New HHKB Pro JP

[megarat]

Hey all,

It looks like a new model to the HHKB Pro line was just released:  the HHKB Pro JP:

http://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/direct/hhkb/detail_hhkb-pro-jp.html

I knew they had a Lite JP model, but this is (apparently) completely new.  Check out the blistering number of keys, including the full-size arrow keys (!).



Of course, this makes one (or at least me) speculate about whether a Pro 3 is coming out soon ...

[xsphat]

Nice find, but my god what a terrible layout for non-Japanese users!

I hope version three doesn't take ques from this one — the arrow keys are a waste and the right shift key is the same style as on a lot of the netbooks, which is why I may never own an Eee PC.

[megarat]

Did you notice the layout of the punctuation characters, especially with the shifted number keys?  E.g., the parentheses on shift-8 and shift-9 (instead of shift-9 and shift-0).  Is that a back-tick sharing the same key with the "@"?

I especially like the single-quote on shift-7, and the double-quote on shift-2.  It's making me reminisce, in a you've-come-a-long-way-baby kind of way, about the layout of my Atari 1200XL, from twenty-five years ago.

With all those mysterious keys jammed into such a dense package, it looks like something a space cadet (or an APL programmer) would use.  Or maybe something stolen from the set of "The Matrix".

[Korbin]

It's really strange that they didn't put japanese characters on the keys as well as english like other japanese boards.

[lowpoly]

Did you notice the layout of the punctuation characters, especially with the shifted number keys?  E.g., the parentheses on shift-8 and shift-9 (instead of shift-9 and shift-0).

That's standard japanese layout. We have the shift-8 and shift-9 parentheses too.

[xsphat]

That's standard japanese layout. We have the shift-8 and shift-9 parentheses too.

More like shift 9 & 0 for us in the US ... shift 8 is ampersand.

[lowpoly]

Here in Germany we have the shift-8 and shift-9 parentheses too.

Fixed.

[megarat]

Here in Germany we have the shift-8 and shift-9 parentheses too.

Out of curiosity, what do you have for shift-0?  (The HHKP Pro JP appears to be blank.)

[lowpoly]

=

[lowpoly]

Some japanese keyboards have the ~ character on shift-0.

[D-EJ915]

very nice, I actually like the Japanese layout not because I use the keys for their intended use but it gives me quite a few for extra bindings

[wellington1869]

very nice, I actually like the Japanese layout not because I use the keys for their intended use but it gives me quite a few for extra bindings

do you use autohotkey? I was thinking about using a japanese keyboard in taht way. I have a ton of hotkeys. The only thing I didnt like was the space bar being so short as a result. And some of they keys I use regularly being in wonky places tho I suppose I could remap those too.

[lam47]

I wish these were not so expensive.
I have to have a 2 row size return or I hit whatevers above it.

[philodox]

More like shift 9 & 0 for us in the US ... shift 8 is ampersand.

Shift 8 is asterisk on all my keyboards.

[D-EJ915]

do you use autohotkey? I was thinking about using a japanese keyboard in taht way. I have a ton of hotkeys. The only thing I didnt like was the space bar being so short as a result. And some of they keys I use regularly being in wonky places tho I suppose I could remap those too.

I use xmodmap for x windows on unix/linux

one of the things I dislike about the japanese layout is the underscore is shift-lowest-right key and the equals is also a shifted key.  Having @ as its own key is very nice though, in fact I mapped the key directly to the left of control to it on my sun keyboard

[xsphat]

Shift 8 is asterisk on all my keyboards.

I'm dumb, you're right. Ampersand is shift+7. Thanks for the correction.

[djones]

The english layout has too few modifiers on the space bar row, and now that new japanese layout board has waaay too many! Could I get something in between?

[fkeidjn]

Well you won't mis-hit it now, that return key is HUGE! Hmm, looking at the design, they should have made the Fn keys a bit bigger, those are weird bits of free space now and it would make them easier to hit. They also made the mistake of moving the left Fn as far away as possible to the left. Note how the Z is more to the left compared to western keyboards. This might f*ck up touch typers.

Or they could have just used that space for the spacebar.