Real pirate ships don’t have computers onboard. Or do they? This customized Pirate Keyboard suggests some clues.
Created by designer Bobby Baker, the clever poke at pirates (the seafaring variety, rather than the torrent-monger kind) imagines what a useful personalized keyboard for them will actually look like. The result is this: six keys that contain all of the ASCII character set that a real pirate will need to type.
There’s an exclamation point, a letter R (or as pirates would say, Rrrrrr), a Shift key, an Enter key and a space bar. Oh yeah, there’s also an Avast key (no, it won’t launch the antivirus), which I guess is supposed to type the nautical lingo for commanding you to stop. Basically, you can use it to type as many variations of “Avast! Rrrrrr RRRR!” as you can come up with. It may not look like a lot to you, but it should suffice for a pirate. Well, at least, for Bobby Baker’s idea of dumb pirates.
Smarter pirates, of course, can use a regular keyboard like the rest of us. I do agree with the “Avast” key, though. Every pirate peripheral needs a similar implement for frequently used language. Also, the “R” key should be stuck, so every single gesturrrrrrrre posts the letterrrrrrr severrrrrrrrrrrral times. Oh gee, my keyboard just turned pirate. Help!
Since this likely won’t sell all that much even if it was a real product (let’s face it – pirates DON’T use computers), I’d like to propose for someone to design a modern Pirate Keyboard. One geared, specifically, for the direct-downloading, torrent-sharing and USENET binary-hogging variety. That one should sell like pancakes.