I wish the one true keyboard would somehow turn up. Thought the blue Cherries in the Apple Adjustable was perfect, but she (who must be obeyed) disabused me of that notion. Somehow the switches were much louder at home than in the store, fortunately I know the rule for a happy marriage so searched for a remedy.
My needs are: 1) a splayed board. Even a few minutes of use with a regular keyboard is uncomfortable, a bit longer brings real pain. 2) Mechanical switches with a tactile feel and less noise than the blues. 3) Compact size for a limited desk. And finally 4) aesthetics, this desk is in the kitchen of our farm house and is always in public view.
Since the keyboard in question doesn’t seem available I started assembling parts. Started with brown Cherries pulled from a Compaq 11800. Because pcb etching has become mostly obsolete in the past 40 years I opted for cutting the pcb and using what circuitry I could. For a controller an Apple USB keyboard was a donor. Its extremely easy to trace out the circuits and the pads for the ribbon connectors were easy to solder to. The keycaps are mostly from a Cherry 11900, with a few of the oversize caps coming from a Scorpius M10.
The layout is basically Apples standard, the arrow keys ended up on the left more as balance than practicality, still since they are never used during composition it works well. There are 2 seperate space bars, switched in parallel, which seems a waste as I only use my right thumb. I haven’t figured out how to mark the command key on the left side, the right one is the Windows menu key.
Finally the case is my own. I’m partial to stainless even though it is difficult to work and even she concedes it has a nice look. The one bit of decadence I allowed myself was the “DDK” etched in the top. Alas it doesn’t photo well, but adds a nice touch in person.
