Mechanical Keyboards

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Are you addicted to the clicking sounds of your beautiful and impressive mechanical keyboard?
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Why are they called Switches and not Buttons? (lemm.ee)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In a switch you get on/off, but a button returns to the original setting.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

A switch is an electromechanical component that can open or close one or more circuits. There are many types of switch, with whole sets of nomenclature depending on how specific you want to get. A keyboard switch is an example of a momentary normally-open single pole - single throw (mom NO SPST) switch [^1]

A button is a user interface / mechanical design component which protudes from a surface and can be manually actuated.[^2]

You can have each without the other.

While a keyboard switch can be used as a button, it's not designed for the purpose, it's designed to have a keycap installed, at which point you do indeed have a button. When we are talking about keyswitches though, we're specifically interested in the electromechanical component, not the portion that a user pushes.

[^1]: Source: domain specific education

[^2]: Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push-button