Since it was originally published, we've updated this article with another "classic" keyboard.

There are a number of things we take for granted with our modern PCs. State-of-the-art graphics and sound, oodles of RAM, and high-resolution displays are now a given, but they were expensive (and often ill-supported) add-ons for personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. One accessory in particular that we take for granted today is the gaming keyboard. Modern USB and Bluetooth keyboards are inexpensive, almost universally compatible, and come in a variety of form factors, functions, and keyswitch types to satisfy the most demanding gamer or typist. This wasn’t always the case.

When the first truly mainstream personal computer trinity of the Apple II, Tandy TRS-80, and Commodore PET hit the market in 1977, touch-typing skills were hardly a given. Further, in a competitive market where it was a challenge convincing consumers that a personal computer might be something they’d actually want to own, it was critical to try and keep the costs of lower priority components, like keyboards, as low as possible. As a result, not every personal computer, including one of the trinity, had a particularly useful keyboard.

What follows is a look at a dozen of the more unusual, quirky, and downright frustrating keyboards found in popular North American personal computers from the 1970s and 1980s that attempted to break way from the shackles of proven typewriter designs. That didn't always work out.