# Forum General General Discussion  Russian keyboard

## oileanach

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Accuratus-Russ...item439b333812 
If I were to buy this, or similar, other than plugging it in, can anyone tell me how I would use it? What else would I need to do to setup my computer to type cyrillic? 
I should say, my IT skills are close to zero. 
Thanks to anyone who can help!

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## bitpicker

"I should say, my IT skills are close to zero." 
I bet that translates to "I'm using Microsoft Windows".  ::  In that case, you plug it in and follow instructions such as these:  How to change keyboard language in Windows  Change your keyboard layout 
This will give you an icon to click to switch between English and Russian layout. Windows offers serveral different cyrillic layouts, I think the correct one is called Russian / Russian as opposed to such layouts as Russian / Ossetian etc. 
Should you have any problems setting that up, you can ask again, but tell us which version of Windows you're using exactly because some things may be different from version to version.

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## oileanach

Many thanks for that. Yes, you are right about Windows. 
I've had a look and everything checks out for Vista. All I need now is the keyboard.  Thanks again.

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## it-ogo

People in such cases often buy Russian stickers on the keyboard rather than the whole keyboard. I personally used a pencil and that was enough.  ::

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## capecoddah

I printed the layout on some heavy card stock and use the Peckanpaugh method of typing.

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## bitpicker

On my keyboard ё is on the top left key when set to Russian, and the secondary symbols on the number keys are all different...

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## CoffeeCup

There are two Russian keyboard layouts:
Russian: ё is in the top left corner and the down right corner button is used for "." and ","
Russian Typewriter: ё is in the down right corner 
The very distinctive feature of the "Russian Typewriter" is that numbers 0-9 are typed with the shift pressed as it was with mechanical Russian typewriting machines.

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## Indoorser

Since I am Russian but live in Australia, I got white keyboard, wrote Russian letters with permanent marker. While typing with the lapse of time the signs written slowly wiped out (it took about 2-3 months). Now I can type in Russian on any English-only keyboard  :: . My wife do the same as well. 
Вот прямо сейчас печатаю на клавиатуре без русских букв.

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## rockzmom

> The very distinctive feature of the "Russian Typewriter" is that numbers 0-9 are typed with the shift pressed as it was with mechanical Russian typewriting machines.

 Coffeecup, 
That is a great fact for me to know! Another one of those amazing tidbits of information only a true Russian knows. Makes me want to get back to writing the book again just to be able to find a way to add that fact in somehow.  
Maybe I should start a thread about those kinds of facts. What's the an unique fact about Russian life vs. nonRussian life and give the examples of the typewriter, Dacha, and the slippers for guests. 
hmmm...

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## studyr

> Вот прямо сейчас печатаю на клавиатуре без русских букв.

  Я седогня сма рабозрал, посичтил и сборал кларивотуру.

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## CoffeeCup

> The very distinctive feature of the "Russian Typewriter" is that numbers 0-9 are typed with the shift pressed as it was with mechanical Russian typewriting machines.

 Actually this is why this "Typewriter" layout have dead before now. It was too weird to type a number on a PC while holding the shift pressed. These days you'll hardly ever find a keyboard with such a layout but in the begin of 90's people suffered of the incredible amount of keyboards produced with such a layout.

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## sperk

does anyone know of a backlit cyrillic keyboard?

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## CoffeeCup

> does anyone know of a backlit cyrillic keyboard?

 Try "Yandex Market" for keyboards with the option "подсветка клавиш" checked.

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## chaika

I use a freeware converter to make my US keyboard switch between latin and cyrillic. The cyrillic letters are on the standard latin keys where possible. For example, the qwerty row is:
яшертыуиопющэ 
It is extremely easy for me to type fast in Russian (I'm a touch typist in both languages), and I didn't have to learn another layout. No need for a special Cyrillic keyboard, either.

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## CoffeeCup

> I use a freeware converter to make my US keyboard switch between latin and cyrillic. The cyrillic letters are on the standard latin keys where possible. For example, the qwerty row is:
> яшертыуиопющэ

 The very first Russian computers (late 70's - early 80's) had the vice versa layout for the latin letters. The latin letters were in the positions to correspond the Russian letters.

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## Ramil

Это тяжелое наследие кодировки КОИ-7 Но и плюс был. Даже при неправильно выбранном наборе символов текст читался как транслит.  
Поскольку кодов для кодировки всех символов латинского алфавита и кириллицы не хватало, одно заменялось на другое.

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## oileanach

Folks, spasiba, for all your helpful replies. I'm not going to bother with converting back and forward from Roman to Cyrillic; I have an old desktop I don't use so I'll just keep that for the Russian keyboard.

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## gRomoZeka

> I'm not going to bother with converting back and forward from Roman to Cyrillic; I have an old desktop I don't use so I'll just keep that for the Russian keyboard.

 Switching between different languages in Windows is just a matter of pressing a hotkey (CTRL+SHIFT in my case).

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## Ramil

Or you can use an automatic switcher (like Punto switcher) - it is a program which guesses the language you type in an switches the keyboard layout automatically.

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