The Weird Keyboard 262 Companies REFUSED to Make
[fingerless jazz music plays] [computer buzzes, beeps] - Mm, look at this keyboard. Is it not the most delightfully '90s thing you've ever seen? The beige mixed with those Easter eggshell-colored key caps, those rounded blue-violet function keys, and of course the built-in trackball. It is such a dense encapsulation of the '90s.
Not to mention the White Alps clicky mechanical key switches. [keyboard clicking mechanically] I'm just highly amused by this keyboard's existence. And if that's all I had to say, then this would probably just be an LGR Blerbs video. But no, this is a full LGR episode. Greetings, by the way.
I've gotta talk about these keyboards from Datadesk, because I have been going down some rabbit holes and side excursions and research that I just, you know, sometimes I gotta get these things out of my mind onto paper, and then into a video, and share a story about some products I don't think too many people know about. For instance, look at this. This looks like the keyboard I just showed. But look again, it's not what it first appears. Without any kind of context for size, you may not realize this thing is as small as it is. But I'm getting ahead of myself in this story, let's go back to 2024 and the Vintage Computer Festival Southwest Show in Texas.
A wonderful VCF show, that was my first time visiting, was just looking around at all the awesome tables as seen in this LGR Blerbs vlog thing that I did. And I saw this wonderful exhibit with a Mystic Macintosh Color Classic. Awesome enough on its own, but it was the keyboard that really got my attention. I had never seen one of these.
It was really cool looking, but then I tried it and felt those switches. - That's wild, huh! Oh man, clicky, what is what? Whoa, what kind of switches are these? - [Exhibitor] It's weird-sounding. I've not taken it apart to check. - [Clint] I'm gonna have to look that up. - Yep, I had to have one. So I went on to eBay and put in a saved search then and there for the TK-3000 by Datadesk.
And almost exactly a year later, one of them finally showed up on eBay for a decent price, so I bought it immediately. Then once it showed up, I was surprised to see that it was actually a PS/2 keyboard for the PC. I hadn't done any research on it, I just assumed it was only made for Apple ADB connections.
But wait a second, this also has ADB on the left hand side. Okay, so what is this on the right hand side? It's an eight pin Mini-DIN connector. And what plugs in there is this keyboard cable with two PS/2 connectors split on the end, which in itself is a little bit odd. Like a PS/2 splitter you'd normally see is also PS/2, where it plugs in but not here. And that's when I noticed the model name here is actually PC-3000.
I guess the seller mistook the FCC ID for the original TK-3000. And y'know to be honest, it is a little bit confusing, and I didn't look very closely at the listing. So that's on me. So I brought this up to some fellow retro computing YouTubers, and my buddy Steve of Mac84 chimed in, saying that it looked familiar.
He had a board that kind of looked like it, but probably way smaller. Then once he sent me this photo, I just knew I had to know more, and kindly, he loaned me that model for this video. So thank you, Steve. And yeah, we're gonna test both of these odd boards on a PC with some typing and game tests and whatnot.
But before we get to that, let me just tell you all about Datadesk because they are a surprisingly fascinating keyboard company. In fact, they have to be one of the very first third party companies developing specialized enthusiast-level mechanical keyboards for the PC, right up there with the likes of Cherry and KeyTronic. And back in their early days, they were known as Datadesk International.
It later became Datadesk Technologies like by the time they were making the keyboards that I have. But that's only when they moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington in the '90s. Originally though, they were founded by Mr. Robert Solomon in Van Nuys, California
in 1985, in this building right here by the way, now the M & M Scrubs uniform store. And if you ever picked up your scrubs there, well Datadesk used to be there making mechanical keyboards, and their first product was their IBM PC compatible keyboard in 1985, with the idea here to provide either an alternative to IBM's keyboards, or more likely, something that was nice for your clone computer. Yeah, IBM didn't sell their Model Ms and Fs separately, so it wasn't the most feasible to get one of those for your clone. And the boards that were out there by the likes of KeyTronic were more mushy, whereas the Datadesk was nice and clicky without being as loud as IBM buckling springs. It apparently sold quite well, but Datadesk seemed to do even better with the MAC 101, basically the same keyboard, but for Macintosh computers, giving PC users more comfort with a familiar layout. Reportedly was developed in conjunction with Microsoft for their Mac version of Word, apparently also used by Bill Gates himself to demonstrate that program as stated on the old Datadesk website anyway, and you know what? They list all kinds of different firsts that they claim to be the first at, like the first cross-platform user configurable keyboard supporting both Mac and PC, the Switchboard.
This thing is crazy. The thing with this is that it was not only both platforms, but you could physically rearrange the layout of the keyboard itself by plugging and unplugging components. Something demonstrated in this older video by Thomas of Chyrosran, check that out. It is a fascinating keyboard, I would love to find one of those.
And speaking of the Datadesk website, it is still online at datadesktech.com, very early 2000s, late '90s. Though it's not their original website. That was datadesk1.com,
and you can browse that on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. But yeah, suffice it to say they were making all kinds of Macintosh products, and many of them had PC compatibility either as an option or completely built-in. And that brings us to the board that kicked this whole thing off for me, which is known as the Trackboard, the TK-3000 as it was known for the Macintosh.
Now originally, it was ADB only as far as I can tell. And at that point, they actually offered it with a separate numpad, which makes sense. You could daisy chain ADB devices to each other like that.
Though it wasn't long before they offered a PS/2 version of the Trackboard, and then a version two of the Trackboard that supported both ADB and PS/2 in the same unit. And then they moved on to just selling it as a USB keyboard for the iMac G3 and PCs onward. And yes, that combined PS/2 slash ADB Version 2 that I have. And also explains why the trackball area and the buttons look different from the one that I originally saw at VCF Southwest. And if you look at things side by side, even though mine's missing the plastic surrounding the trackball, the overall design is totally different.
And you know, Datadesk, it seems they could not stop reiterating this thing. They also came out with the Touchboard version, which had a touchpad in lieu of a trackball. Then sometime after that, they came out with the Lil'Big Board, which seems to be just the same thing again, just with that separate numpad now built in taking place of the mouse.
And finally, that brings us to what is probably gonna be the focus of a lot of the rest of this video,, the LittleFingers. Yes, that's what it's called. No, not Lord Baelish. LittleFingers, plural. A heck of a name for a product. Yes, the LittleFingers, as you might expect, is a kid-focused child-friendly keyboard in size, mainly.
As opposed to some other kids' keyboards I've covered in the past, which have weird layouts and a bunch of colors or they're even bigger, or they're peanut butter-proof or whatever. No, this one, the whole idea is that it is just a normal looking keyboard shrunken down, because as the ads put it, size does matter. Yes, seriously, that's what they went with for the marketing tagline for this thing on their website, in advertising, on these postcards. Anyway, the LittleFingers size does matter keyboard definitely got more attention from the press compared to their previous keyboards, including some fascinating history which apparently went back all the way to 1993 and how its creator, Dennis Nusser, tried unsuccessfully for years to get some company to bring his LittleFingers to market, being turned down by 262 different companies by 1997. Let me reiterate that, 262 people or businesses said "no" for almost four years. And yeah, I looked up the patents and Mr. Nusser
did start the process in 1993. I mean, you gotta admire the persistence and belief in your vision, I suppose. And it paid off, Datadesk being the company that took on the idea and brought it to the public, showing off the first prototype in March 1998 at the National Inventor's Expo at Walt Disney World's Epcot Center, alongside other innovations, like the light-up nut driver and corn in a bag.
Though it was the LittleFingers that caught more national press, with the idea being that children younger and younger were being taught keyboarding and touch typing all the time throughout the '90s, but the size didn't match, with quotes like, "You don't put adult shoes on kids, you buy them special shoes." Or "In schools you have children's chairs. Well that's the same with the keyboards. And "It's like shoes and socks and bikes and everything else. Everyone's different sizes." I guess size does matter, that should be the tagline! Anyway, it ended up in all kinds of major retailers, RadioShack, CompUSA, Toys R Us, etc.
And teachers and students alike seemed to enjoy it, judging by the testing results being overall quite positive from these schools that were putting it through its paces. And we'll do some of our own testing here pretty soon. But one other loose end that I wanted to look into is whatever happened to the guys behind it, Mr. Nusser, the inventor, and Mr. Solomon, the Datadesk guy? Well unfortunately, Dennis Nusser passed away in 2013 at just 67 years old after battling pulmonary fibrosis. And it seems the LittleFingers keyboard was his main contribution to computers, otherwise owning the Lady Bug Pest Control Company with his wife Peg for almost 40 years, and enjoying being on the water quite a bit around his home in Florida, being a member of the Fort Lauderdale Marine Advisory Board.
And as for Robert Solomon, the founder of Datadesk, well, he continued doing keyboards. After his Datadesk days, the main thing he's known for doing is going on to co-found SoloMatrix with his son Cody, where they came up with, patented, and marketed this idea for an iPhone keyboard case. And this became known as the SoloMatrix Spike, a project they managed to kickstart in 2012, with the idea being that you could BlackBerrify your iPhone as some in the press put it by installing a case with a built-in keyboard so you could get QWERTY input through real buttons. An idea that has certainly come and gone over the years in various different forms and levels of success, obscurity, and availability. But we're not here to talk about phone case keyboards, we're here to talk about the Datadesk.
Both of 'em! As far as I can tell, the LittleFingers pretty much cost $70 as its suggested price. And this one was between 100 and 129, ah whatever. Some of the ads I also saw went down to like 80 bucks. But yeah, affordable enough considering you're paying for a multi-system thing, you got a built-in trackball and a really nice clicky keyboard. Even the function keys are clicky with those White Alps SKCM clicky switches.
Yeah, I mean if you were buying these peripherals separately, you'd probably be paying more than that back in the day, or at least close to it. By the way, it's only the larger Trackboard that has these delightful Alps White SKCMs. [keyboard switch clicks] A very popular but lovely Alps switch.
And not to be confused with the Ivory one, which doesn't have that kind of harsh click to it. I like the click though. And then this one here... [laugh of being too large] This key puller is too big. Everything is smaller.
The space between the keys, the key caps themselves, it's so shrunken. Okay, well I don't really know what that is. Look at that.
Some kind of slider over rubber dome I presume, but still with the Alps kind of connector there. Either way, it's not really bad. Actually from what I can tell, quite nice for domes, presumably. But you know, obviously I can't really give it a fair shot. My fingers are like three times oversized. I really need some little fingers of my own, you know, so it's like, yeah, if you had fingers about that size, that would kind of do the trick.
I could see how this would be quite handy as a little-fingered individual. I also like the touch of the lowercase and uppercase letters with the lowercase kind of being the primary legend on the key caps. Educational things. Yeah, I find the approach of these two different models quite intriguing in the way they approach the whole multi-system, multi-platform issue. They both came with split PS/2 cables, and they each have that eight pin connector, which is actually I think the same type of Mini-DIN as Apple serial. I've also seen it on like, subwoofer connectors.
Yeah, the way it connects though to the actual keyboard is quite a bit different between the two. So where mine just has the eight pin connector right there for the one cable, this has multiple connectors and passthroughs and everything, and that kind of makes sense for what they were trying to do. So you have ADB here, you can switch between Mac or PC mode, but you also have ADB over here, another Mac PC switch plus PC keyboard out for the eight pin, and then PS/2 PC keyboard in. Whereas mine here just has— [ball falls out] Well, there goes my ball! Anyway, yeah it just has the one ADB on this side.
And so the idea here with this kid's keyboard is that you could have your normal adult keyboard plugged in as well. So an external ADB keyboard you'd plug in here, external PS/2 over here, and then that is that eight pin thing for the actual cable to connect it to a computer, which in both of these cases is PS/2. I don't know if there was ever a version of this eight pin cable with ADB on the end instead of PS/2 or whether it was simply used with the ADB ports on the keyboard if you wanted to connect it to a Mac. I don't have my classic Macs accessible at the moment to try, nor do I have a manual. Datadesk actually still hosts manuals, but not this "Version 2" board that I have here with these different connectors. Yeah, you can see why this is so easy to lose.
Unfortunately, this plastic surround on mine is missing, it was on there on the auction when I bought it on eBay. It went missing somewhere along the way. Not really surprising, it's made of that '90s beige plastic that just tends to fall apart. And of course, this one did. You do get nice clicky buttons on each one. I do quite like this one a little bit better, but they're both nice.
And the trackballs pretty much feel the same. I wonder which one of our balls are bigger. I don't know, mine and Steve's balls might be identical. Yeah, it looks like 35 millimeter diameter on this one.
Yeah, it's right at 35 for both balls. So we have a nice 70 mils of combined ball! Really the only other main difference we have going on here are the legends on the keys. The LittleFingers has more little labels. So we've got Apple, but also Option on the Windows key and Alt has Command key and so on. Plus going all the way up to F15 with the function keys, although the Trackboard does that as well.
It's just that they're labeled print screen, scroll lock, and pause, and of course being a Mac thing, we have this power button here, presumably doing nothing on a PC. Speaking of not doing anything on a PC, let's fix that, plug these into a PC, and finally finger our trackballs with some PC software and see how they perform. [gentle music] I gotta say it is quite the space-saving effect that this thing has on this normal setup here. Not having a mouse or the gigantic Model M I normally have going on there. And this is just the Trackboard, this is not even the LittleFingers, which is even smaller in terms of width.
Be a Trackboard functionality. It is, um, unfortunately not so great when it comes to the trackball itself. Keyboard is fine. You know, it's just that sort of slightly odd layout here for things like the arrow keys.
I don't like that on any keyboard. But yeah, I don't know what's going on with the trackball. I've cleaned it, I've messed around with the different little bits in here in terms of what I can reach. It's the left and right almost doesn't work at all.
Up and down mostly does, but the trackball is just barely, barely doing what it should. And that may have to do with the surround being not here. I wish this other one fit, but it's got that broken clip, and even if it did, it doesn't actually fit on there. It's a slightly different size it seems. Which is strange because we've measured the balls.
Balls are the same. Not the entire appeal though. Most of it really is this wonderful ALPS board. Well, space bar. [laughs] This has more issues than I thought it did. From what I've heard too, these SKCM whites have a tendency to get a little sticky a little bit, and needs some cleaning or degunking or something.
Like this feels stickier than it should be, and it doesn't click. Let's try the little keys. [upbeat music] Ah, dang. Same issue too, left and right, it doesn't even work at all on this one. Well maybe it's the actual little... Aha, okay, so yeah, it does have these little metal pieces in there.
It looks like the left and right one just fell off its little. Yeah, there we go. Yeah, that works perfect. So, good deal, even without the surrounds. So I'm thinking maybe if I just clean up the other one or, I don't know, figure out if there's something going on with the sensor there. Yeah, either way, this is working wonderfully. All right, so we have our mouse buttons here.
Just the bottom one being your standard left click. That one top right is right click. And then this one here is just sort of holding down the left mouse button, I guess to more easily select things. So it's sort of a select click.
In terms of the overall accuracy, I mean it's fine for normal usage, probably not gonna be the best for drawing just from what I'm seeing. I don't know what kind of polling rate it has. Like see, that's supposed to be circles, but it just ends up sort of like squared off circles. I don't know. I mean it's okay, but definitely not the best I've come across. And then for drawing things, I mean, it's, eh.
Yeah. I mean I can get more used to it, but definitely not my preferred size or layout for a trackball with the button and everything. It's just, it's so cramped over here, I mean it's cramped even on this one, this one would be a little bit better. But the little keyboard is, it's little. Another little oddity I noticed, like I wanted to close down this here and gotta Control + Alt + Delete to do that.
Well where's my Delete? I mean this says Delete, but that's gotta be backspace because just the kind of layout this is and the Mac stuff, whatever. So okay, we have this other Delete down here, but that's a slash. So obviously, it's maybe like a function thing. Well here's the Function Shift and, no, that just does that.
Well here's the thing, look at this. The Function button for Shift on Right Shift is a toggle. So in order to do something like Control + Alt + Delete, this is where the Delete key is. I have to not press Control + Alt first because that'll turn off the function. No, you have to like do Control + Alt, or hold those, then Function, then Delete, eh, it's just a little odd.
Well since we're here, let's do a little typing test. And I don't type normally anyway, but even if I did with all the home keys and stuff, the layout is just too cramped for me to do that. So I'm just gonna do my best here. [keyboard clacking] Ooh.
I mean it's tolerable, just not gonna be breaking any speed records as an adult. However, with some little fingers, I'm sure it's probably a little bit better. Like those are really kind of the ideal finger size. That's good stuff. Good stuff. Honestly, I don't really see much fault with this. It's got some quirks and oddities to it for sure.
But for the idea, this seems kind of like a good idea to me. I mean obviously kids are gonna outgrow it at some point. Like at what age or size do you go from the LittleFingers to the normal fingers? Personally, I never had a problem using a computer learning to type, doing anything I needed to do with a normal keyboard growing up in the '90s.
That being said, how does it game? Well, nobody asked, but I'm gonna do it anyway. [engine revving] Well, it's immediately not that bad. [laughs] Yeah, dude. Gaming with the LittleFingers. Never thought I'd see the day.
I always like when '90s racing games included mouse support like this. It's not that bad. Microsoft games were some of the few to do it pretty well. Yeah. [cannon fires] [laughs] Ya gotta do it. Yay! [keyboard clacking] All right, I changed operating systems because I wanted to play "Quake 2" and the other one wasn't letting me.
Don't know why. [voice speaking faintly] [gun firing] I mean, a trackball's never been my preferred way to play FPS, but it's certainly doable. And this one again is not that bad. [voice speaking faintly] [gun firing] [person grunting] Wonderful. Now can I play with the little fingers? [voice speaking faintly] [gun firing] [laughing] Well I mean, you know, I'm not dead yet.
[gun firing] [person grunting] [little fingered chuckling] That went on longer than I thought it would. [Apogee theme plays] Honestly, I think that games that rely on the arrow keys might trip me up even more just because of the odd layout over here. Not at all what I'm used to. Yeah, like down, I immediately want to be left, and then this one here is left instead of down. But this is mostly like a sort of left and right type of game. Although I say that as I immediately need to press down.
[bright music] [person yelling] Oh geez. Transform. Yeah, like that. Ah, dang it.
Yeah, I was trying to press right, I was pressing down. It's such an old school way to lay out the arrow keys, like eight bit micro kind of stuff. Why would they do this in like '97, 1999 in this case? Kind of nuts.
Die. You know what? I mean, I really can't fault this too much at all. It just, it is what it is. [laughs] It's a weird little kids' learning keyboard, and honestly it's a pretty well made one.
It's just smaller. Sure, it's got some oddities in terms of the cramped arrow keys and the weird functions stuff, and I don't know, layout's little odd. But yeah, like for what it is, it's not bad. And kind of charming, enjoyable to just use something different from the norm, you know? And like I think this one definitely would be too.
I wish it was fully working. I'll try to get it working for sure, the space bar mainly, and the trackball should be, I don't know, hopefully not a huge deal to try and fix because it seems like it'd be quite an enjoyable thing to use, right? On different late '90s systems in particular Macs and PCs alike, it's just, it's got an aesthetic to it. And for what it is, it's really well made. Especially this one with the ALPS white switches. Those are nice. [laughs]
It's a shame they're taking this game off the internet, or at least off of Steam, it looks like. De-listing "Leisure Suit Larry" games. I don't know why, but something I saw on the news the other day and I was like, eh, I should play a little bit of some of that again when I'm testing out this keyboard. And here we are.
Anyway, thanks again to Steve of Mac84 for sending over the LittleFingers. If not, we wouldn't have had too much to show here. But yeah, I hope that you enjoyed seeing what we just showed.
Let me know if you had one of these Datadesk keyboards back in the day, or if you've learned on the LittleFingers, definitely let me know. That would be fascinating to hear some firsthand experience of what it was actually meant to do. And yeah, if you enjoyed this episode, going down rabbit holes and weird '90s computer histories, then do stick around. There are always more things like this here in the works on LGR. And as always, thank you very much for watching.
2025-05-06 03:07
