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geekhack Community => Keyboard Keycaps => Topic started by: Entropia on Thu, 15 February 2018, 08:42:04
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Is there any reason, apart from tradition, for the associations: spherical keycaps = central alignment; cylindrical keycaps = top left corner. I've always loved the way centered legends look, but I have not seen them often on cylindrical keycaps.
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Short answer: no; the reasons are purely historic in nature.
Longer answer: after IBM established the de facto industry standard for desktop computer keyboards in 1981, nobody saw the economic benefits of doing anything that made their hardware look different from the Model M/F design. It's 35+ years later and the corner-legend aesthetic has embedded itself so deeply in the psyches of cylindrical keycap users that I don't think anyone can even picture cylindricals with centered legends without extreme discomfort from cognitive dissonance.
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The few companies that make Mac-specific mechanical keyboards do put centered legends on cylindrical keys. I have a Varmilo VA-108Mac and a Mistel Sleeker that both have centered legends on cylindrical keycaps, and they look great. I don't know why more companies don't do that for their PC-centric keyboards.
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A lot of aspects of the keycap industry seem to be pure tradition. Why can't I get spherical keycaps in Cherry profile? Certainly there's no technical reason for it. That's just not how it's done though...
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The corners reflect which modifier key(s) you use to get that symbol or function.
Bottom/Left: No modifier
Top/Left: Shift
Symbols on the bottom/right and top/right are accessed through the Alt Graph key (many European layouts) or in a special mode (that's how IBM's Japanese layouts work, if I understand it right).
In European layouts:
Bottom/Right: Alt Graph
Top/Right: Shift + Alt Graph
Keys with legends that are centred vertically do not take modifiers. This includes the modifier keys themselves, Enter, Caps Lock etc.
The Tab key is a special case, in that the textual legend "Tab" (when present) is centred vertically but the symbols for Tab and Back-Tab are at the bottom/left and top/left respectively.
Then there are keyboards that break the convention for stylistic reasons ... or because the designer is dumb and does not understand it. (Which is why there is a "↹" symbol in Unicode :rolleyes:)
Then there are Japanese conventions that put glyphs not in corners but left (centred vertically), top (centred horizontally), etc.
However, I believe that the origin of the convention started not from thoughtful design but as a stylistic choice for the DEC LK-201 terminal keyboard where most legends were adjusted to the top/left. The DEC terminals were very influential at the time. For instance, the LK-201 also introduced the inverted-T cursor key layout and nav cluster in-between the main and numeric clusters -- which IBM copied for the Model M keyboard.
The LK-201 did actually have spherical key tops. Why most keyboards since the Model F have had cylindrical key tops is because they copied IBM and because manufacturers went from expensive double-shot moulding to various forms of printing and it is much easier to print on cylindrical keys.
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Why can't I get spherical keycaps in Cherry profile? Certainly there's no technical reason for it.
I'm not sure what you mean there, but "Cherry profile" is, by definition today, cylindrical and can't be spherical. That's like asking why can't I get cylindrical keycaps in SA profile?
Having said that, there was a time when Cherry made spherical keycaps much like SP's DSS profile, but those died out long ago. I doubt anyone still has those molds anymore. As far as I know, GMK--being the only remaining maker of Cherry profile keycaps today that I'm aware of--doesn't have spherical molds, and probably sees no compelling reason to invest in making any.
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SP's DSS profile would be closer to OEM profile in height and DCS profile in contour once SP resumes production of them.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=93584.msg2550955#msg2550955
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The center legends are the primary reason I like spherical keycaps, especially since you can get cylindrical caps with scooped F and J keys now.
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Why can't I get spherical keycaps in Cherry profile? Certainly there's no technical reason for it.
I'm not sure what you mean there, but "Cherry profile" is, by definition today, cylindrical and can't be spherical. That's like asking why can't I get cylindrical keycaps in SA profile?
I think both questions are perfectly valid though...
I mean come on, is it really that difficult to understand? Obviously I'm talking about the height and angle of the different rows, which has nothing at all to do with whether the tops are spherical or not.
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Sorry, no, there is nothing obvious about this nonsensical question: "Why can't I get spherical keycaps in Cherry profile?"
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Your inability to imagine things is sort of astounding.
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Not really. The term “Cherry profile” has a specific connotation, meaning sculpted, low profile, cylindrical caps. We use naming conventions so we don’t have to state the specifics explicitly each time.
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I know full well what "Cherry profile" means. And actually it's more specific than simply "sculpted, low profile, cylindrical caps". There are many different ways to sculpt keycaps. That's actually the whole reason why I used the term in the first place: simply saying "sculpted low profile spherical caps" would have been ambiguous. I like the sculpting of Cherry caps far more than something like SA, yet I also prefer spherical tops.
And if we want to get technical about it, "profile" refers specifically how the keycaps look from the side (i.e., a profile view). Not how their tops are shaped. Of course all existing Cherry profile keysets are also cylindrical, a fact I certainly wasn't disputing (quite the contrary I was lamenting it...). But I honestly don't see how else to describe the idea: Take the profile (size, scultping, angles) from Cherry and combine it with cylindrical tops. How else would you say that?
Oh well, DSS sounds pretty close to what I'm looking for anyway. I'll definitely check it out when you can actually buy it