I've fancied Sun equipment since my teens, including their unix layout keyboards, though I had never owned one. Once I got into tenkeyless mechanical boards, I decided to skip the Sun boards altogether. Still, I couldn't pass up this beauty for $3. It's a Sun type 7 USB PC layout board.
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Note that the control and Caps lock are identically sized and interchangeable.
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Note the controller in the middle....
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IBM model M backplate on top, Sun type 7 backplate on bottom.
It's a rubber dome board with a thin steel backplate and a gentle curve to it. It curves almost as much as a Model M, excluding the function key row. The contour of the keys is provided solely by the backplate; the keys themselves are the same profile.
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Sun type 7 key profile: F1, 1, Q, A, Z, Compose
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Filco Majestouch 1 keys for comparison: F1, 1, Q, A, Z
Since I had to open it up for cleaning anyway, I did what any normal, well adjusted geekhacker with a concern for mousing ergonomics would do: I chopped off the numpad with a hacksaw.
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It comes with a built-in mousepad! :)
Unsatisfied with my trackball sliding around on the built-in "mousepad", I folded the membrane layers under the bottom of the board.
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Now I wasn't quite happy with how the board sat on the desk with the membrane underneath, so I excised all that wasn't absolutely necessary to complete a circuit back to the controller, applied packing tape between layers, and rolled it in a sort of "fruit-rollup" fashion and shoved it into the case.
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It was a little tight getting everything back together, but it worked. It's a lot neater without any membrane hanging out of the board, at the cost of the right arrow key requiring a bit more force to register. All other keys functioned just as before.
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The final result.
The key action is smooth and requires little pressure to actuate, and I find it rather comfortable to type on. The gentle curve of the board is also rather pleasant, and since the contour is not ruined by rearranging keycaps on this board, I took the opportunity to configure it for Colemak. While key labelling is irrelevant for [touch] typing, it's still a nice feature which I wish more boards had.
I absolutely love having a couple of columns of shortcut keys on the left, most of which I mapped to multimedia functions. Some would argue that the function key row should serve this purpose, but many apps use the function keys, so I think some additional shortcut keys and system-reserved keys are in order. I don't particularly mind using combos to for example change the volume, but having dedicated full-size keys is really nice. Also, the extra columns [almost] center the main alpha cluster on the board, making it a bit more symmetrical. If Filco made something like this, that would be pretty bad-ass! :)
Ultimately I was unsatisfied with the downgraded functionality of the right arrow key, and gave this board to a friend who wants to try to learn Colemak also.
