Reading: The mechanical keyboard market is no longer a Cherry family alone | This will be the future direction | The mechanical keyboard market is no longer the Cherry family alone | This will be the

In fact, the keyboard shaft has been developed for so many years, from the initial mechanical keyboard to the membrane keyboard to the market and then to the mechanical keyboard and membrane keyboard. In this development process, we have to mention a company - CHERRY Especially on the mechanical keyboard, when I talked about the mechanical keyboard, the first image that emerged in my mind is CHERRY. I believe that more than one person feels like this, but now that the mechanical keyboard has developed over the years, it is no longer a CHERRY one. Big? In the future, mechanical keyboards will have different development directions.

The origin of the keyboard

The design of the keyboard is the same as that of the typewriter. The typewriter is the reference model of the keyboard now. The early typewriter is by tapping the lever corresponding to different characters. The prominent corresponding character of the front part of the lever is then solidly 'played' to rewrite. The ink strips and papers are left with imprints. The current keyboard also opens the board by tapping. The different positions of the board generate various specific signals. After the computer recognizes the signal, it converts it into ASCII. The Latin characters are displayed on the screen, and our input method compiles the Latin characters into various non-Latin characters. In addition to the compile stage, the idea of ​​entering text on the keyboard is indeed the idea of ​​the typewriter.

Keyboard history

Since the beginning of the 1970s, the keyboard we have known has been more than 40 years old for nearly 50 years. In the early 70s and 90s, people at that time could only choose the keyboard of the mechanical axis, and only the keyboard of the mechanical axis. Can choose. The advantage is that the life is durable, the feel is first-class, but the disadvantage is that the price is expensive, but the expensive is only for the ordinary people, after all, a personal computer in the 80s, 20,000 RMB, 500 RMB for the keyboard, this seems to be Don't you think it's expensive? (I remember that the original bully learning machine still used mechanical axes.)

In the late 1990s, there was an explosive development in the integrated circuit and electronics industry. Especially after the millennium, personal computers became popular and prices could not be climbed. At home, desktop computers could be found. At this time, the membrane keyboard appeared. The membrane keyboard replaces the bulky P mechanical switch with a silicone film, and directly hits the PCB through the silicone bowl and the metal bowl to generate digital signals. The film keyboard at that time was low in price, difficult to assemble, and difficult to process. Especially the domestic membrane keyboard can even do 20 yuan. But there are big disadvantages: short life, because the silica gel is easy to age. From the beginning to the end of the membrane keyboard feel, there is no mechanical keyboard, but can not stand People are cheap, after all, the price is the last word. When I was in contact with PC, the membrane keyboard already occupied this market. The mechanical keyboard survived the industrial market and a few high-end e-sports markets.

Around 2005, the mechanical keyboard basically lost the keyboard market. The Cherry MX line is shrinking, but Cherry has retained the production line and not cut it all. This is crucial for the recovery of the mechanical keyboard in the future. Before 2006, the Cherry mechanical keyboard and its foundry keyboard were basically It is sold to enterprises. The customers are mainly concentrated in industry, banking, securities, insurance, medical, postal, telecommunications, government, etc. B2C sells to personal retail very little. It can be said that CHERRY was extremely miserable at the time.

The turning point appeared in 2006. Sai Rui purchased the CHERRY MX switch and made a 6G keyboard, which was pushed to the game market. It was praised by the CS (Counter Strike) players at that time. It was because of the CS player that Cherry was introduced to China, although it was just because The price is too high, the sales volume is particularly small. But after that, various peripheral manufacturers saw the potential of the mechanical keyboard in the game market, and they cooperated with CHERRY, and the keyboard of CHERRY MX shaft body was continuously introduced. The impression was probably Ducky, Filco, Logitech, Sai Rui, Razer, Rosewill, i-rocks, Kai Cool, etc.

Especially arrived The rise of the e-sports industry around 2014, the mechanical keyboard completely ushered in the spring So far, the keyboard has been roughly divided into three camps, mechanical keyboards, membrane keyboards and very small capacitive keyboards.

Modern axon battle

The CHERRY shaft has undergone a long baptism of years. Needless to say, the early shaft body M5, M7, talk about the familiar MX axis.

So far, we have seen a lot of shafts on the keyboard, and we have a lot of choices. However, with the expiration of CHERRY patent protection, the domestic shaft process continues to improve, and the domestic shafts are currently in a certain market. Also has the ability to compete with CHERRY.

But by no means limited to imitation, domestic Kaihua BOX axis, for the Razer found the Razer Green axis, Razer Orange shaft. Blood hand ghost ingenuity of the optical axis. Life- growing squirrel shaft Key talks research and development Guantai foundry. Even pluggable shafts, OMRON shafts, and Jiadalong shafts have their own markets.

In fact, since 2014, the domestic axle body has risen along with the rise of e-sports. As a switch, in fact, the technical difficulty required is not high, or the management of manufacturing is improved.

The future direction of the shaft

Replaceable shaft

The pluggable shaft design appears to facilitate replacement and maintenance, and is also convenient for players to perform DIY. The shaft body can be easily removed and replaced. It is not necessary to replace the entire keyboard due to damage to one shaft body, or it takes time and effort to find after sale. You can also use different hand-held shafts for different buttons according to your needs. For example, I want to make the typing area have an easy typing experience. You can choose the silver axis or the red axis. If you want the rhythm, you can choose the green axis. Commonly used keys such as ESC buttons have different experiences. I can choose black axis or tea axis, etc., to reduce the DIY customization cost of the keyboard, and let more players experience the fun of DIY.

Thin shaft

The thin and light shaft body has also been welcomed by many people, and it is also suitable for notebook and office. The thin and thin shaft body can be very competitive with the membrane keyboard stroke. CHERRY has recently launched a short shaft product, and the short red shaft is characterized by the hand feeling biased toward the red axis, almost There is no sense of passage, but the keystrokes will not be shortened, and it will be a little silent. As early as before CHERRY, domestic axle manufacturers have already developed their own ultra-thin shafts.

For the trigger principle, it can be divided into two directions. One is to continue to adhere to the mechanical trigger, to improve the performance and feel by changing the optimized feel and the internal layout, and the other is to change the shaft body like the principle of optical trigger. .

Change the optimal feel and internal layout

The OMRON axis and the BOX axis are considered to have significant layout changes to the previous shaft body. On the trigger and life, the OMRON and BOX axes have been greatly improved and improved relative to the CHERRY shaft. The OMRON axis also passed. Set the light in the middle to achieve a very good uniform light transmission.

Change the optical axis of the trigger principle

Recently, the mechanical keyboard of the Thunderbolt Light Spider uses the optical axis. Does the Razer mechanical optical axis and the bloody ghost's third-generation balance optical axis are very similar, this should be the blood hand ghost release the optical axis Authorization, more than 90% of the two shafts have been dismantled by the individual. The optical axis is better than the current mechanical contact shaft because it has no mechanical contacts, life, stability, response delay, etc. This is also the reason why many manufacturers, including Razers, use optical axes.

Functional changes, buttons can be more rich to present different functional experiences, and the keyboard is not just an input tool. And the buttons are also likely to achieve force feedback, just like Apple's pressure feedback.

Pressure feedback function button

Although Apple's pressure feedback mechanism and the pressure sensitive technology on the screen of the mobile phone have not achieved great success, it has been mentioned by friends around us that our keyboard keys are likely to have feedback pressure. In many game scenarios, such as the fact that the throttle can only be stepped on the bottom, the throttle control function can be realized with the appearance of the pressure sensitive button. For example, in the case of office, for example, using a knob to realize the width of the drawing stroke, the pressure sensitive button can be very It's a good solution to this problem, but the reason why it hasn't appeared yet is because such a demand is small. We use pressure on some of the keys on the keyboard to achieve special functions. The whole keyboard uses all kinds of shafts except There is no other role in raising costs.

The keyboard can also implement the information prompt function.

In our original computer concept, the mouse and keyboard were used as input devices, and the display was used as an output device. Recently, the keyboard manufacturer DAS from the United States proposed that the keyboard can be used not only as an input tool, but also as the RGB light of the keyboard. Information output port, their Das Keyboard5 can now make different keys as different software or information prompts, numeric keys can also be used for schedule management, work progress feedback display. Can remind you of weather, stock market, schedule and other important information.

PConline summary

In this era, CHERRY is not a big one. The continuous improvement of the shaft body, and even the triggering principle, may subvert the mechanical contact buttons of the net. The history has precipitated the choices made by our consumers. It is not the traditional mechanical touch. The shaft of the point is not good enough. CHERRY's shaft body is as good as ever. However, in the face of the various needs of the present, a variety of shafts appear, and the future keyboard will not only be used as a simple type. The tool is so simple. The future is expected, have you ever thought about what your ideal keyboard would look like?