However, when you're at your desk, the most awesome Emacs upgrade is to buy a Kinesis Ergo "Contoured" keyboard (http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/). It moves all of the control/alt/Apple/Meta keys from all of the random locations to your thumbs and so once you get used to it, it's way, way better than anything else.

The only downside is that it only comes in one size so if you have large hands / long fingers it might be too cramped.

For the skeptics, once you get used to it, it's actually quite easy to go back and forth between the laptop keyboard and the Kinesis. I.e., very little mental dissonance.

I use to half joke that my disdain for Microsoft is not as extensive as it may appear from one reading what I post (I got a -8 mod a couple days back for saying no real programmer would accept programming under Windows). In fact, I love several Microsoft products and, for me, the three best products they do today are the natural keyboards, the mice and SQL Server. In that order.

I loved the Z-80 softcard too. Would place it above SQL Server if it were still in production.