Rationale:I have rather nasty RSI/OOS and it is made worse from having to contort my fingers to type, I have a Kinesis Advantage which helps quite a bit as I can move problem keys around until they are comfortable, but no matter how good my typing habits are my hands must be more horiztonal (parallel to desk) than vertical (right angle to desk).
I know of Kinesis also making a vertical keyboard, but that looks quite awkward to type on (in terms of wrist/elbow movement)
I have been thinking of a 'dream keyboard' that I would like to try, it would certainly allow my wrists to sit more naturally (rather than having to rotate to be parallel to the desk).
I have tried to make a keyboard before, I bought all the parts, designed the board and even started programming. In the end the hardest part was the physical case and the minute measurements trying to get the keys to line up, I eventually found an affordable second hand Kinesis and bought that instead of finishing my project.
Work so far:This time around though the board is much simpler, in fact it is currently looking like it will be made from polymer modelling 'clay'. I will be experimenting with this material to see if it possible to make the mounting plate out of this as well, otherwise I will consider harder plastics, wood or even a thing metal plate.
Here are some (blurry) prototypes using the cherry MX clears and ducky keycaps I had laying around from my last attempted project, I combined those with cardboard to simulate a plate and play-doh to take the place of the modeling clay and allow me to play around with different grip sections.
Apologies for the blurry photos, was in a rush as the camera was dying and the lighting is quite poor in here.
Where to:For now the design is currently made of 2 parts, the mounting plate where all the wiring will happen and a grip section, I plan to have one of these per hand (later versions may add thumb buttons).
Currently I have a cut out groove in the handle to allow the wiring to go between the plate and grip section.
I have ordered a Teensy 3.0 to serve as the brains for this, for now it will sit on a desk with wires dangling from each hand going to it.
I plan to have 1 per hand, each with 1 button per finger and hopefully 1 or 2 buttons for each thumb. I have thought of a few different schemes for chording, I will have to prototype a few of them and see which sticks.