An in-depth look at AltairWhile I usually keep ICs compact, there's a lot to write about with the Altair family, so I'll deviate from the typical format and describe the behind-the-scenes and reasoning behind aspects of the design.
A (not-so-)brief historyAs stated in the earlier portion of the IC, Altair (specifically the four-row Altair-X) has been my daily driver keyboard for over two years at this point - specifically around two and a half.
In the span I've added numerous keyboards to my collection, but Altair-X has remained the one daily driver keyboard that I come back to - at least for my preferences, so far nothing beats the extreme typing accuracy, comfort, and effortlessness that this board provides.
My efforts at ergonomic keyboard design date back to the original Orbit which began in late 2018.
The inspiration was drawn from attending some of the earlier Tokyo keyboard meetups - it was a time when at minimum 9 out of 10 keyboards on display were ergonomic or non-standard layout units, and being able to try them for the first time gave me the desire to combine the metal cases and internals of the typical "custom keyboards" with the ergonomic layouts that go beyond just variations of the typical row-stagger.
Being my first split keyboard design, it took quite some effort and research to make it happen - learning split PCB design, configuring the firmware, and simply the task of designing around the non-rectangular key layout required plenty of time, and the knowledge gained from the task would eventually influence my other designs later on.
A total of 10 units were produced, being sold as effectively a semi-private group buy primarily for the JP audience.
By late 2019, I was already feeling the desire to build upon the design further, having noticed some aspects which I wanted to improve.
For example, the interconnect cable exiting from the thumb area was moved to the back, allowing for more freedom in placing the halves without getting the cables tangled.
After realizing that the hands and wrists move very little when using an ergonomic keyboard which limits the reach of the fingers, most of the outer keys and numrow was axed in favor of a compact layout with every key in reach from home position.
This revised prototype design, named the Orbit-X, arrived and was shown off for the first time at the December 2019 SoCal meetup - one of the very last meetups before the pandemic took the world by surprise.
A side note is that this was one of my earliest designs which combined internal case screws with a seamless design, an element which was effectively transplanted into the Vega which made its debut soon after.
From then on, I almost exclusively used the Orbit-X prototype as my daily driver - it was immediately evident that typing accuracy skyrocketed, with speed test accuracy scores rising from the mid-90% range on typical row-stagger layouts to effectively 100% with the ergo.
Combined with the decreased finger and hand movement, Orbit-X quickly proved itself much more comfortable to type on than the other boards on hand.
Yet once again, the desire to improve upon it came around - this time primarily in the internals.
Being a weightless top-mounted board effectively the size of a numpad, the acoustics quickly fell beyond my usual bar when compared to newer row-staggered designs, and due to the rigid screw mount points on the plate, certain keys near the edges were much stiffer compared to the rest.
In addition, there were many keys which proved themselves difficult to reach (primarily in the bottom corner areas commonly blockered-off in HHKB-style layouts), as well as very reachable areas without optimal placement of keys (near the thumb area, on the inner side of the split).
So once again the ergonomic design was revised - this time as Altair-X, removing the hard-to-reach keys, adding keys where reachable and convenient, and overhauling the internals to deliver the needed comfort and acoustics within the tiny board size.
In addition, I used the opportunity to redo the visuals, sculpting it in a much more intricate and organic manner compared to the Orbit-X which used just a combination of arcs and straight edges.
This design was followed with the five-row Altair by redoing the design with a numrow, in hopes that this modification would make the layout more beginner-friendly than the compact Altair-X.
From then on, the early prototype unit of Altair-X replaced the Orbit-X as my daily driver, and was subject to over two years of full-time use in a real-world environment:
- The board was transported around with unideal packaging to test physical durability
- The board was subject to at least 50 static shocks to test its onboard ESD handling circuit
- The board was used to write large software projects such as Hype V2 and the self-service portal
- The board was used to design effectively every board in the past two years (yes, I do CAD without physical arrow keys or a numrow).
Several issues were addressed during this testing, such as the placement of the rubber feet to maximize stability during use, and replacing the internal connection from the daughterboard to the mainboard with a flat ribbon (FFC) to reduce its impact on typing feel.
And after one more final round of prototypes to confirm that these changes were practical and effective, we finally arrive at the Altair family IC with roughly half a decade of development, redesigns, optimizations, and battle-hardenedness under its belt - also written on a unit of Altair-X itself.
This is probably the most heavily-tested and thoroughly-optimized board I've designed to date, and I hope that it is able to serve as not only a unique typing experience that places emphasis on aspects beyond the typical row-stagger layout, but also as a gateway to the wide world of unique layout keyboards out there.
The challenge of twoDue to its split nature, Altair(-X) is inherently two keyboards being sold as one.
This means two cases, two weights, two plates, two PCBs, two daughterboards, two of effectively everything - and if not done correctly, double the price tag.
This has been a huge challenge in making a practical split keyboard ever since I started with the Orbit - on that design, the price tag was simply left high.
On Orbit-X, I skipped the weight to cut costs, but always felt the desire to have one installed.
With Altair, I instead combined the top and bottom case parts into a single case component; this halves the number of large case parts needed, and brings down the price tag to far more accessible ranges.
In addition, due to the lack of case screws and seams to hold the parts together, there's quite a bit more freedom in designing the exterior - something I took full advantage of with sculpting the rear curvature.
The challenge of two also strikes when designing the internals - since the physical volume of the keyboard is divided in half, the next battle becomes trying to achieve typing feel and acoustics which can hold its own against boards 3~4 times in size... while also already limited to just a single numpad-sized case component per half.
After much headaches and numerous attempts, the solution to this challenge ended up being the PCB point-mount system as described earlier.
While there are physical limitations that prevent Altair from sounding exactly like a board multiple times in size, I believe that I've achieved a very satisfactory result acoustically that can be tuned to perform well, while also not compromising any aspects of typing feel which I find crucial to an ergonomic design.
