geekhack

geekhack Community => New Members => Topic started by: william on Sat, 29 December 2012, 13:45:59

Title: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: william on Sat, 29 December 2012, 13:45:59
hey everybody.
 like the title implies, i'm just starting my journey, but i'm working towards building a custom keyboard. i've only been designing layouts so far, so i've got a very long way to go. i'm wanting to get involved in the community early, in hope of some of you clever types might help prevent me from running with nonsense ideas for too long.

but anyway, here is my layout i am currently using:
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/williambeepbeep/FrequencyDvorak_zps8256bd2b.png)

and here is the keyboard (in its current state) that i am hoping to eventually build out:
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y296/williambeepbeep/keyboardmockup_zpse15f971a.png)
pretty much copped the humblehacker layout here, just a few changes.

looking forward to meeting everyone and continuing to learn from these forums.
william
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: jdcarpe on Sat, 29 December 2012, 14:01:11
You should take a look at the ErgoDox project.

Link here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=22780

Oh, and Welcome to Geekhack!
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: rowdy on Sat, 29 December 2012, 16:30:37
Welcome to Geekhack!
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: william on Sat, 29 December 2012, 18:39:55
thank you sirs, and thanks for the link; i will check it out.
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: The_Beast on Sat, 29 December 2012, 18:57:12
This may not be exactly what you're looking for but maybe a Tipro might work for you

(http://www.posmarket.com.au/photos/Tipro-TPM-AM-KM128A-B.jpg)


100% programmable
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: CPTBadAss on Sat, 29 December 2012, 19:46:53
How'd you come about using that layout? It's pretty exotic. Also, welcome fellow GH newbie ^_^
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: william on Sun, 30 December 2012, 12:49:49
I might have to keep an eye out for one of those Tipros. I don't think I would ever be able to justify the price of a new one though.

I'm still rearranging keys, but the main ideas behind the layout I'm working on is to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome and have key groupings that are more logical to my brain. I spent a few days with Dvorak, and while I liked a few aspects of it, a good bit of it made no sense to me. I switched to Colemak after that, which I like and am typing this response with, but i feel like its similarities to QWERTY actually make learning and switching between the two layouts more difficult for me. I want an optimized layout that makes no concessions to QWERTY, and this is where I am at with that right now. Still need to account for bigrams (common letter sequences) and I might like W to be more accessible.
Title: Re: starting on the path towards building my own keyboard
Post by: CPTBadAss on Mon, 31 December 2012, 00:59:48
I might have to keep an eye out for one of those Tipros. I don't think I would ever be able to justify the price of a new one though.

I'm still rearranging keys, but the main ideas behind the layout I'm working on is to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome and have key groupings that are more logical to my brain. I spent a few days with Dvorak, and while I liked a few aspects of it, a good bit of it made no sense to me. I switched to Colemak after that, which I like and am typing this response with, but i feel like its similarities to QWERTY actually make learning and switching between the two layouts more difficult for me. I want an optimized layout that makes no concessions to QWERTY, and this is where I am at with that right now. Still need to account for bigrams (common letter sequences) and I might like W to be more accessible.

Cool, I'm worried about carpal tunnel as well but I don't think I want to re-learn something else besides QWERTY. I'm trying to use better ergonomics instead: better posture, better setup, better rests. But this is a really cool project. Glhf!