They are all right above the keys, so...
[laughs]
That's really annoying.
And the fact that the space bar is just...
Ugh! It's like pressing a...
gooey celery stick or something.
And the rest of it is just...
[chuckles] just as mediocre.
It's got the exact same setup as the later one,
which I think is still stupid. I hate the fact that there's no function keys.
You have a function... function key,
and arrow keys in this diamond shape.
Otherwise, it's pretty similar to what the IBM PC had.
They keys were marked like this so you can place overlays on top of the keyboard
to mark what each key did.
This is used for things like Lotus 1-2-3 and King's Quest.
You know, they developed special versions for these... uh, for the PCjr. So...
That's what that was for, but nobody liked it.
And you can't touch type at all because if you just look at it, it's blank! There's nothing here!
At least on this one, you know, even though the keys are still kind of gooey,
you have... um, on the "F" key right there, and also the "J" key, your home keys,
so that you know where you are when you're trying to touch type.
It's still terrible to use, though. I mean, it's still like pressing plastic that's on top of silly putty.
But, you know...
[laughs] Really, after using, or well, seeing this, I can understand the outrage.
Anyways, let's go ahead and try it out.
Batteries loaded...
[snap]
Alrighty...
I don't know how my camera is going to work with a monitor. I've not yet tried it.
Hmm.
It's not bad, actually.
[grind and beep]
[grind]
And I'm just gonna let it load into BASIC here.
Because, uh... I just wanna try it out. So...
[beep]
Okay. [chuckles]
Uh, so, I'm going to attempt to just
use this like a normal keyboard
and see what happens.
Um... type in something in BASIC or something.
Okay.
Wow.
Okay, so you can't do that. You have to...
[beeping and pressing keys] That does nothing. Oh, I have to put it all the way over here.
Well, that's great.
[sighs] Okay.
Hmm. Actually, it could be worse.
Of course, I wasn't going very fast there. Let's see.
[typing]
[chuckles]
[mashing keys]
That's bizarre.
[typing]
Okay, I don't know if you're seeing that very well.
Um...
Let me just swing this in here.
The problem I'm running into is trying to type [chuckles]
[typing]
I don't-- what the heck? Okay.
It's like the keys are getting stuck on each other.
Almost. It's-- you know, when I'm trying to type fast,
uh, my couple-- you know, the pinky and ring finger,
they don't work. I don't know.
Um, it's hard to press them.
When you're typing and then this, it's like it...
I don't know.
It's hard really to describe, but it just does not feel right.
It doesn't always press down the key when you feel like it should.
Like you press it down, but it actually only presses-- yeah, see, like this?
Ugh! I was pressing as hard as I possibly could there because it was slightly at an angle.
So, if you're...
You know, you basically have to do like this in order to press things down.
[beep]
Okay, okay. [beep]
Yeah.
It doesn't--
It doesn't like anything.
And of course, obviously, you have to have the keyboard at the right angle or the RF won't pick up at all.
Actually, it's infrared, not RF.
So anyway.
[beeping]
Okay, well, let's just try this again.
[typing]
That, and my key-- my...
hands are trying to lean towards other keys.
[typing]
[sighs] Oh, my goodness!
[typing]
I keep pressing Function instead of backspace, too. I'm not really sure why.
Okay, okay.
Huh.
[bangs keyboard]
Let's try the other keyboard here, just as sort of as a comparison.
[typing]
Hmm. Well, I dunno.
I mean it--
It's not good with either keyboard.
But, uh, the chiclet is...
[chuckles] It's awful.
Um...
It's cool to have. It's a nice conversation piece.
And actually, I just realized I could try out the whole problem that it had with classrooms.
The fact that...
you know, if you had two computers beside each other,
since it used the same exact infrared signal for every IBM PCjr,
you could have one person's computer be taken over by the person next to you.
That was a big problem.
See, like, with this, I can type with this one,
and also with this one down here.
So... [laughs]
I guess in theory, I could just...
I don't know if you can see.
[beeping]
[chuckles]
It doesn't like two things being pressed at once.
[beeps]
[beeping]
It doesn't like anything from this one.
Huh.
Yeah, that's a big problem if you have more than one IBM PC...
Junior...
next to each other.
Hence the reason for the cables being an almost necessity, really, for school settings.
And you wouldn't have to use stupid batteries, which is this one's problem.
It's slightly corroded inside, so the batteries don't always connect properly.
Yeah...
I'm gonna go ahead and pop in DOS really quick.
Old PCjr DOS 2.1.
Even pressing Ctrl + Alt + Delete is weird.
[grinds and beeps]
[disk drive grinding]
Okay.
Ohh...
Old Master Blaster here.
Keypunch Software for the loss.
Surprised it even displays on the PCjr. [chuckles]
Actually, it'd be interesting to see if Round 42 displays because it's got some weird CGA graphics.
[PC speaker music]
[PC speaker sound effects throughout]
[PC speaker music]
So...
This is gonna be a problem because you have to shoot pressing F1.
Obviously, that doesn't do anything on the PCjr because you have to press Function. [chuckles]
So, figure that one out. Maybe it'll...
Okay, so it's a toggle function. That's okay.
Kind of.
[PC speaker sounds]
Wow.
You can't quit?
[grinds and beeps]
[sighs]
Well, in conclusion, it's a piece of junk. I hate it.
Uh, you know, I don't really like any PCjr keyboard
for a whole list of reasons, mainly because it's garbage,
and IBM seemed to have no idea what they were doing with the home market.
I guess it kind of makes sense having the overlays
Trying to make easier and more approachable, I guess, for housewives and children or something.
I really don't know what the reasoning was behind that because
it's useless for doing anything other than basic commands.
I mean, you can use it, but why the heck would you want to?
Then this isn't much better, it's just...
well, actually it is a whole lot better.
In comparison, it's still crap.
Compared to the IBM PC's keyboard, you know, the Model F, Model M, stuff like that, it's...
This is still awful, but...
At least you can press the keys somewhat naturally, and not have to contort yourself into weird things
to do this one and press them properly and all that kind of crap.
So, yeah.
PCjr chiclet keyboard is a piece of junk. I hope you enjoyed.
'Cause I didn't.