The Cheapest Keyboard
September 10th, 2006 by MarkA few days ago, while in the midst of a CD editing project, I spilled water on my keyboard and wrecked it. Fortunately, I live really close to 光華商場. I hopped on the subway, rode over, and went into the underground section of the market. After picking a shop, I asked one of the employees for the “cheapest keyboard”. Call me stingy, but I’m accustomed to buying the cheapest components I can, with a few exceptions. While a nice Logitech 4x optical mouse is nice, I actually prefer simple keyboards to some of the more expensive ones, which often turn out to be ergonomic monstrosities.
The clerk handed me a keyboard and mouse bundled set with a sticker saying it cost 400 bucks.
<in Chinese>
Me: Is this the cheapest keyboard here?
Clerk: Yep. 400 bucks.
Me: What about that one over there? That’s the same kind I bought last time.
Clerk: That one doesn’t come with a mouse or anything, and it’s PS2, not USB.
Me: So, how much is it?
Clerk: $150.
Me: I’ll take it.
After that, there wasn’t any pretense of apology or discomfort. I bought what I wanted and left.
:
September 10th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
That’s either retarded…or unfortunate customer service.
You seem to like to spill on keyboards, not as much as jason though.
September 11th, 2006 at 9:14 am
“went into the underground section of the market”
Do you mean “underground” as in “illegal” or “below the ground”?
Isn’t the 光華商場 housed in rows of bunkers now–all above ground?
September 11th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
Over the last year or so, I’ve spilled things like milk and water on my keyboards at both home and work. The first time, I was able to take my keyboards apart and dry them out before too many wires rusted. While I was at it, I cleaned up about 4 years worth of dirt on the keys. A few weeks ago at work, I spilled some green tea again on my keyboard, and it kind-of worked for a while, but whenever I pressed the SHIFT key, the computer would beep. I tried silencing the internal speaker, but nothing worked. Eventually I gave in and bought two new keyboards on the net for maybe $15 each.
For me, I really prefer the Microsoft Natural keyboard because I get wrist pain when typing on regular keyboards for very long. Unfortunately, stores don’t really sell the old style MS keyboard without throwing on all kinds of junk, like buttons all along the top row, wireless connections, and so forth. They try to charge about $100 for these keyboards. That’s when I broke down and bought the old-style keyboards off the net for cheap.
September 11th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Fee, I mean underground as in under the ground. There’s a new 光華商場 near 八德路, but the 50 or 60 some odd stores underground, off of 新生南路 are still there! That area’s still the best place for hardware, especially motherboards.
Matt, 150 TWD is about 5 USD. I couldn’t imagine somebody coughing up 100USD for a keyboard… those stores out there (CompUSA?) sound nuts.
September 13th, 2006 at 11:33 pm
Thanks for the clarification, Mark.
September 18th, 2006 at 12:32 am
Welcome to Taipei City!!
It’s good news to hear that you are in town.
Did you mean 光華商場 instead of 光華上場?
Just wanna make sure if that’s the place where I went with you. I need a new keyboard btw. Talk soon!
September 18th, 2006 at 3:31 am
I think you may be right. I’ve read “光華上場” before online, but google turns up more results for 光華商場. I changed the post (and everybody’s comments) to 光華商場.