Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today’s thing is My First Keyboard. Well,
not *my* first keyboard, that was one of these mushy things that came with my Packard Bell
486. No, I mean we’re looking at *the* My First Keyboard, which sold for $99 when Kidtech
first starting manufacturing it in 1994. Now, colorful input devices and children’s A-to-Z
keyboards are something we’ve had on LGR before, but the My First Keyboard is the first
keyboard I’ve covered that claims to be not only spill proof, but “peanut butter
proof.” Hehe, a rather precise claim we will be putting to the test. It also boasts
what they called “one push, one response” input technology, based on their patented
key switch matrix. So you can keep a regular keyboard plugged in with full functionality,
but the Kidtech board stays restricted. The idea is that it detects multiple simultaneous
key presses and temporarily blocks further input if a kid starts away banging on the
thing. It even delays keyboard activation for a while on booting, allowing your computer
to completely start up before recognizing keystrokes from the My First Keyboard. Clearly,
this was designed with a very specific mission in mind, and it’s no surprise that it was
inspired by a very specific event. And that event was a catastrophic computer crash caused
by a little boy named Troy, who was then the 18-month-old son of Victor and Kendall Maynard.
After a good 12 hours was lost recovering data on the machine, he and his wife went
out looking for a keyboard made for kids. But after coming up empty and figuring their
must be other parents in a similar situation, work began on making their own keyboard that
would allow a 1½ to 5 year old play on a computer without damaging it. While Victor
was an aerospace engineer, he knew very little about computer hardware, stating that, We
had to learn as you go. When we started, we actually took a standard keyboard apart just
to see what was in it. That’s how ignorant we were. They ended up building twenty prototypes
over the next few years before finalizing the product and founding the company Kidtech
to sell the My First Keyboard. But as a rather niche device with pretty much zero advertising
budget, it only sold 1,600 units in its first year on the market. According to the Maynards,
mothers were the primary purchaser of these types of kids products, and they weren’t
likely to hit up the big box computer stores they were being sold in. Plus, asking a hundred
bucks for what looked like a toddler’s toy was a bit much for most. It looks like to
move in this category, the prices are going to have to be more at the level of a toy,
Mr. Maynard revealed in 1996. So they dropped the price to $49, spread the word to journalists
and show hosts in the media, and relied on word of mouth to do its job. Eventually the
keyboard caught a wave of popularity through the mid-90s, appearing on shows like Good
Morning America and Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, on national radio with Paul Harvey, and
in print with Good Housekeeping magazine and the Associated Press National newswire. And
of course, they took advantage of the fledgling internet, where amusingly enough the Kidtech
website is still online. There’s even an option to order brand new units, though I
haven’t tested that out. I did manage to find this new-old-stock example a while back,
one of the retail versions sold by RF-Link in late 1994. And dang, that kid has one meticulously
formed hairdo goin’ on, impressive. [springy sound effects]
Enough with the preamble and bouncy hair,
let’s get this keyboard unboxed and set up! First thing we come across is
the My First Keyboard itself, which you’ll note doesn’t even come with a cable installed.
That’ll be plugged in around back, right beside the full-sized keyboard passthrough
and a switch labeled “kid” and “adult” for choosing which board you want activated.
The keyboard itself is a tad heavier than I thought it’d be, at 1 pound 7 ounces or
650 grams, more than some full-sized membrane keyboards I’ve used. And the keys themselves,
well, they’re flat, squishy, and unresponsive by design. Feels like an Atari 400 or a Magnavox
Odyssey 2, just with larger key blisters. Then underneath the main packaging is a selection
of goodies, starting with the keyboard cable which is of the 5-pin AT variety. It also
has dual PS/2 adapters, so that’s nice. Next is the “Fun Preschool Software” packet,
containing two 3.5” high density diskettes labelled Toy Chest 2.0, as well as a small
instruction pamphlet covering the basics of the two games: Pictures ABC and Action 123.
Next is a yellow half sheet of paper letting you know how important it is to unbox the
entire box before complaining to RF-Link. And lastly there’s the full manual, wrapped
in plastic that appears to have been fingered open at some point in the past. The manual
is brief but helpful, with a sheet letting you know what they got wrong, and five pages
of information on setting up and using the My First Keyboard. All right, it’s finally
time to try this thing out. Just gotta plug the male end of the cable into the back and
yep, we are ready to go! Okay, so we've got the My First Keyboard plugged into the Lazy
Green Giant Windows 98 PC down there and it's ready to go. Well, almost. One more thing
we got to plug in here is the lovely IBM model M keyboard that I normally use, but, well
the poor thing's been relegated to just being a pass through adult keyboard. Plugs in the
back here. Make sure it's switched into kid mode because we're not going to be using this
right now, but if we need to it's there because of course this is missing a whole lot of keys.
There's no control, alt, shift, delete or any of those. Anyway, yeah, let's just turn
it on and see what happens. Because one of the first things that I wanted to test is
one of the first things that happens with it and that is nothing. It's not supposed
to recognize any key strokes on boot up. Well, there's no delete here so I can't actually
try that, but once we get to the booting of windows, you can press F8 and that'll bring
up a boot menu and other functional things maybe on boot up. It's not supposed to recognize
any of those. I'm just pressing stuff like a like a crazy kid. Nothing seems to be happening
at the moment. Yeah, it did not recognize anything. So now it's actually started to
accept keystrokes. So it just basically just times out the keyboard while the computer
is booting up so a kid can't mess things up as the computer is starting. So that's cool.
And yeah, you can hear these little audible clicks. There's a little speaker inside there
almost like a terminal keyboard back in the day. Well before we pile this thing up with
peanut butter, let's go ahead and test some normal stuff out. OK, sorry Windows. So it
has a couple of programs that it came with. That Toy Chest, Pictures ABC, and Action 123
here, but let's just go ahead and open up Notepad and type a little bit. Hello... there.
It's an alphabetical keyboard of course, A to Z, so it's a little weird. According to
the Maynards who made this keyboard, the reason that they went with this alphabetical layout
is because they figured that kids aren't going to be learning actual touch typing with a
traditional keyboard layout until after the age range of this keyboard. So this was meant
for up to five year olds and they figured touch typing is probably not going to happen
until you're seven or eight. Anyway, whatever the case may be, there were a lot of these
educational keyboards that went with this kind of layout. There's something oddly satisfying
about this. I don't really know. Actually, these switches aren't the worst. I've used
crappier. So yeah, you do have the function keys on here, which potentially brings up
some shenanigans that a kid could get into. It only goes up to F10. F11 and 12 aren't
on here. And as mentioned before, control, alt, shift, delete and a bunch of other things
are not on here either. So there's only so much a kid could really screw up mashing with
this thing. But let's just go ahead and try one of the programs it came with. Oh Wow.
This is a very simple one. What even is... Pictures ABC, what are we supposed to be doing here?
[MIDI music plays]
[Program voice] "A, Alligator." Oh, what the crap?
"B, bear. C, cat. Y, yak. P, pig."
"X, xiphias." What? Xiphias?
Is that all they could come up with? Wow, okay. I guess
this is animals, so. “X, xylophone.”
There's xylophone. What'd they come up with
for this? “X, X-ray technician” X-ray technician. Well, you know.
“X, Christmas dinner.” Hm. That's a little confusing. Xmas dinner.
“Y, yam. Z, zucchini.” Enough of that.
Let's try Action 123. Do we get any more music? Oh there it is.
[Itsy Bitsy Spider MIDI plays]
“How many? Rabbits?”
[goofy laughter] Uh.
“Good job.”
“How many swans?” I don't know man, two.
“The correct answer is eight.” Alright okay, I think we get the idea. This sucks.
Oh come on. Let me out of here!
Well, that was the Fun Preschool Software. Let's try some Duke Nukem 3D.
Also fun preschool software from 1996, the first person shooter. And I have already preconfigured
this to work with the My First Keyboard, not that it really needed much configuration.
It just needed a little bit of remapping to work with this unconventional keyboard layout.
So what I'm going to do here is instead of having it mapped to WASD as I did before this,
I've just got it mapped to the mouse for aiming and then the movement is over here on B-N-O-P,
BNOP. So the BNOP layout is going to allow me to play it pretty much as normal. Space
still jumps and otherwise... It's a little sticky and I haven't even poured any peanut
butter on this yet. But yeah, totally playable, a little clunky, but with a little practice
I could get pretty good at using this My First Keyboard to play first person shooter. Not
bad at all. Something else that was immediately wondering about is platformers, especially
since the arrow keys are kind of laid out in a bizarre kind of way down here. I mean,
it's not the weirdest. I'd actually seen some laptops and older computer keyboards that
have kind of a layout like this, but yeah, "It's still a little strange, especially since
there's no control and alt. So I've mapped the keys over here to N, O, and P. Nope, I
didn't. I mapped them to N, O, and space. That's right. I mean, this is not the worst
membrane of every used. It's responsive enough to play games, that's for sure. I mean, it's
keyboard that is not made for any of this, but it is completely capable of doing so.
So it's totally stands up as a usable keyboard, oddly enough. More so than I anticipated just
looking at it. But really this is a pretty quality membrane and it's nice and solid and
feels all right. So yeah, about the only other thing to check is it performs under pressure.
Ah, fresh peanut butter. [sniifs] Mm.
So. I mean, let's just go for it. We've got some spreadable
goodness, let's get whole bunch it and just...
[THOCK]
Ohhh, this feels wrong. Oh no, this is a bad
idea. This is a bad idea. [chuckling]
Okay well, let's just make sure it gets all across all the
keys cuz I mean, peanut butter proof means peanut butter proof. It said it in the marketing,
it said it in the testimonials on their website. Unfortunately, now I have to touch it. Well,
this is disgusting. My word. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and unplug the Model
M before we... You know what? Actually you can see the passthrough works. Okay. That's
fine. That's all we needed to test. Let's just get rid of that. Just in case. I don't
know man. I don't want this thing near peanut butter. Okay, typing tests. Let's see if I
can type my name. Oh where's the N? Right. So it actually works perfectly fine. I mean,
as it should really. Let's get that outta there. Because there are no areas for anything
like peanut butter to get through. But I mean I can't just stop there. What about chocolate
syrup? I mean it said it resists super sticky kids fingers. So you know, let's get some
of that in there too. Now that definitely makes it a little gooier, but once again,
no problems at all, at least so far. Because they also claim that it protects against liquid
spills, you know, spilled milk. I'll take a bit of precaution here. Do not try this
at home. I'm at home, what am I doing? So for example, oh whoops, ‘I just spilled
some milk all over the keyboard, mom. What now?’
‘Don't worry about it, darling. Just keep on using the keyboard!’ [chuckles]
Cuz nothing is getting through this thing
whatsoever. Yeah. My First Keyboard. This thing’s a boss. Right. So can you play Duke
3D on a keyboard with peanut butter, chocolate syrup and milk?
[squishy key pressing]
Hehehe. All right, where are the keys?
Oh crap. I need to clean off my finger here for the mouse.
So! Oh, this is so wrong.
Oh, it feels disgusting. But in a kind of liberating way, it's like I'm sticking my fingers into
a desert and just playing games that way. [laughs]
Just forget the RPG, I'm just going
to go this way. Yep. Alright. Beating the first level of Duke 3D... with a milky, peanut
buttery, chocolate syrup keyboard from your nightmares. [laughs]
Get all that crap off the main keys there. There we go.
Y'know using a white towel was perhaps the wrong choice now that I think about it.
[peanut buttery gameplay]
Aw forget it. I'm just getting out of here. Oh, thank goodness it's over.
Oh, I'm never doing that again. Well that's about it for this video. Oh my word. I guess
you could just kind of wash this thing off or something?
Let's just go ahead and [chuckles] [running water and washing sounds]
This is so messed up! [water rushing]
Ah crap I just noticed I didn't
have the camera recording while I was washing it off. But as you can see there it just all
cleaned off quite nicely. You got a little bit of water in there so we'll let that dry
off before powering it on again. But uh here we go. About as good as new or you know, something
close to that. So I was taking it apart just to make sure everything was dry inside. Yeah,
I figured I'd take a look inside anyway because why not? Yeah, there is, as expected, not
a whole lot going on here. Really just got this control board which does all of the things
and the ribbon cable going to the membrane right here, which is seriously just a flat
thing that is glued in place, and I would remove that if possible, but I mean it seriously
is just... There's no way to take it off without ruining the entire keyboard far as I can tell,
but yeah, there's the bottom side of that, which if we take this off... Yeah, that's
all you get. So you can see the little tiny speaker there in the top right. The Kid Tech
Integrated Circuit Board, which takes care of all the things like timing out the keys
at certain moments and controlling stuff. And other than that, it's just the membrane
keyboard that's really well glued together. Alright. PC turned on. Everything all put
back together and cleaned up. There it is. Had me worried for a second. That key time
out. Yep. Seems to be just fine. And where you're going to try out 4x4 Evo. 4x4 Evolution.
Haven't played this in a well a couple of hours. I was playing it earlier today and
I thought I'd play it on here because... I don't know why not. It's a fun game. Used
to enjoy this back in the day. Still do. It's one of those I hope to cover at some point,
but yeah, pretty much just have the arrow keys to steer and all that kind of stuff.
You know, that little beeping of the little speaker inside every time you press stuff
still just amuses me on any kind of keyboard whatsoever that I'm using. Especially in this
one though, since it's like a membrane keyboard, it reminds me of this really horrible point
of sale system that I used to use at one of my jobs. Somehow that membrane was even worse
than this. It's just really... It was really squishy but it beeped in the same way like
a lot of terminal keyboards do. I think I mentioned terminals earlier in the video.
I like terminals. Let's just go this way. Oh, that didn't work at all. Well anyway.
Alright, escape key. Yeah, that's pretty much it, for real this time. There's the My First
Keyboard, it's just a keyboard, but at the same time it's kind of interesting because
I say so. And you know, it's got the whole aesthetic of children going on. I don't know
what that means. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I hope you enjoyed this video.
If you did, then awesome. I've done some other kids kind of devices before and Oddware and
such. This was kind of Oddware, kind of not. I didn't put it under Oddware, obviously,
but yeah, if you like this you'd probably like my Oddware show. Anyway, new videos here
every week on LGR. So watch them if you want to.
And as always, thank you very much for watching what you just did!