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  • Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today’s thing is My First Keyboard. Well,

  • not *my* first keyboard, that was one of these mushy things that came with my Packard Bell

  • 486. No, I mean were looking at *the* My First Keyboard, which sold for $99 when Kidtech

  • first starting manufacturing it in 1994. Now, colorful input devices and children’s A-to-Z

  • keyboards are something weve had on LGR before, but the My First Keyboard is the first

  • keyboard I’ve covered that claims to be not only spill proof, butpeanut butter

  • proof.” Hehe, a rather precise claim we will be putting to the test. It also boasts

  • what they calledone push, one responseinput technology, based on their patented

  • key switch matrix. So you can keep a regular keyboard plugged in with full functionality,

  • but the Kidtech board stays restricted. The idea is that it detects multiple simultaneous

  • key presses and temporarily blocks further input if a kid starts away banging on the

  • thing. It even delays keyboard activation for a while on booting, allowing your computer

  • to completely start up before recognizing keystrokes from the My First Keyboard. Clearly,

  • this was designed with a very specific mission in mind, and it’s no surprise that it was

  • inspired by a very specific event. And that event was a catastrophic computer crash caused

  • by a little boy named Troy, who was then the 18-month-old son of Victor and Kendall Maynard.

  • After a good 12 hours was lost recovering data on the machine, he and his wife went

  • out looking for a keyboard made for kids. But after coming up empty and figuring their

  • must be other parents in a similar situation, work began on making their own keyboard that

  • would allow a 1½ to 5 year old play on a computer without damaging it. While Victor

  • was an aerospace engineer, he knew very little about computer hardware, stating that, We

  • had to learn as you go. When we started, we actually took a standard keyboard apart just

  • to see what was in it. That’s how ignorant we were. They ended up building twenty prototypes

  • over the next few years before finalizing the product and founding the company Kidtech

  • to sell the My First Keyboard. But as a rather niche device with pretty much zero advertising

  • budget, it only sold 1,600 units in its first year on the market. According to the Maynards,

  • mothers were the primary purchaser of these types of kids products, and they weren’t

  • likely to hit up the big box computer stores they were being sold in. Plus, asking a hundred

  • bucks for what looked like a toddler’s toy was a bit much for most. It looks like to

  • move in this category, the prices are going to have to be more at the level of a toy,

  • Mr. Maynard revealed in 1996. So they dropped the price to $49, spread the word to journalists

  • and show hosts in the media, and relied on word of mouth to do its job. Eventually the

  • keyboard caught a wave of popularity through the mid-90s, appearing on shows like Good

  • Morning America and Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee, on national radio with Paul Harvey, and

  • in print with Good Housekeeping magazine and the Associated Press National newswire. And

  • of course, they took advantage of the fledgling internet, where amusingly enough the Kidtech

  • website is still online. There’s even an option to order brand new units, though I

  • haven’t tested that out. I did manage to find this new-old-stock example a while back,

  • one of the retail versions sold by RF-Link in late 1994. And dang, that kid has one meticulously

  • formed hairdo goinon, impressive. [springy sound effects]

  • Enough with the preamble and bouncy hair,

  • let’s get this keyboard unboxed and set up! First thing we come across is

  • the My First Keyboard itself, which youll note doesn’t even come with a cable installed.

  • Thatll be plugged in around back, right beside the full-sized keyboard passthrough

  • and a switch labeledkidandadultfor choosing which board you want activated.

  • The keyboard itself is a tad heavier than I thought it’d be, at 1 pound 7 ounces or

  • 650 grams, more than some full-sized membrane keyboards I’ve used. And the keys themselves,

  • well, theyre flat, squishy, and unresponsive by design. Feels like an Atari 400 or a Magnavox

  • Odyssey 2, just with larger key blisters. Then underneath the main packaging is a selection

  • of goodies, starting with the keyboard cable which is of the 5-pin AT variety. It also

  • has dual PS/2 adapters, so that’s nice. Next is theFun Preschool Softwarepacket,

  • containing two 3.5” high density diskettes labelled Toy Chest 2.0, as well as a small

  • instruction pamphlet covering the basics of the two games: Pictures ABC and Action 123.

  • Next is a yellow half sheet of paper letting you know how important it is to unbox the

  • entire box before complaining to RF-Link. And lastly there’s the full manual, wrapped

  • in plastic that appears to have been fingered open at some point in the past. The manual

  • is brief but helpful, with a sheet letting you know what they got wrong, and five pages

  • of information on setting up and using the My First Keyboard. All right, it’s finally

  • time to try this thing out. Just gotta plug the male end of the cable into the back and

  • yep, we are ready to go! Okay, so we've got the My First Keyboard plugged into the Lazy

  • Green Giant Windows 98 PC down there and it's ready to go. Well, almost. One more thing

  • we got to plug in here is the lovely IBM model M keyboard that I normally use, but, well

  • the poor thing's been relegated to just being a pass through adult keyboard. Plugs in the

  • back here. Make sure it's switched into kid mode because we're not going to be using this

  • right now, but if we need to it's there because of course this is missing a whole lot of keys.

  • There's no control, alt, shift, delete or any of those. Anyway, yeah, let's just turn

  • it on and see what happens. Because one of the first things that I wanted to test is

  • one of the first things that happens with it and that is nothing. It's not supposed

  • to recognize any key strokes on boot up. Well, there's no delete here so I can't actually

  • try that, but once we get to the booting of windows, you can press F8 and that'll bring

  • up a boot menu and other functional things maybe on boot up. It's not supposed to recognize

  • any of those. I'm just pressing stuff like a like a crazy kid. Nothing seems to be happening

  • at the moment. Yeah, it did not recognize anything. So now it's actually started to

  • accept keystrokes. So it just basically just times out the keyboard while the computer

  • is booting up so a kid can't mess things up as the computer is starting. So that's cool.

  • And yeah, you can hear these little audible clicks. There's a little speaker inside there

  • almost like a terminal keyboard back in the day. Well before we pile this thing up with

  • peanut butter, let's go ahead and test some normal stuff out. OK, sorry Windows. So it

  • has a couple of programs that it came with. That Toy Chest, Pictures ABC, and Action 123

  • here, but let's just go ahead and open up Notepad and type a little bit. Hello... there.

  • It's an alphabetical keyboard of course, A to Z, so it's a little weird. According to

  • the Maynards who made this keyboard, the reason that they went with this alphabetical layout

  • is because they figured that kids aren't going to be learning actual touch typing with a

  • traditional keyboard layout until after the age range of this keyboard. So this was meant

  • for up to five year olds and they figured touch typing is probably not going to happen

  • until you're seven or eight. Anyway, whatever the case may be, there were a lot of these

  • educational keyboards that went with this kind of layout. There's something oddly satisfying

  • about this. I don't really know. Actually, these switches aren't the worst. I've used

  • crappier. So yeah, you do have the function keys on here, which potentially brings up

  • some shenanigans that a kid could get into. It only goes up to F10. F11 and 12 aren't

  • on here. And as mentioned before, control, alt, shift, delete and a bunch of other things

  • are not on here either. So there's only so much a kid could really screw up mashing with

  • this thing. But let's just go ahead and try one of the programs it came with. Oh Wow.

  • This is a very simple one. What even is... Pictures ABC, what are we supposed to be doing here?

  • [MIDI music plays]

  • [Program voice] "A, Alligator." Oh, what the crap?

  • "B, bear. C, cat. Y, yak. P, pig."

  • "X, xiphias." What? Xiphias?

  • Is that all they could come up with? Wow, okay. I guess

  • this is animals, so. “X, xylophone.”

  • There's xylophone. What'd they come up with

  • for this? “X, X-ray technician” X-ray technician. Well, you know.

  • “X, Christmas dinner.” Hm. That's a little confusing. Xmas dinner.

  • “Y, yam. Z, zucchini.” Enough of that.

  • Let's try Action 123. Do we get any more music? Oh there it is.

  • [Itsy Bitsy Spider MIDI plays]

  • How many? Rabbits?”

  • [goofy laughter] Uh.

  • Good job.”

  • How many swans?” I don't know man, two.

  • The correct answer is eight.” Alright okay, I think we get the idea. This sucks.

  • Oh come on. Let me out of here!

  • Well, that was the Fun Preschool Software. Let's try some Duke Nukem 3D.

  • Also fun preschool software from 1996, the first person shooter. And I have already preconfigured

  • this to work with the My First Keyboard, not that it really needed much configuration.

  • It just needed a little bit of remapping to work with this unconventional keyboard layout.

  • So what I'm going to do here is instead of having it mapped to WASD as I did before this,

  • I've just got it mapped to the mouse for aiming and then the movement is over here on B-N-O-P,

  • BNOP. So the BNOP layout is going to allow me to play it pretty much as normal. Space

  • still jumps and otherwise... It's a little sticky and I haven't even poured any peanut

  • butter on this yet. But yeah, totally playable, a little clunky, but with a little practice

  • I could get pretty good at using this My First Keyboard to play first person shooter. Not

  • bad at all. Something else that was immediately wondering about is platformers, especially

  • since the arrow keys are kind of laid out in a bizarre kind of way down here. I mean,

  • it's not the weirdest. I'd actually seen some laptops and older computer keyboards that

  • have kind of a layout like this, but yeah, "It's still a little strange, especially since

  • there's no control and alt. So I've mapped the keys over here to N, O, and P. Nope, I

  • didn't. I mapped them to N, O, and space. That's right. I mean, this is not the worst

  • membrane of every used. It's responsive enough to play games, that's for sure. I mean, it's

  • keyboard that is not made for any of this, but it is completely capable of doing so.

  • So it's totally stands up as a usable keyboard, oddly enough. More so than I anticipated just

  • looking at it. But really this is a pretty quality membrane and it's nice and solid and

  • feels all right. So yeah, about the only other thing to check is it performs under pressure.

  • Ah, fresh peanut butter. [sniifs] Mm.

  • So. I mean, let's just go for it. We've got some spreadable

  • goodness, let's get whole bunch it and just...

  • [THOCK]

  • Ohhh, this feels wrong. Oh no, this is a bad

  • idea. This is a bad idea. [chuckling]

  • Okay well, let's just make sure it gets all across all the

  • keys cuz I mean, peanut butter proof means peanut butter proof. It said it in the marketing,

  • it said it in the testimonials on their website. Unfortunately, now I have to touch it. Well,

  • this is disgusting. My word. You know what? I'm going to go ahead and unplug the Model

  • M before we... You know what? Actually you can see the passthrough works. Okay. That's

  • fine. That's all we needed to test. Let's just get rid of that. Just in case. I don't

  • know man. I don't want this thing near peanut butter. Okay, typing tests. Let's see if I

  • can type my name. Oh where's the N? Right. So it actually works perfectly fine. I mean,

  • as it should really. Let's get that outta there. Because there are no areas for anything

  • like peanut butter to get through. But I mean I can't just stop there. What about chocolate

  • syrup? I mean it said it resists super sticky kids fingers. So you know, let's get some

  • of that in there too. Now that definitely makes it a little gooier, but once again,

  • no problems at all, at least so far. Because they also claim that it protects against liquid

  • spills, you know, spilled milk. I'll take a bit of precaution here. Do not try this

  • at home. I'm at home, what am I doing? So for example, oh whoops, ‘I just spilled

  • some milk all over the keyboard, mom. What now?’

  • Don't worry about it, darling. Just keep on using the keyboard!’ [chuckles]

  • Cuz nothing is getting through this thing

  • whatsoever. Yeah. My First Keyboard. This thing’s a boss. Right. So can you play Duke

  • 3D on a keyboard with peanut butter, chocolate syrup and milk?

  • [squishy key pressing]

  • Hehehe. All right, where are the keys?

  • Oh crap. I need to clean off my finger here for the mouse.

  • So! Oh, this is so wrong.

  • Oh, it feels disgusting. But in a kind of liberating way, it's like I'm sticking my fingers into

  • a desert and just playing games that way. [laughs]

  • Just forget the RPG, I'm just going

  • to go this way. Yep. Alright. Beating the first level of Duke 3D... with a milky, peanut

  • buttery, chocolate syrup keyboard from your nightmares. [laughs]

  • Get all that crap off the main keys there. There we go.

  • Y'know using a white towel was perhaps the wrong choice now that I think about it.

  • [peanut buttery gameplay]

  • Aw forget it. I'm just getting out of here. Oh, thank goodness it's over.

  • Oh, I'm never doing that again. Well that's about it for this video. Oh my word. I guess

  • you could just kind of wash this thing off or something?

  • Let's just go ahead and [chuckles] [running water and washing sounds]

  • This is so messed up! [water rushing]

  • Ah crap I just noticed I didn't

  • have the camera recording while I was washing it off. But as you can see there it just all

  • cleaned off quite nicely. You got a little bit of water in there so we'll let that dry

  • off before powering it on again. But uh here we go. About as good as new or you know, something

  • close to that. So I was taking it apart just to make sure everything was dry inside. Yeah,

  • I figured I'd take a look inside anyway because why not? Yeah, there is, as expected, not

  • a whole lot going on here. Really just got this control board which does all of the things

  • and the ribbon cable going to the membrane right here, which is seriously just a flat

  • thing that is glued in place, and I would remove that if possible, but I mean it seriously

  • is just... There's no way to take it off without ruining the entire keyboard far as I can tell,

  • but yeah, there's the bottom side of that, which if we take this off... Yeah, that's

  • all you get. So you can see the little tiny speaker there in the top right. The Kid Tech

  • Integrated Circuit Board, which takes care of all the things like timing out the keys

  • at certain moments and controlling stuff. And other than that, it's just the membrane

  • keyboard that's really well glued together. Alright. PC turned on. Everything all put

  • back together and cleaned up. There it is. Had me worried for a second. That key time

  • out. Yep. Seems to be just fine. And where you're going to try out 4x4 Evo. 4x4 Evolution.

  • Haven't played this in a well a couple of hours. I was playing it earlier today and

  • I thought I'd play it on here because... I don't know why not. It's a fun game. Used

  • to enjoy this back in the day. Still do. It's one of those I hope to cover at some point,

  • but yeah, pretty much just have the arrow keys to steer and all that kind of stuff.

  • You know, that little beeping of the little speaker inside every time you press stuff

  • still just amuses me on any kind of keyboard whatsoever that I'm using. Especially in this

  • one though, since it's like a membrane keyboard, it reminds me of this really horrible point

  • of sale system that I used to use at one of my jobs. Somehow that membrane was even worse

  • than this. It's just really... It was really squishy but it beeped in the same way like

  • a lot of terminal keyboards do. I think I mentioned terminals earlier in the video.

  • I like terminals. Let's just go this way. Oh, that didn't work at all. Well anyway.

  • Alright, escape key. Yeah, that's pretty much it, for real this time. There's the My First

  • Keyboard, it's just a keyboard, but at the same time it's kind of interesting because

  • I say so. And you know, it's got the whole aesthetic of children going on. I don't know

  • what that means. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. I hope you enjoyed this video.

  • If you did, then awesome. I've done some other kids kind of devices before and Oddware and

  • such. This was kind of Oddware, kind of not. I didn't put it under Oddware, obviously,

  • but yeah, if you like this you'd probably like my Oddware show. Anyway, new videos here

  • every week on LGR. So watch them if you want to.

  • And as always, thank you very much for watching what you just did!

Greetings and welcome to an LGR thing! And today’s thing is My First Keyboard. Well,

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