Just saying hi

[renzhi]

Hi everyone,

Been lurking around here without registering for a while, so I just want to say hi.

This is what I have owned, now or previously:

- Two Microsoft "natural" keyboard
- HHKB II pro
- Two no-brand-name ten-less mechanical, one blue, one brown.
- A Thinkpad USB keyboard
- An old keyboard that came with the IBM 3151 terminal. I love typing on this one, actually.
- A Goldtouch 02
- An Ergodox

Nothing impressive and fancy.

I just built and hand-wired a new mechanical keyboardd, all Cherry MX Red, with layout and keymap borrowed from Ergodox, Key64 and Keyboardio, with some of my own modification. It's not looking as good as Keyboardio, for sure, but it works like a charm.

[CPTBadAss]

Not to nitpick but that IBM terminal may have had a beamspring or buckling spring board attached to it. Definitely fancy

Welcome to Geekhack! Would love to see pictures of your custom board

[njbair]

Yes yes please post pics!

[captaineleven]

Welcome!

You seem to have a neat little collection of keyboards! How do you feel about your ergonomic keyboards - both the ergodox and the goldtouch? I have a goldtouch that feels otherwise all right but the keys are a lot mushy. I want an ergodox but that's a future project for me for when I learn more about building stuff. Did you custom build your own?

I'll lay off the interview questions but welcome!

[renzhi]

Not to nitpick but that IBM terminal may have had a beamspring or buckling spring board attached to it. Definitely fancy

Welcome to Geekhack! Would love to see pictures of your custom board

It's a buckling spring, very nice to type. I've been looking for something similar, but with an ergo angle, and reprogrammable firmware. No luck so far.

My new keyboard has nothing special. Although I borrowed ideas from Ergodox, Key64 and Keyboardio, which are all split boards, I didn't feel like hand-wiring a split board. I'm planning on a second split version with a PCB.

If you want to take a look, here's the link: http://renzhi.ca/?p=51

It's not exactly beautiful, I'm biased, for sure, but it's very nice to type on  Critiques are very welcome.

[renzhi]

Yes yes please post pics!

You might be disappointed 

[renzhi]

Welcome!

You seem to have a neat little collection of keyboards! How do you feel about your ergonomic keyboards - both the ergodox and the goldtouch? I have a goldtouch that feels otherwise all right but the keys are a lot mushy. I want an ergodox but that's a future project for me for when I learn more about building stuff. Did you custom build your own?

I'll lay off the interview questions but welcome!

I didn't do much customization with Ergodox, just putting things together, and modified the firmware a bit to try out different keymap. Looking at this forum, you'd see that I'm not the only complaining about the thumb cluster. One thing I find it hard to harness the keys under both thumbs is that I need to twist my thumb different ways to hit different keys, without hitting multiple keys at the same time. It's probably a wrong way to use it, and probably my own fault, but I couldn't figure out a better way.

One thing the Goldtouch has done right is that, it's light, portable, and you can lock in the right angle everytime if you care about having the same posture. And as you said, the key is mushy. I just find the resistance force too much for me to work on long time. One day, I'll probably strip all its guts and just use the box, and it's locking mechanism (although it's far from perfect), and put some mechanical switches in there. That would be something fun to do 

[rowdy]

Welcome to Geekhack!

You have an HHKB and a buckling spring keyboard - and you say you have nothing fancy? )

Pictures are more than welcome.  You can either post them here, although not many people go through the new members section, or you can browse the media section and find the appropriate thread for the type of keyboard you are posting.

Also your project keyboard looks very interesting - maybe you could create a thread in making stuff together - there are many members here who would be very interested in a custom design