I spent more than a decade trying different keyboards, looking for one that was just right. I had a picture of it in my mind: it had quiet, short-travel keys, like the keyboards on a laptop. It didn’t have an attached numeric keypad — between a right-handed mouse and a numeric keypad, a standard keyboard forced me to sit toward the left side of my desk, and I prefer to sit centered. The rest of the keys were in the usual full-keyboard positions… you’d be surprised at how many “compact” keyboards (the only kind that fit the other two criteria for many years) had the up/down/left/right arrow keys all in a single horizontal or vertical row, or omitted the page up/down keys entirely. And it was wireless, because I like to sit back with the keyboard in my lap sometimes. I didn’t much care about the color, but nearly anything would have been preferable to the industrial beige that all computer parts apparently had to be at that point.

A keyboard like that was extremely hard to find — actually impossible for many years. For some reason, keyboard manufacturers were convinced that everyone wanted huge, clicking, IBM-style keyboards, which I personally despise because they’re a lot harder on the fingers during a long programming session (I’m talking days, not hours). But Logitech finally came out with the absolute perfect design, in the original diNovo Bluetooth keyboard. It was so perfect that I bought two, so if the first one broke I wouldn’t have to make do with a lesser keyboard while I searched for a replacement.

That first keyboard has lasted me through five computers to date.

With all of that, you can imagine my dismay when the left control key started getting flaky last year. I don’t want to replace the keyboard, not until it dies completely, so I took it apart and tried to repair it. But I couldn’t find anything wrong with it… there was nothing under the key or its sensor, and I could find nothing wrong with the sensor itself. And the symptoms were strange too, nothing like any failing key I’d seen before — it would always work when you pressed it, it just wouldn’t stay held for more than a fraction of a second (which is kind of important for a modifier key).

It had gotten so bad that a couple weeks ago I finally took the key cap off of the keyboard completely, to force myself to use the right-side one instead. Of course, out of habit, I’d still sometimes try to hit the key, and would just get the rubber “bumper” instead.

After a day or two of doing that, I noticed that when I did, it felt… strange. Mushy. Like it was rolling around under my finger (not a very good description, but it’s the best I can come up with). And it didn’t take much longer to realize that when I would hit it that way, it would always work. I could hold it down for many seconds at a time, and the computer would see it as staying held for the entire time. Apparently the problem was in the key cap, but it was just a single piece of plastic, there was nothing there to fail.

Maybe I was being dense, but it was several days before it occurred to me to look closely at the rubber bumper instead. When I did, the source of the problem because obvious.

The bumper had two grooves in it, crossing in the center, dividing the top of it into four quarters instead of the solid rubber circle that the other keys’ bumpers had. A look at the bottom of the key cap showed a plus-sign-shaped bit extending down from the top to meet the bumper. I’d used the keyboard for so long that the key had worn through the top of the bumper! I’ve never even heard of such a thing… though of course, most keyboards are built differently and would never have that particular problem, and most people don’t hold onto a keyboard for this long, or try to fix it when it starts failing.

Once I knew the source of the trouble, the fix was simple: I just tore a tiny rectangle of paper off of some notes I had on my desk, folded it in half for extra strength, and put it between the key cap and the bumper. The key cap holds it in place. The plus-sign on the key cap presses the paper, and the paper presses the bumper, over a wider area than the key cap would itself.

The keyboard works like new again, and I’m a happy programmer. 😀