@junkman folks who had them in the early 80's? (:
(Still have mine, just, not here. Need to get it here.)
Seriously, though, getting a proper keyboard for this was ... pretty much impossible; yes Memotech made one, but it wasn't readily available and cost more than the machine, tv, and tape recorder (which is what I had money for.) My dad bought a keyboard for me - which came from some mainframe or something - and while it had keys, it had no... I couldn't solder and it just... yeah. He was rather upset that he'd not been able to help, as he knew I really wanted a proper keyboard -membranes are just crap...
But, well, I did do a lot with it despite it being such a pain (:
@Truck Ya I thought the CoCo1 "chiclet" keyboard was bad. The ZX81 one is next level 😆
You could always get/make one of these http://www.zx81keyboardadventure.com/2019/05/zx-key-external-keyboard-for-zx81s-and.html
@junkman I could now; and likely will; but back in 1985 that wasn't an option (: