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Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

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Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#191

Post by Tepix »

aemerson_ wrote: post #150
hamburglar wrote: post #146

This looks incredible but I’m skeptical you can actually produce it for $250 and maintain the level of quality and features that you claim. And it appears you’re offering $100 off of that (or is that the post discount price? It’s hard to tell). I guess I will wait and see.

We have spent a lot of time and effort finding manufacturing partners and ensuring they can produce Altar II at the scale and quality we require. In fact we have delayed announcing Altar II for a long time because we wanted to be absolutely certain it was manufacturable and shippable at our price points. Do also bear in mind the final retail price is $349. the $249 price is for early pre-orders only.

That‘s the same price as a Keyboardio Model 100 which is split, wooden and has sculpted RGB backlit keys. Whoah.

That said, big fan of that volume button!

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#192

Post by chicagobuss »

f311a wrote: post #117
naikrovek wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 years of professional programming and I touch "Home", "End", "PgUp", "PgDn", "Ins", and "Del" every single day.

You can do this using fn button, without moving your hand every time you need to press them. It's very convenient, when your hand don't move at all and can reach every button.

It's also very convenient to not have to remember a bunch of extra combos or perform the gymnastics to press them, especially if you need other modifiers too like shift+pgup, shift+ctrl+pageup, etc

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#193

Post by mft_ »

swingboy wrote: post #97

Great looking keyboard but why are the numbers on the number keys so large? They stick out like a sore thumb.

It reminds me a little of the large number keys (directly underneath the screen) on the original OP-1:

https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1/original

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#194

Post by nxc18 »

I agree that some aspects of the design are disagreeable, but it was an instant buy for me anyway.

I loved the idea of mechanical keyboards and tactile feel; etc etc. But I type faster on Magic Keyboard. Being able to have both is potentially a dream come true. Even if it falls short, I want to financially reward the effort.

But I am also very interested in the haptics - I like the haptics on Magic Trackpad and would like to see that part of the system advance further.

For context, since it is such an underused feature, on Magic Trackpad allows haptic feedback for non-force touch actions; key examples are snapping in pages/keynote and the snap-to-north on two finger rotate in maps.

There is a bug where this only works for internal trackpads on macOS Tahoe.

I can’t wait to try this keyboard.

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#195

Post by m463 »

I hate what apple did with the keyboard. They set a bad example with flat keys.

They used to have slightly sculpted keys, where your fingers could find the keys and self-center, leading to accurate typing.

But typical apple - thin is the target - and everyone follows

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#196

Post by waffletower »

GZGavinZhao wrote: post #6

Opened the site, thought it was teenage engineering... Which is a compliment to me, because I always love their designs! Unfortunately as a HHKB user I'm not a fan of low profile keyboards otherwise I would've bought this.

It couldn't have been Teenage Engineering: the keyboard was priced less than $999

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#197

Post by ebastler »

rxyz wrote: post #100

What a beautiful device. Few questions: Will it be okay for someone who switches between devices and OSes often? Can I have layers that I can swap between like on a VIA board? What is the click latency? Is USB just for charging or can I use it without BT?

The board runs ZMK, which handles layers quite similarly to QMK/VIA. Whether you can bind dedicated layers to output profiles for automated switching in ZMK I do not know, but toggling between layers manually via some shortcut when you switch between devices works for sure.

There is a video by one of the ZMK team members where he tested ZMK latency (wired and wireless) against other options on the market - it is, however, fairly dated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWL4nU-vtWs

The USB port allows for wired operation while charging. The fact that some products refuse to do this still bothers me (cough MX Master 3).

Re: Show HN: I spent 2 years designing a mechanical Magic Keyboard

#200

Post by litoE »

In the 1980s a company called Quotron developed a contactless keyboard. The main circuit board contained a bunch of LEDs and some sort of photo diodes or photo cells, all arranged in a grid. The keys were simply plungers that when pressed down interrupted the light beams shining into some of the receivers. The firmware then decided which key had been pressed and generated the appropriate code. The keyboard itself was huge. Us software people used to joke that, in a pinch, it could be used as a surfboard.

One of the advantages was that you could pour a cup of coffee into the keyboard and it would just keep working.

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