By Old, historical keyboard designs are popular among mechanical keyboard enthusiasts, and Severance, the popular, high-concept sci-fi series on Apple TV that takes place in a dystopian office, is no exception. When Atomic Keyboard created the MDR Dasher, a reimagining of a vintage Data General Corporation design from the 1970s, it chose to incorporate these ideas.
Many enthusiasts of vintage keyboards adore the Data General’s Dasher terminal series, especially its large layout and chunky blue keys. Though they feature a different layout and a trackball mouse area, the Lumon staff cubicle sets in Severance are mostly modeled after—possibly even salvaged from—terminals such as the Dasher 6053 from 1977. The keyboards in the episode lack Control, Option, and Escape keys, as DesignBoom points out. After all, it is a dystopia.
With two enormous mouse keys, Atomic Keyboard’s replication of the enormous design element retains the blue and beige colors as well as the large black optical trackball on the right side. In case you wish to use it on something made in this century, the current design has a USB-C connector, an aluminum housing, and a 73-key layout in a unique 70% design. Pre-production is currently underway.
When will it be possible to purchase one? Who knows? In the market for large, customized, small-batch keyboard designs, Atomic Keyboard’s $400 initial price is acceptable and it is currently collecting email signups. Who knows how much it will cost when it is eventually ready to be shipped to purchasers, though, given the current state of international trade chaos?
As demonstrated by Severance and the computers from Marvel’s Time Variance Authority in Loki, retro technology is currently very popular. The Fallout games have been experimenting with this retro-futurist aesthetic for decades; some critics have dubbed it “Cassette Futurism.” A bounty hunter’s Porsche spaceship is packed with a CD-based jukebox, large keyboards, printers, and CRT screens that appear to have been taken from the original Alien set in the video.
