I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard • Hacker News Board

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#161

Post by Eric_WVGG » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:34 PM UTC

alexdbird wrote: post #69

layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

That's a standard compact Mac layout, so muscle memory will work fine for Mac users. Maybe Fn is elsewhere for the PC one, but I detect a tiny bias in the website. Whilst I always used a full keyboard with a PC, for the reasons you give, the Mac has practically all of those things mapped to cursors + meta keys so your hands don't need to move from the normal typing position. I now see the extended bit of the full key…

A lot of Mac users are going to be pretty used to TouchID by now, unfortunately

I wonder if that could be partially mitigated through the use of a dedicated space for a YubiKey

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#162

Post by ricokatayama » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:34 PM UTC

it looks like if teenage engineering created a keyboard. great job

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#163

Post by layer8 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:34 PM UTC

Lendal wrote: post #144

layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

There's a lot of wasted space on the right side of this keyboard where they could have easily put the Del/PgUp/PgDn keys right there. I don't know why they didn't.

I suspect they need that space to house the internal electronics like the keyboard controller.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#164

Post by SamuelAdams » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:35 PM UTC

christophilus wrote: post #132

D13Fd wrote: post #105

Thoughts: - Excellent job - The font choices are bold. They don’t appeal to me personally, but nice job. - The sunk/raised key caps look nice but I’m not sure how they would perform in practice. - I couldn’t tell from the website what the second switch on the site does. Maybe USB/Bluetooth? - My strong preference is a key command for switching from Bluetooth/USB, and that the keyboard keep both active for instant swi…

I like the idea of indented keys as a clear sensory differentiator. It’s a nice nudge to tell you, “You’re in the right spot.” Same for the pronounced bump on the home row. The switch is to choose between one of two Bluetooth devices. I agree the placement of the USB label was confusing there.

True but if this keyboard is your daily driver those sunk keys are going to get dirty quickly and cleaning them well would be more difficult than a simple flat key with a small tactile bump.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#165

Post by ghosty141 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

leohonexus wrote: post #68

Beautiful, but it’ll be a pain to find contract manufacturers willing to do that keycap design. From the render I can already count 8 different injection molds required, which doesn’t sound feasible for a low-volume production run. You'd either have to price it very aggressively or be advised by your manufacturers during DFM to use standard low-profile keycaps instead. For folks curious about keyboard manufacturing,…

There is already a prototype with these keycaps so I guess he did find somebody already. The price will be…. Interesting though

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#166

Post by antics9 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:36 PM UTC

Beautiful work and aesthetics!

Please design a keyboard that one can reprogram the keys directly on the hardware (caps to ctrl and the like).

Also where you can program macros and save them into profiles. That way, emacs keys would work everywhere.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#167

Post by MattRix » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:37 PM UTC

It looks like Teenage Engineering made a keyboard… which is not really a bad thing.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#168

Post by layer8 » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:38 PM UTC

alexdbird wrote: post #69

layer8 wrote: post #35

Everyone is different, but personally I won’t buy a keyboard without separate Delete and Backspace keys, without Home/End/PgUp/PgDn/Insert keys, and without a dedicated Menu key [0], for any kind of serious work. I’d also imagine that one is prone to bump into the rotary knob if one is not fully conditioned to that keyboard. I applaud the T-shaped cursor block and the full-sized function keys, although it would be us…

That's a standard compact Mac layout, so muscle memory will work fine for Mac users. Maybe Fn is elsewhere for the PC one, but I detect a tiny bias in the website. Whilst I always used a full keyboard with a PC, for the reasons you give, the Mac has practically all of those things mapped to cursors + meta keys so your hands don't need to move from the normal typing position. I now see the extended bit of the full key…

Right. I use a left-handed mouse due to RSI, so 100% keyboards are not a problem for me, and moving my hands around a bit rather than using chords also helps with the RSI. It also reduces the complexity of chords when using keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+Shift+PgUp, or NumPad-specific keyboard shortcuts (like Ctrl+NumPad-“+” to auto-fit columns in grid views, or Ctrl+NumPad-“*” to expand all subfolders), which I do a lot.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#169

Post by detritus » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #48

This comment section is full of people complaining about a 70% keyboard not being a full-size keyboard, but that is what makes it a 70% keyboard. If it doens't fit your preferences or use-case then you are not the customer but it seems bizarre to focus so much on the sizing.

I for one am not complaining, but responding with my thoughts, as requested.

Re: I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard

#170

Post by anotheryou » Thu, Aug 18, 2022, 12:39 PM UTC

Hi, looks amazing!

I want to love the kaihl low profile chocs, but after testing the brown ones I still prefer rubber dome. Did you have the chance to try the new sunset ones? From what I read I'd give them another chance (https://splitkb.com/products/sunset-kailh-low-profile-choc-s...)

also any chance for a future ortho version?