לוּחַ מַקֵּשִׁים

The phrase "לוּחַ מַקֵּשִׁים" (luach makeshim) was the first term in Hebrew for the computer keyboard and was in use in the 1970s. It is a literal calque of the English word "keyboard," where "luach" corresponds to "board" and "makeshim" corresponds to "keys" (in plural form). The term "מַקָּשׁ" (makash) itself was established by the Office Terminology Committee of the Hebrew Language Committee in 1947, to describe the buttons on typewriters, based on the term "מַקֵּשׁ" (makesh) which was established in 1945 by the Music Terminology Committee as a name for piano keys. During the 1960s and 1970s, with the development of computer use, the phrase "luach makeshim" was gradually pushed aside by the word "מִקְלֶדֶת" (mikledet), which was originally established in 1952 as a name for the keyboard system on a piano. The advantage of "mikledet" over "luach makeshim" was that it was a single word rather than a combination of two words. Today, the term "luach makeshim" is almost never used in the context of a full computer keyboard, but it is still used to describe a smaller key system, such as that called a keypad in English.