It is truly Elite
May 24, 2007 Posted by Liz in : Reviews, Uncategorized , trackback,
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During the torrent recently in Texas, water actually fell from the sky, as if it were the blood of tech angels, doing battle with the forces of corrosion. It fell and like acid, damaged the roof of the store I work at. Damaged it to the point that the roof offered no shelter from the tidal forces in the sky. As we ran around like madmen trying to protect customer units, display models and the stock(failing; forgetting the plasma televisions in the warehouse, 2 million dollars in damage- we have insurance) we had forgotten our precious tech stations. The keyboards were mostly protected by an overhang, but, the ones up front were left to bear the burden. The monitor survived, and the hole leading to the power strip was protected, but the mouse and keyboard were sacrificed for their benefit.
Then, a miracle.
We had previously replaced the el cheapo Dynex brand keyboard with a display model of the Gateway® Elite Keyboard from one of the return/exchanges that did not include the keyboard/mouse. We liked the rubbery wrist rest, the unobtrusive volume controls and the lack of an annoying “sleep” mode button you always accidentally press during tournaments. We thought nothing of it however, at the time.
When the downpour stopped, we noticed the beloved thing filled with water. Having no time to mourn or indeed, replace the keyboard(as it involved navigating a labyrinthine forest of cables and mutilated shelves) we left it.
The next day, we had forgotten of the keyboard’s fate. It was still filled with water and one of the newbs had hooked up a customer’s machine to it! We rushed over, trying to stop him as he…entered the password? Logged in successfully? We watched, enthralled as he entered in URL and IP addresses efforlessly, with no obstructions or short-outs.
Eventually the keyboard dried. Still working, we used it for a few days until our supervisor got curious. We waited until the store closed, and committed a keyboard-napping. On the pavement, hooked up to an e-machines desktop, we poured hot soup, crackers, salt, and breadcrumbs in the keyboard.
The keyboard continued to type.Â
We sprayed it with the hose, still hooked up to the computer(covered in a plastic bag) to clean it off, and it still typed. We poured Castrol Motor Oil(because we had it in the car) and a bit of emergency gasoline over it, and typed. Sprayed it off once more, and when it still worked, we felt it was our duty to test this further.
I don’t have pictures of these tests(kicks self) but I would like to continue to study this further. If you have any suggestions(please, no acid or deliberatly destructive substances, and we will only spill things, no hammers or drops off of heights) Please post them here, and we will test them(and I will take pictures this time).
In the meantime, this is the keyboard that comes in the box with all the gateway computers these days, and it is the one that is on all the displays, if you can get an associate to turn their back you might be able to test this 
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Comments»
How about submerging the keyboard in a bucket of water?
If it passes that test it’s fully sealed.
Fun stuff
JR
Liquid flea medicine! We left an open container of cat flea med on top of the tv, and the next day there was a little acid burn on the tv. My lord, and we’re putting this on our cats!