My beloved Kinesis Evolution keyboard seems to have completely died.
It is many-years discontinued, and not available on eBay. Kinesis has no back stock, or parts.
Please help me find one of these keyboards. Or, you know, five.
My wrists thank you in advance.
I assume you'll be banning anyone suggesting a GamerXTreme UltraAcrylic 2000 (LED edition) or a 1992 UBS Model R?
Holy crap, it's the keyboard from seaQuest DSV. Perhaps if you can find where the remains of the bridge from seaQuest are stored in California, you can find parts to rebuild yours. Their version had a trackball though.
I have one in my closet that I've been meaning to sell for years because my wrists, oddly enough, did not like the experience... and I'm lazy and find selling stuff on eBay annoying. It is a desktop model. It only has one touchpad. It has a few mild indentations in one of the pads because of the way I stacked one half on top of the other for a while. It has also not been tested in years. I'm not really sure what it's worth, to be honest, but I'm sure I'd be willing to stuff it in a foam-filled box and send it to California for whatever you think is a reasonable price and a reasonable payment medium. It might take me a few days to find a suitable box, though.
Sweet! Tell me that it works, and then name your price. I don't care about the touchpads as long as the keyboard part works. jwz@jwz.org.
I will do that and get back to you.
It works. I've sent you an email.
Oof:
I'm a fairly happy user of a 12+ year old Kinesis "Classic" contoured keyboard, so I feel your pain.
I presume you've already contacted them directly, since their web site is obviously out to lunch?
Either way, good luck with your quest. Please let us know how it works out; one of these days, I fully plan on having a nice recliner with a half-keyboard in each arm...
Note the web.archive.org in the URL. The page is just plain gone.
D'oh. Thanks for the clue-by-four.
It looks like the "Freestyle" is the successor, though:
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/freestyle.htm
It doesn't have the embedded track pad, but that's actually an improvement in my book. :) The max 20" separation is pretty lame, though, and there's no more "bolt to chair arms" option, is there?
(I wonder how hard it would be to modify one of the wrist pad accessories to have an embedded track pad? Not as nice as having it built in, but...)
The joys of capitalism, I suppose. Maybe if enough people ask for the missing features, they can come up with ways to adapt them to their new model?
"Bolt to chair arms" s the required part. I don't want to have to figure out how to hack that shit myself.
What does that look like? Do they swing out so you can sit down, or am I imagining it wrong?
Photo.
Might it be possible to turn the existing non-working mounted keyboard into something to mount a still-produced split keyboard on?
Maybe, but I'd sure rather not find out.
Yes, I preemptively asked Kinesis for parts/spares 3+ years ago. They basically laughed at me.
I'm still a fan of the original Kinesis, non-split keyboards. They're still pricey, but mine haven't failed yet.
http://microscience.on.ca/proddetail.asp?prod=KIN-EVOUTION
These kids still sell em from the looks of it.
Actually, this page says they're out-of-stock (though the page you sent doesn't)
http://microscience.on.ca/products.asp?cat=16&pg=2
I emailed that site asking if they actually have them in stock. It's been a week and they haven't written back, so I'm guessing that's a no.
A couple of kind folks have sold me their old ones, though, so I'll have a working one and a spare soon enough...
I have one that I'm not using anymore (I switched to the Freestyle, which I like). I'll check if it still works. If you want it, it's yours.
Yes, please let me know if it works!
Freaky keyboard. Is it as ergonomic as it pretends?
Haven't used the Kinesis, but I've used other split keyboards over the years. The Freestyle looks like keyboards I've been happy with. So I'd suspect it is.
There are a zillion different ergo keyboard varieties because every human has a different perfectly-comfortable hand position. My favorite keyboard would hurt you.
Don't know that I'm keen on paying $150 for a keyboard with an unreplaceable cord in the middle that can ruin the whole thing with a sudden yank. Why can't they use a socketed cord and let users place the halves as far apart as they want them? They'd make fewer $150 keyboard sales but maybe a whole lot more $25 parts sales.
I can't speak to the Freestyle model, but their Maxim model connected the number pad to the keyboard with standard RJ-11 connectors.
Hey - if a grey market on these evolves here or jwz if you get more offers than you know what to do with, count me in to the potential buyers pool. I'm not out to start a bidding war but I'd also like to have something for the day when mine inevitably fails.