This board is currently just an idea that I hope to quickly get into prototyping.
The
Atreus and its big brother the
Atreus62 are excellent boards that give column stagger and thumb cluster typing without moving all the way to an Ergodox. I've greatly enjoyed the Atreus62 I own and want to add a new feature to the design - tenting.
The idea is pretty obvious. Cut the thing in half and put a hinge in the middle. This gives tenting and can also allow the board to fold fully in half for easier travel. Even if you don't like tenting, if you love your ergodox but can't travel with it easily this can be an excellent travel board. Additionally, a box can be cut for the folded board.
Challenges that will be faced:
1. How to get signal between the halves? First option is a ribbon or some form of cable between the two halves with a way to protect the cable as it jumps the middle. Second option is to run some sort of wire or signal through the hinge itself, so that the middle can be made prettier and more easily.
2. How to hold an angle in the hinge. This is likely solved by getting a nice hinge.
3. How thin can I make the case? If I'm having this folded together for travel I want it to get pretty thin.
4. Can I design the travel box so that I can split it and have each half as a wristrest?
Small changes from the base Atreus:
1. Fix the column stagger. The innermost column shouldn't be staggered because it's still being used by the index finger, same as the 2nd innermost column. Thus, both columns should be at the same stagger.
2. Tweak the thumb cluster. I want to see if I can get another key in there.
I also hope to use what I learn from building this to make a similar design for the Planck/Let's Split (Let's Tent?) and potentially a normal layout board as well.