Bought an old mechanical, looking for a new board now. Macro keys availability?

[Knuit]

So I bought an old mechanical keyboard from Goodwill yesterday, it's an old Chicony Electronics Co. with ALPS "bigfoot" inside. I cleaned it all up, ordered an AT-PS/2 adapter and started using it today. I can't believe I've been using rubber domes for so long. It's like night and day typing between the two. So I'm really considering ordering a new board, keeping this one around since it still looks really good after cleanup.

Now, I'm coming from a G15. I don't think I'll miss the LCD much, but I will miss the volume control and macro keys. I see that most of the good boards do have volume control on them via keys, but from what I've seen, only the Razor Blackwidow has macro keys on it.

Are there any other boards out there that I'm missing that has this functionality? Or is there some standalone macro keypad that isn't $75+? There's a good chance I'll just live without it if I can't find something suitable.

From the descriptions I've read, I think I'm going to get Cherry MX Blues, as I like how these ALPS feel and think that those should be close as far as feel?

I was also curious if anyone knows what the X-A switch on this keyboard might be for? I'm not finding anything on Google about it.

[crazing]

As for the macros, you could look for a deal on the G13 (maybe a refurb), wait for the CMStorm that's coming out (Think I saw 5 macro keys in the vid), or just spend some time tweaking with AutoHotkey.  

I'm not really confident enough to address the other questions, other than to say, do what I'm doing, and sign up for a switch try board.

[N8N]

Perhaps XT/AT protocol?  that's the only thing I can think of that makes sense.  Since you say you had to get an adapter to connect it to a PS/2 port, that theory actually holds together.  I would assume that you would leave it on "AT" all the time with anything resembling a modern PC.

[crazing]

Googling XT/AT returns a lot of validation to that theory.