Issue #138 - Keyboard Builders' Digest
Keyboard Builders' Digest // Issue #138
Check out this week's editorial with awesome projects, tips and ideas!
Hey y'all,
Here are some of the posts I thought were worth sharing this week:
- What's your favorite switch? We may know it. Milktooth's Kevin helps us to capture the zeitgeist and identify the most popular switches for mechanical keyboards based on real customer data. Let me know if this summary/format is something you find useful and we'll try to turn it into a series.
- History time! My latest acquisition is a pretty unique Hammond 2 typewriter from the 1890s. Full of crazy features, the non-QWERTY layout is probably the least peculiar of them.
- The Dilemma Max is an ergo split keyboard by Bastardkb -- with number row and trackpad. The board was announced on discord at the time of the interview, but Quentin wanted to give his community a headstard with preorders.
- The Gboard team is back with another weird input device: the portable and fashionable Gboard CAPS -- which is a functioning hat keyboard! I'm especially proud and grateful for Ikeji, part of the dev team, sending me a heads-up before/upon publishing the project. Only if I read my emails!
- Severin Meyer published Chrumm, a gorgeous unibody split with flexible PCB and fixed tenting.
- It turned out that RGBKB's split ortho Mün 2, mentioned last week, is now open hardware. Check out the repo.
- A handwired low-pro unibody keyboard by Joshua Chung: Flynn -- with case files.
- Protieusz made Alien Invader, a PCB with on-board RP2040 for Joe Scotto's originally handwired Scotto Invader.
- Shark's 4 years -- an article on the occasion of this extensive IBM knowledge base turning four. Well, a month ago, but I missed the DM.
- Software/Tools: cyanophage.github.io -- an online tool for comparing logical layouts. rumcake is a rust-based mechanical keyboard firmware by Univa. Some background in this r/mk post. And admwscki made a Via layout browser -- demo here.
- Tip: Stephen shared some of his experiences with the Glove80 travel case.
- Closed source/WIP: A beginner-friendly Preonic/Lumberjack style to-be-kit from Jerrin. Some files will be shared later. Hotswap 60% ortho with trackpad by le1ca. And Gennnki made a layered case / tenting dock for his Swoop.
For even more quick news and resources check out my weekly editorial write-up, MK meetup calendar and keyboard shop database -- with 500+ keyboard vendors, 100+ of them offering various discounts and coupons for you!
This issue’s supporters
splitkb.com, MoErgo Glove80, u/chad3814, Aiksplace, @keebio, Upgrade Keyboards, Cyboard, Sean Grady, @kaleid1990, Jacob Mikesell, Jason Hazel, KEEBD, cdc, kiyejoco, littlemer-the-second, ghsear.ch, u/motfalcon, Christian Lo, Bob Cotton, FFKeebs, @therick0996, Richard Sutherland, Joel Simpson, Lev Popov, Christian Mladenov, Daniel Nikolov, u/eighty58five, Schnoor Typography, Caleb Rand, Spencer Blackwood, Skyler Thuss, Yuan Liu, Mats Faugli, Benjamin Bell, James McCleese, TurtleKeebs, Ben M, Matthias Goffette, Ergohaven, Davidjohn Gerena, Hating TheFruit, Spencer Dabell, zzeneg, anonymous, Anatolii Smolianinov, Penk Chen, Clacky.
(You are awesome! Thanks everyone!)
Weekly keyboard art
Framed IBM Actionwriter advertisement posted by SelectiveDrop01.