A meeting of cultures

So, we’ve begun working out at the Palo Alto YMCA, another small step forward in our physical rehab. A side benefit of the workouts is that Fry’s is across the street. My pent up desires to walk the aisles of the legendary Palo Alto store have finally been given vent now that I can drive (and walk) again. Cruising those selfsame aisles I spotted the new-design Apple Wireless Keyboard, and, lo it’s a ’shorty:’ no numeric keypad. Indeed it’s a lot like the famous Happy Hacker, the minimalist keyboard favored by *NIX geeks, among others.

My Happy Hacker – chosen because it fits, with mouse, on my office keyboard tray – has seen much service (I once wrote a 400-page manual on it, using Star Office on Linux). I only retired my original beige HH when computers stopped routinely featuring serial ports. Its USB replacement, seen above has served for (I think) five years now, with nary a glitch. I snapped up the Apple keyboard and a wireless mouse thinking it would solve an issue we have at gulker.com World HQ with multiple CPUs and monitors.

The design of the two keyboards pretty much says it all about the difference between hacker geek and Apple design philosophies. Which is not to say one is superior to the other. The Happy Hacker looks little different after five years of dust, dirt and grimy fingers: I’m not sure the Apple’s pretty white keys will fare as well.

One glitch: one CPU, an original 1.6 GHz G5, doesn’t have Bluetooth. I know there’s a USB Bluetooth adapter around here somewhere…