Left and right-handed Maltron keyboards (brief review and pictures) (Update)

[Snarfangel]

First, the Maltron is very, very light. It doesn't really feel flimsy -- no noticeable flex or wiggle under normal handling -- just very light. It may be because it takes up a fair amount of volume, and you expect it to be heavier.

Second, the caps are kind of thin -- certainly compared to my Unicomp -- and I miss the buckling-spring action. But all the keys work. A couple squeak, though, which is odd.

For the good part -- the shape is very, very good. If you could put heavier keycaps and buckling springs (though how those work horizontally, I'm not sure), that would be amazing. Seriously, I can see why those with carpal tunnel (or don't want to get it) use these keyboards.

As for the internal wiring -- I don't know why Maltron didn't use the diodes (at least, I think that's what the contacts were). Maybe they had a sunk cost in the existing design, and didn't want to spend money on an updated controller when this worked fine for the usual purpose.

So, now to pictures:

Top of black, left-handed, USB Maltron in all its glory.


Cherry MX Brown switch.


Back of keyboard showing label and the back of the bright yellow function keys.


Bottom of keyboard, showing DIP switches and reset button (I think -- it didn't come with a manual).


Inside of keyboard -- look at all of the wires! Magnet wire galore, wired point-to-point. Note, if you open this up, be careful -- the controller board is attached to the bottom panel (sorry for the dust -- I just got it, and you are looking at it about 15 seconds after I opened it):


Inside of keyboard, close up. You can see the soldering, and what appear to be the ends of diodes that don't go anywhere. I'm not sure why they didn't use them with the appropriate controller to make it an even better keyboard, but oh well.


Controller card. The big chip is apparently a Maltron version of something. I'm not much of a chip guy. If that's a date on it, it appears to have been made in 2012 (Dec. 4th, if they use day-month-year format).


Another chip, though I have no clue what it is:


Hope this satisfies people's curiousity (I know I was curious before I bought it). If anyone would like a picture of something that doesn't involve potential damage to it -- since I want to see if I can try it with a right-handed model just for fun -- let me know.

Note, I had to edit this a few times -- it really did *not* want me to upload pictures. Maybe it was timing out because I didn't bother to shrink the image size from my camera.

[Snarfangel]

I received the right-hand Maltron today, and here are my first impressions.

First, it's considerably older than the left side -- 15 years difference between the two, and it has a 5-pin DIN rather than a USB plug. The DIN plugs into a PS/2 converter switch which a previous user tried to attach to a PS/2 to USB plug (the person I bought it from said that didn't work, which doesn't surprise me in the slightest). When I have some time, I will plug the PS/2 plug into my computer, reboot, and see it's detected.

Second, it feels marginally heavier than the left side.  The keys are Cherry black rather than brown (like the left side), so I like the heavier keys a bit better. No squeaks, either.

One of the more interesting things I discovered was that a previous owner was definitely a touch-typist. I can tell that because of little adhesive Braille markers on the letter keys. Okay, so that is a bad joke. Anyway, the unit looked well taken-care off, and except for a crack near the cord was in pretty good condition. Oh, and many of the keycaps were heavily yellowed, but hey, that happens, and I'll probably replace them anyway.

So now to the pictures:

Top of right keyboard. The shininess on some of the keys is from the adhesive Braille stickers.


Cherry blacks.  The Braille label appears to be a kind of tape, like thick scotch tape with bumps on it. Sadly, those are going to go when I clean the keys.


The DIN 5 pin to PS/2 converter/switch.


The side of the converter thing.


The plug itself.


Looking inside the DIN-PS/2 converter


The crack I mentioned near the cable.


The back of the Maltron with the label.


The bottom of the Maltron, with a reset button and a cool rainbow DIP switch.


Inside the keyboard. It's surprisingly clean.


Close-up of inside. Notice the lack of diode wires that were seen in the left side.


Initials and date of the  person who wired it, I think.


Controller board.


Both Maltrons together. Should be fun to set them up together. Even though that would technically make them a split keyboard, though, the number of keys between them makes any further separation unlikely. Still pretty neat, if you ignore the lack of color coordination.

If anyone has any questions, I'll be happy to try to answer.

[kurplop]

Thanks for posting all of the pictures. You have to appreciate the somewhat unique place Maltron has occupied in the keyboard world. A bit of old fashioned manufacturing with an innovative design.

How do you like typing on it? Did you buy it for your collection or do you think you will use it?

[Snarfangel]

Thanks for posting all of the pictures. You have to appreciate the somewhat unique place Maltron has occupied in the keyboard world. A bit of old fashioned manufacturing with an innovative design.

How do you like typing on it? Did you buy it for your collection or do you think you will use it?

I like the shape of it, and how little effort it takes  to reach all of the keys. It really is a well thought-out design (trying it out, I caught myself thinking "You know, that top row is a bit of a stretch," but then realized that I had essentially an entire keyboards within reach of a finger).

 As for the key feeling, I still prefer my clicky buckling springs version, but I think I will see if I can map the keys to a usable format -- QWERTY would seem a bit of a waste -- and try to use it here at home.

[Snarfangel]

The previous owner thought the right hand keyboard didn't work, but I am typing on it right now via PS/2 connection. Shouldn't daisy chain!

PS It's hard, not being used to the one-handed format!

[andCoffee]

Have you tried putting the caps on a regular Cherry board?  I'm very curious what they'd look like.

[vivalarevolución]

So have you tracked your words per minute yet?

[Snarfangel]

So have you tracked your words per minute yet?

Very slow.

I want to remap the keys so I can use both together, if possible. Right now, I am trying to retr0brite  the old ABS keys on the right handed keyboard first.

I probably should take a picture with all of the keycaps (except the function keys) removed. You can really see how the keyboard is formed. Let me pull out my camera.

[Snarfangel]

Let's see if these post.



I haven't cleaned the unit yet, and I see one of the adhesive Braille stickers came off. Also, all of the Cherry switches appear to be upside down!

[dragon788]

Glad to see somebody else was fascinated by the one handers as well. I picked up one each of the left and right off eBay as I am growing increasingly frustrated while waiting on my Infinity ErgoDox to ship and looking for ergo alternatives (I also have a Kinesis Classic on order).

[vivalarevolución]

From what I have heard, the one-hand Maltron looks great in theory, but is more difficult in practice.

[dragon788]

I really haven't had too much trouble using the right hand one with my tablet and PC and picking up the layout. The big thing I had to do was print out the keymap so I can "feel" where the keys are instead of lifting my hand and losing my "place" on the home row.

I'm also adding this and a left hand version to keyboard-layout-editor.com. http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/a2ea329dc948b6af49dc

[Snarfangel]

I really haven't had too much trouble using the right hand one with my tablet and PC and picking up the layout. The big thing I had to do was print out the keymap so I can "feel" where the keys are instead of lifting my hand and losing my "place" on the home row.

I'm also adding this and a left hand version to keyboard-layout-editor.com. http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/a2ea329dc948b6af49dc

That is awesome work!

[dragon788]

Thanks! To be fair, I emailed them and requested the old PS/2 manuals since their site is in a state of flux and they changed things around for the newer models. They obliged and sent me a similar manual to the hand bound one I received with my left hand unit, but the correct layout instead of the letter layer twice.  )

I worked mostly off the manual as it had a good 2D representation of the layout, but did have to tweak a couple things and look at my pictures as their separate layer images didn't show the legends to scale. Overall in happy with how it turned out. Next I might have to father the different kinesis layouts and update the layout site with all the options.