Oddly enough, it was aging that drew me to mechanical keyboards in the first place. I found that as I grew older, my hands started cramping when I typed, and the worse the keyboard, the more quickly my hands turned into gnarled, pain-wracked claws. Laptop keyboards were pretty bad but rubber-dome membrane keyboards -- of the type that just about everybody sold at the time -- were the worst.

Relief only came when I bought a Das Keyboard III with heavenly Cherry Blue switches.

I'm still rocking that board today, nearly 13 years later.