For some context, this project was basically made to one up someone else, so it's not fully serious. Part of what makes the keyboard funny though is that (a niche of) the custom mechanical keyboard scene has been moving to many fewer keys and programming the firmware to compensate. So it's pretty funny going from seeing several Planck ~49 key layouts to seeing this gargantuan 450 key absolute unit.
Is it an Atreus? How do you like that size of keyboard? I'm not too bothered about adopting some chords, but more interested in the general ergonomics / RSI risks.
And they even have keys (modifier keys?) for their feet. They left that off the table (so to speak)
hmm... and maybe some sort of suspension system for your arms, so your arms could float over the keyboard sort of like monitor arms keep your monitor suspended in place but allow movement.
Or if you want just some minor additions, try Sun Oracle Type-7 keyboard which has ~10 keys (including Copy, Paste, Undo, Cut - perfect for Stackoverflow-oriented programming) on the left
I regularly use what I call a "140% keyboard" which has a total of 140 keys. This is the regular 104-key layout with added keys in various places such as between the alphanumeric and F key section, filling the gaps between cursor keys and the block above it, etc. The keyboard has on-board macro programming and multi-layer logic.
I use it for things like having keys which jump directly to specific windows, keys which open various terminal types, and even macros for some common commands (Git operations for example).
I don't know that there's any good reason why this isn't more popular other than fashion, which means that an industry has not really built up around plus-sized keyboards like it has around smaller ones. My example was purchased used and was formerly used at a telephone operator's workstation, based on the key legends. There is a fairly robust used market for plus-sized keyboards originally used for specialty applications, mostly POS and dispatchers/radio operators, from companies like PrehKeyTec and Cherry (of the switches). Unfortunately they mostly cost $500+ new and still often demand over $100 used. The majority of these keyboards feature on-board macro programming, but are intended to be programmed in bulk by the vendor of some turnkey solution so the programming tools are a bit awkward (for me, use a GUI keymap editor, export a file, use a command line tool to flash the generated file to the keyboard - I think it actually just produces a full firmware image each time).
The only real disadvantage I would report is that the PrehKeyTecs are made with dome switches that feel decidedly mushy when they're old (and my used model is probably around a decade old). The Cherries use mechanical switches, of course, but tend to be more expensive and aren't made in as interesting of configurations IMO.
Do you happen to have a picture of the layout? I too wish for a keyboard with more keys, especially vertically. But besides an extra row or two of F-keys, I haven't come up with any logical extensions.
This is pretty interesting, but it'd be great if the author explained their reason for building such a large keyboard... even if it's just "for reasons".
this was also posted on r/MechanicalKeyboards and the reason behind it was something like “I made a 128 keys keyboard, someone else made a bigger keyboard so I had to retaliate”
agreed, immediately closed, not sure why they bother with writing something if obviously they don't care if anyone reads it with choosing font/effect like this
1) For some reason this thing gives me joy. Imagine sitting at work in front of one of these bad boy keyboards! You'd never get interrupted! People would assume you're running a battleship remotely or something!
2) It seems very Soviet. Or at least very 80s Anime - this is the keyboard we should all be using, only each key should light up in disco colors.
That's a surprise. I was expecting keys 433% as large as ordinary ones. It could be for a person who types with feet, arm stumps, or elbows. It could be for a person in protective gear. It could be for a trained animal. It could be for entertainment, such as by hitting the keys from a distance to win a carnival prize.
There are a limited number of scancodes; defined by the USB standard. The annoying thing for keyboards is that the OS controls what scancode maps to what character and that makes it impossible to have certain keys.
For example, you can't have an ! key. That is always Shift+1 (with a US layout, that is). QMK and other firmwares will let you make an ! key, but it's implemented by pressing shift, then pressing 1. So you could never make a keyboard shortcut that is Shift+! even though you can press that on your keyboard. The OS wouldn't be able to tell the difference between than and Shift+1. As a corollary, you couldn't rebind your keyboard such that Shift+1 outputs @ instead of !.
It's really just a classic case of bad abstraction. All the keyboard hardware does is scan rows and see which columns are also active. That gives you a grid position like (1,2) for "w". It is then forced to translate that to a scancode that it sends to the computer. The computer then sees that scancode and translates it to a letter. Obviously, things would be easier to program if the keyboard just emitted characters, or the OS just read key matrix grid positions. (In the first case, your X key would always be X, no matter what. Annoying for laptop users that want to use Dvorak, of course. In the second case, things like QMK wouldn't need to exist, you could just write a normal program running on your computer to add layers, shifting, tap dances, etc.)
The end result is that everything sucks. Isn't it always?
Reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24497839, there’s a keycap gap. “They” have more keys than “us”, so we must get even more, even though we already have more than we will ever need.
Hate to be that person, but I'm surprised people like mech keyboards. I ordered one, hated it so much, I actually decided to return it. Too loud, too much force required to type. My ideal keyboard is the low-profile laptop keyboard, especially the thinkpad one, the one before chiclet keys became a fad.
This is perfectly understandable—mechanical keyboards are certainly not for everyone. I’m in the same boat but for slightly different reasons (and my ideal keyboards are the ThinkPad one you described and the desktop Apple Magic Keyboard, which has a really satisfying key feel).
I think a lot of people in the mechanical keyboard community think of their keyboards as a hobby just as much as a day-to-day tool. The huge variety of key-switches and keycaps and firmwares and the much greater customization opportunities make mechanical keyboards a very good hobby. And, given the variety, it’s probably possible to find the “perfect” keyboard for everyone.
In the end, I was convincing myself that the expensive mechanical keyboard I bought was better than my ThinkPad and Mac keyboards, when I actually still prefer the laptop-style keys. Is there a mech keyboard out there somewhere that would be the perfect fit for me? I’m sure. But I don’t want to spend the time and money searching for it when my current preferred models work plenty well for me. I’d rather spend my resources in other ways.
There's certainly not just one type of mechanical keyboard. If noise is a problem, you likely had clicky switches or just a really noisy plate / keycaps. Yes, keycaps actually really determine a lot of the noise profile. XDA/DSA keycaps are pretty quiet.
Travel distance can also be adjusted, either with o-rings that are used as spacers (that also silence the switch), low profile switches (kailh has laptop-sized switches now) or simply finding a switch on which you wouldn't bottom out (either by making them heavier or by using tactiles with a light bump).
I have a 60% board with gateron yellows (mid-weight tier linear switches). Lubed and with double o-rings on the keycaps, it's one of the quietest keyboards I've ever owned, and the travel distance is very comfortable at about half of what these switches are intended to be (around 2mm).
If you're not much for building these things yourself and doing all the research, I can always recommend the HHKB.
There are different kinds of mechanical switches. Some of them much lighter than a typical membrane keyboard, so light in fact that you may accidentally press keys without realizing it. As for noisy keyboards, again, some switches can be noisy by design but others are silent.
As for profile, the ThinkPad keyboard is rather high profile for a laptop. I don't know of any low-profile mechanical keyboard but some switches have a short travel distance, ideal for gaming and fast typing.
BTW, the ThinkPad keyboard is available standalone if you like it. You may need to buy it secondhand if you want the original though.
This keyboard is clearly silly, but when it comes to normal mechanical keyboards... well, I can barely live without it now. Volume and necessary force do vary though, so what I like might not be very similar to what you didn't like.
I used to think this, but recently using a friend's long travel keyboard made me doubt my position - I typed unexpectedly quickly without any getting used to it. I suppose I'll have to try it out a bit more, but it was definitely pretty surprising to me.
To be honest I love "mech keyboards" not really because of the mechanical keys, but because people make them in so many customized sizes and colors. But there's not really a good term for this as far as I'm aware.
> Why are there >3 rows of Fn keys ? Are they all different? Or Are they placed so to quickly access ?
It looks like the creator just used whatever random keycaps he had. There are also duplicate arrow keys and duplicates from the navigation cluster (e.g. pgdown). The katakana(?) keys also look like they might be incomplete.
While were on the topic of keyboards, does anyone know of a good nkro keyboard that's small? I want something to lay on top of my dell xps 13 while I use it that's nkro.
I have an old IBM F122. A 122-key keyboard is pretty much peak keyboard when it comes to easily purchased commercial offerings. The smaller less sturdy sibling of the F122, the M122 (yes, M as in model M) can still be purchased relatively easy, but then you lose about a kilo of weight, nicer switches and N-key rollover. The prices for model F keyboards are bonkers today though.
Your option when it comes to a lot of keys (as the one posted here) is either to build it yourself or try to find some very specific offerings, maybe aimed at video production.
Look out for PS2 and a hard requirement to program them via a real PS2 (not a USB emulated port).
I've bought one (cherry switches sans keycaps), filled it with blank keycaps and now I need to put together some electronics to make it useful (it looks like it uses something like SPI internally).
But first, I'm stuck trying to remember why I thought it would be cool. Because it's just an 8x16 grid of switches.
Splitting a keyboard has ergonomic benefits. I don't see that "full keyboard for each hand" would be an advantage. One of the more popular split keyboards is the Corne Keyboard.
https://github.com/foostan/crkbd
ardy42|5 years ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20200916174120/https://relivesig...
The image itself: https://web.archive.org/web/20200916210058/https://doc-14-a0...
SippinLean|5 years ago
https://i.ibb.co/MgzRRbk/7.jpg https://i.ibb.co/dQqqtgB/2.jpg
mey|5 years ago
moron4hire|5 years ago
autocorr|5 years ago
Sincerely typed by someone on a 44 key layout :)
codezero|5 years ago
m463|5 years ago
sort of like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Frederik...
And they even have keys (modifier keys?) for their feet. They left that off the table (so to speak)
hmm... and maybe some sort of suspension system for your arms, so your arms could float over the keyboard sort of like monitor arms keep your monitor suspended in place but allow movement.
htfy96|5 years ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_Oracle_type-7_keybo...
SuperPaintMan|5 years ago
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9yg3s77nAMQ
kevin_thibedeau|5 years ago
jcrawfordor|5 years ago
I use it for things like having keys which jump directly to specific windows, keys which open various terminal types, and even macros for some common commands (Git operations for example).
I don't know that there's any good reason why this isn't more popular other than fashion, which means that an industry has not really built up around plus-sized keyboards like it has around smaller ones. My example was purchased used and was formerly used at a telephone operator's workstation, based on the key legends. There is a fairly robust used market for plus-sized keyboards originally used for specialty applications, mostly POS and dispatchers/radio operators, from companies like PrehKeyTec and Cherry (of the switches). Unfortunately they mostly cost $500+ new and still often demand over $100 used. The majority of these keyboards feature on-board macro programming, but are intended to be programmed in bulk by the vendor of some turnkey solution so the programming tools are a bit awkward (for me, use a GUI keymap editor, export a file, use a command line tool to flash the generated file to the keyboard - I think it actually just produces a full firmware image each time).
The only real disadvantage I would report is that the PrehKeyTecs are made with dome switches that feel decidedly mushy when they're old (and my used model is probably around a decade old). The Cherries use mechanical switches, of course, but tend to be more expensive and aren't made in as interesting of configurations IMO.
mindslight|5 years ago
c0nsumer|5 years ago
thkoli|5 years ago
notatoad|5 years ago
gameswithgo|5 years ago
notRobot|5 years ago
Markoff|5 years ago
reb|5 years ago
croddin|5 years ago
JazzXP|5 years ago
roywiggins|5 years ago
well, all the emojis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AtBE9BOvvk
russellbeattie|5 years ago
1) For some reason this thing gives me joy. Imagine sitting at work in front of one of these bad boy keyboards! You'd never get interrupted! People would assume you're running a battleship remotely or something!
2) It seems very Soviet. Or at least very 80s Anime - this is the keyboard we should all be using, only each key should light up in disco colors.
knaq|5 years ago
KajMagnus|5 years ago
codetrotter|5 years ago
All working together casting arcane spells with the aid of the keyboard.
Dialects of programming languages so old and obscure that even Cthulhu himself would flinch at the sight upon such seeing.
myself248|5 years ago
sexpositivepriv|5 years ago
https://japan.googleblog.com/2010/04/google.html
nullsense|5 years ago
na85|5 years ago
jrockway|5 years ago
For example, you can't have an ! key. That is always Shift+1 (with a US layout, that is). QMK and other firmwares will let you make an ! key, but it's implemented by pressing shift, then pressing 1. So you could never make a keyboard shortcut that is Shift+! even though you can press that on your keyboard. The OS wouldn't be able to tell the difference between than and Shift+1. As a corollary, you couldn't rebind your keyboard such that Shift+1 outputs @ instead of !.
It's really just a classic case of bad abstraction. All the keyboard hardware does is scan rows and see which columns are also active. That gives you a grid position like (1,2) for "w". It is then forced to translate that to a scancode that it sends to the computer. The computer then sees that scancode and translates it to a letter. Obviously, things would be easier to program if the keyboard just emitted characters, or the OS just read key matrix grid positions. (In the first case, your X key would always be X, no matter what. Annoying for laptop users that want to use Dvorak, of course. In the second case, things like QMK wouldn't need to exist, you could just write a normal program running on your computer to add layers, shifting, tap dances, etc.)
The end result is that everything sucks. Isn't it always?
dijit|5 years ago
Someone|5 years ago
myself248|5 years ago
tanseydavid|5 years ago
ecpottinger|5 years ago
fizixer|5 years ago
snazz|5 years ago
I think a lot of people in the mechanical keyboard community think of their keyboards as a hobby just as much as a day-to-day tool. The huge variety of key-switches and keycaps and firmwares and the much greater customization opportunities make mechanical keyboards a very good hobby. And, given the variety, it’s probably possible to find the “perfect” keyboard for everyone.
In the end, I was convincing myself that the expensive mechanical keyboard I bought was better than my ThinkPad and Mac keyboards, when I actually still prefer the laptop-style keys. Is there a mech keyboard out there somewhere that would be the perfect fit for me? I’m sure. But I don’t want to spend the time and money searching for it when my current preferred models work plenty well for me. I’d rather spend my resources in other ways.
sascha_sl|5 years ago
Travel distance can also be adjusted, either with o-rings that are used as spacers (that also silence the switch), low profile switches (kailh has laptop-sized switches now) or simply finding a switch on which you wouldn't bottom out (either by making them heavier or by using tactiles with a light bump).
I have a 60% board with gateron yellows (mid-weight tier linear switches). Lubed and with double o-rings on the keycaps, it's one of the quietest keyboards I've ever owned, and the travel distance is very comfortable at about half of what these switches are intended to be (around 2mm).
If you're not much for building these things yourself and doing all the research, I can always recommend the HHKB.
GuB-42|5 years ago
As for profile, the ThinkPad keyboard is rather high profile for a laptop. I don't know of any low-profile mechanical keyboard but some switches have a short travel distance, ideal for gaming and fast typing.
BTW, the ThinkPad keyboard is available standalone if you like it. You may need to buy it secondhand if you want the original though.
vcxy|5 years ago
solarkraft|5 years ago
TurplePurtle|5 years ago
varbhat|5 years ago
ardy42|5 years ago
It looks like the creator just used whatever random keycaps he had. There are also duplicate arrow keys and duplicates from the navigation cluster (e.g. pgdown). The katakana(?) keys also look like they might be incomplete.
swsieber|5 years ago
zadkey|5 years ago
bjoli|5 years ago
Your option when it comes to a lot of keys (as the one posted here) is either to build it yourself or try to find some very specific offerings, maybe aimed at video production.
afandian|5 years ago
Look out for PS2 and a hard requirement to program them via a real PS2 (not a USB emulated port).
I've bought one (cherry switches sans keycaps), filled it with blank keycaps and now I need to put together some electronics to make it useful (it looks like it uses something like SPI internally).
But first, I'm stuck trying to remember why I thought it would be cool. Because it's just an 8x16 grid of switches.
wonderfool|5 years ago
https://donutcables.com/products/scrabblepad-pcb-extras
babo|5 years ago
arvinsim|5 years ago
That is probably trivial to setup on conventional keyboards but I wonder if it is ergonomically better.
rgoulter|5 years ago
There are split keyboards with more keys than the Corne, such as the Lily58. https://github.com/kata0510/Lily58
nfoz|5 years ago
dyingkneepad|5 years ago
einpoklum|5 years ago
a_e_k|5 years ago
WesolyKubeczek|5 years ago
tanseydavid|5 years ago
stiglitz|5 years ago
dsr_|5 years ago
For ergonomics.
TurplePurtle|5 years ago
SuperPaintMan|5 years ago
parched|5 years ago
rixtox|5 years ago
mtVessel|5 years ago
EForEndeavour|5 years ago