Mechanical Keyboard Sound Isn't That Simple
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried... Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Mar 27, 2024
It does look really nice though...
Kana input on a phone is nice because you can use a 12-key (push-button telephone style) input pad, which gives you nice, big buttons to use. This gives you 10 keys (key images on the touch screen) for the rows of the kana syllabary (a, ka, sa, ta, etc.), and a couple of buttons for specialized stuff like dakuon and han-dakuon conversion.
Each key holds five possible characters, the character on the key, and four more in the four "flicking" directions, up, down, left, and right. So you either tap the key or flick starting from the key in one of the four directions. You get a whole kana row on one key, e.g., ka ki ku ke ko. The ka key produces a ka when tapped, and a ki when flicked left. A chi is the ta key flicked left. This is really fast, and can be done one handed while holding onto a subway strap with the other hand, which is how most urban Japanese spend a couple of hours of their lives every weekday.