Search the forums of most gaming sites and you are sure to find one particularly common lament, related to the failure of the PC keyboard to meet the individual needs of the world's diverse gamers. Those same forums offer suggestions of numerous devices that gamers have tried to fill the need - and criticisms of those same devices. Often one participant will hail a particular device as the best device available, only to find numerous responses decrying it for its shortcomings.

A quick survey finds that most of the complaints against these devices - aside from the non-specific and not terribly useful "it sux!" - are not for build quality or responsiveness issues, but rather matters of comfort. "It just doesn't feel right" or "it was too small for my hand" are remarks typical of the situation that exists for gamers searching for a better way of connecting with their games.

Could this simple and unassuming device be your ultimate gaming device?

The problem exists because every one of the tens of millions of Americans said to play games has both a unique play style and individual anatomy. Putting your hand up against the palm of the nearest gamer's is all that's needed to illustrate the physical differences between us all. (If you try that, you'll also notice that its about all that's needed to make you both feel pretty awkward as well!)

So far, technology hasn't provided us with the ability to customize a hardware interface that meets our individual needs. Thus, we are usually forced to retreat to the 138-year-old quintessence of ubiquity: Christopher Sholes' "QWERTY" keyboard. It's a device as personalized, specialized, and designed for gaming as this here controller I have made out of an old baseball cap. Hey, it's the best, and it will only cost you $50. Throw in $10 more and some Christmas lights and I will even make it glow for you.

This is a collection of just a few of the author's pit stops along his quest to find the perfect gaming input peripheral. (The rest can be found in a landfill somewhere.) They are, clockwise from the top: The Devilfish, Saitek Command Pad, Ideazon Zboard, Essential Reality's P5 Glove, Belkin's Nostromo Speedpad N52, and Microsoft's Strategic Commander.

But seriously, the keyboard is incredibly ill-suited to our unique needs as individuals and the high speed gaming of our generation.