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geekhack Community => Ergonomics => Topic started by: grubnatius on Thu, 21 January 2021, 20:17:52

Title: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: grubnatius on Thu, 21 January 2021, 20:17:52
The Oddball Keyboard

[attachimg=1]
Version 2

[attachimg=2]
Version 1

I shared this around a few places, but thought it'd be good to document on geekhack. I've finished my second build/version of my design, following up from one I made earlier in 2020, which I dubbed the Oddball.

Features

Links
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: jamster on Thu, 21 January 2021, 20:59:46
That's brilliant- great colour scheme and overall theme too!

I am surprised that you get by with so few thumb keys. Guessing that one of the left thumbs is a layer activation key, but is there another somewhere else?
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: grubnatius on Thu, 21 January 2021, 21:54:09
...

I am surprised that you get by with so few thumb keys. Guessing that one of the left thumbs is a layer activation key, but is there another somewhere else?

Yep, you guessed it, layer 1 on the left thumb, layer 2 on the right. I've changed it slightly since this pic, but the basic layout is:

(https://atulloh.github.io/oddball/assets/images/layout.png)
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: jamster on Fri, 22 January 2021, 05:21:22
Interesting to see that your Fn and number(pad) keys do not overlap at all.
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 22 January 2021, 06:34:28
Impressive that you can get by with to few keys, your mapping looks crazy to me (alt on home row over backspace, space outside ; and gaps between home end pg up and down for a start) but you have your reasons no doubt.

Looks great too :thumb:
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: jamster on Fri, 22 January 2021, 08:01:24
Huh, Enter is on a layer... I've got two thumb-actuated Enter keys and use both.
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: ergonaut on Fri, 22 January 2021, 08:07:56
It looks absolutely glorious, well done!

For my own taste, there's way too few thumb keys, but as long as it works for you...
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: grubnatius on Wed, 27 January 2021, 07:48:41
Huh, Enter is on a layer... I've got two thumb-actuated Enter keys and use both.

It looks absolutely glorious, well done!

For my own taste, there's way too few thumb keys, but as long as it works for you...

Yep, seems a common opinion people bring up. The code is pretty easy to tweak, so I'm thinking of generating some files with 3 thumb keys on the left and 2 on the right, and adding the files to the repo.
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: kurplop on Wed, 27 January 2021, 11:33:06
Very nice and unique design. Well executed.
Title: Re: Oddball - a split keyboard with trackball
Post by: darryldh on Tue, 16 March 2021, 09:14:36
love this board so much!