Want to know the crazy part? This is the version after TWO rounds of value-engineering. The Model B and Model F are both a good bit more robust than these Model M’s, and these last forever. The older boards are more rare due to less compatibility and a smaller computer market in general when they were released.
Half the fun of using a nice keyboard is that it’s loud AF. I love my keyboard peeps, but I do not get the obsession with trying to make them sound all lovely and quiet. “Slightly quieter” is a compromise to be grudgingly tolerated if you have to work around others, nothing more.
VIVA LOS CLICKYS!
So, am I reading your linked keymap right? Chording in two axes, 4 layers (in addition to Shift, Ctrl, etc.), and several keys using tap-hold?
I am incredibly impressed. Have you considered becoming a multi-instrumentalist?
They’re proper replacements. Unicomp, which still makes full size and TKL Model M’s, sells replacement keytops.
I got this “Display Station” terminal board for cheap on eBay because it was a later model, a little bit dirty, RJ-45 instead of PS/2, no indicator LEDs, and missing 4 keytops. It’s still a buckling spring beast, though. Someday it might need a bolt mod, but for now it’s only lost a few of the plastic rivets and still works perfectly.
The joke of this board is that the “QAZ” layout is not uncommon in “40%” and smaller keyboard, but leaves the user with extra keycaps. Most folks who would try using this board would configure it so that “Esc,” “Tab,”, and left “Shift” do Q, A, and Z respectively. The whimsical keys on the right would be for macros, navigation, or whatever the individual prefers, though IIRC @cloffwrangler@lemmy.world tried it with them mapped to the letters, like the mad lad he is. :-)
DSA drifters
Had to look that one up myself. I can’t think of anything in particular that would keep them from re-running it, unless it’s maybe something to do with the licensed IP from the game? Also, DSA seems to be a bit out of fashion for the collectors, though it looks like TheKeyCompany already ran it once in KAT profile.
I support people working to get the stuff they like made for small runs, and understand that those runs will sort of necessarily be higher priced, based on the small number of companies willing and able to do community designs at reasonable minimum-order-quantities. There’s still a point for me though, where the rewards and loyalty that are expected can feel a little naive, and that’s all I’m saying. Hell, a lot of time it’s not even the designers themselves (especially veteran designers), but rather gatekeepers within the broader hobbyist community.
They’re by no means good
I would also say they’re (mostly) by no means bad. For me, keycaps get into the area of diminishing returns very quickly. If some iffy kerning on Caps Lock bothers someone that much, then they should do what they need to, but it’s not hard for me to find sufficiently durable and attractive keycaps at a good price these days.
Also, while I try to avoid cloned novelties, I have fairly little sympathy for designers trying to assert some sort of moral claim to colorways, often colorways where they were already adapting existing vintage boards. By all means make as much money as you can from the channels who want to be first to market and work with you. Or sometimes, the only way to get a certain profile is to go through the vendors who own the molds; that’s cool too.
Pink and green Enter keys, however, do not obligate anyone to pay GMK prices.
This was either due to poor QC or, more likely, damage I caused when trying to foolishly force the switches into my PCB.
Might be a bit from Column A, a bit from Column B. I’ve done some pretty awful things to switches in my DIY journey, mostly in the vein of putting them into plates they shouldn’t be in, but I haven’t managed to affect the functionality.
I am personally comfortable with this particular process, but the point is well taken. I am running a 5W diode laser at 2% power on material that I am confident is PBT, a polyester-based plastic. It’s open frame, but in a large garage with a decent sized fan directing airflow away from me. No zapping PVC here, or even any intentional material removal. The color comes from an infusible ink marker.
I guess there are probably multiple schools of thought on that, right? Some people would be so locked into their muscle memory that it would be aggravating. For some other people, typing is kind of like playing an instrument and they have that mental plasticity where knowing one “instrument” helps them adapt quickly to a new one. Mentally, I type very much as a hybrid activity blending hand-eye coordination and muscle memory. I can type reasonably well on a non-split ortho, by my standards, but it doesn’t feel better. Splits mess with my head and give me whiplash though, because nothing is anywhere near where it’s supposed to be, purely in my physical field of vision, and the centerline has always been sort of a vague suggestion for me.
You could well adapt very quickly. MicroCenter in the US sells a pretty cheap Planck, and KPRepublic has some reasonably priced ones that go bigger.
Conceptually, I love it, and I’m subbed to !ergomechkeyboards@lemmy.world but I never learned to touch type properly, so their charms are wasted on me. I even made two handwired ones to try it out (a Planck with an extra column and an ill-considered fixed-wire split that demands either a full 1u pinkie column stagger or none at all), and it turns out I like building more than I like practicing typing. I plug the planck in from time to time when working on something that’s normally headless, but I have grown fond of trundling along at 60-70 wpm on these slightly cursed 1800 variations.
Actually making another one wouldn’t be all that hard. I did a somewhat low-profile numpad that’s basically half of an ortho split anyway.
If you really meant SDA and not DSA, then you may have lucked out. SDA is sculpted, and such profiles can be notoriously tricky to fit to ergo/ortho/weird boards.
XDAL looks to be just the top 75% or so of XDA, so more similar in height to DSA but with the top surface of XDA. Frankly, while I find XDA’s keytops a teensy bit large, I find DSA to go a bit too far in the other direction, and if forced to pick one or the other, I’d go XDA. XDA molds spread so quickly among clone makers that it became an unfashionable choice, but they’re wonderfully versatile and easy to source.
Your keycaps in particular work well with the profile and your build. I like them.
For sound, apart from clicky, keyboard and keycaps will have more of an effect on sound, particularly if, like most people, you bottom out while typing. The operational bits of both tactile and linear switches are not inherently all that noisy, though over time people can definitely hear a difference. For “thock,” thick PBT keycaps and a board with lots of foam should be a decent start. The terms are notoriously variable though, and Hipyo, fun as he is, is not trying to wow anybody with acoustic science. Stuff the case with, well, stuff (or, these days, buy a board where the factory already has), and you’ll get a fairly flat, deep sound profile that is not unpleasant.
Or so I am told, LOL. WTF do I know? I love big dumb loud clickies, the heavier the better.
Time to give a mini-hacker-space class!
Yeah, your average rubber dome membrane keyboard is a mushy and awful version of a tactile typing experience. The office clearing noisy board that some people think of when mechanical keyboards are mentioned is a clicky.
The linear don’t have any specific bump you just push and the spring resists and eventually the switch makes a connection and sends the key press.
We could wait for OP, but Lily 58 would be my guess.
What kind of board are they going in? Tall, thick-walled, and spherical doesn’t often go with shinethrough, but it can happen. On the budget end, the “QX SA” that goes by several names can be had in a translucent pudding-esque style. I reckon the blend is mostly ABS though, regardless of what the Amazon listing says.
I’ve done a couple of boards worth of lasering dye-sublimation markers into PBT keycaps. It comes out pretty nice, and blanks from Amazon or AliExpress are cheap.
Should I avoid mentioning the modern Model F repros? LOL.
TBF, while I do have a ten year old Unicomp, and it’s perfectly lovely despite pre-dating their improved molds, I haven’t tried a modern Model F, or indeed used any Model F in at least twenty years.