Looking for 6KRO+ scissorswitch keyboard: does it exist?

[Aqo]

hi, this might be mission impossible, but I'm looking for a keyboard that can press many keys at once while possibly being scissorswitch.
Price is not a factor, I'm willing to spend as much (within reasonable limits...) as it takes to get it if it exists.

I know lots of nkro mechanical keyboards exist, but I'm looking for something specific, and maybe scissorswitch isn't exactly what I need so if you kind people know better alternatives I'd like to hear too.

My goal is:
1. To be able to press at least 6 keys at once from the following key group: ZSXDCFV
i.e. if I want to press ZSXDCV, they should all be able to register together.
2. The keypress has to trigger on bottom-out. This is mainly why I'm defaulting to avoid mech keyboards, because they trigger the keypress in a mid point and not on the bottoming, but if one exists that requires bottoming out then I'll go for it.
3. The keys should be as flat as possible.

I'm currently using an A4tech keyboard which looks like this http://i.imgur.com/4PpZHYj.png and fulfills #2 and #3, it has plastic keys that require bottoming-out to trigger and they're very flat, so my fingers can sit on them even while applying a little force without triggering a press and whenever I do want to press I just bottom out. However, it can't press combinations on different rows on the same column with more than 2 keys. i.e. ZXCV = all registers. ASDF = all registers. VF or CD or XS or ZA => each one registers. DFC => doesn't register. only two of the three can be pressed at once.

I also have a Steelseries mech which fulfills #1 and lets me press any key combination up to 6 keys anywhere on the keyboard, but it doesn't require bottoming-out to trigger the keypress and the keys are tall (well, standard, but not flat like I'm looking for).

Is there a keyboard which is able to do both? If not, what's the closest compromise I can find?

[Findecanor]

There are quite a few keyboards with flat keys, rubber dome/membrane switches and with a "gaming-optimized matrix" - that are made to support a specific group of "anti-ghosting keys" at once.
The Cougar 200K is a gaming keyboard with scissor switches, but it does not include F and V in its group of "anti-ghosting" keys. You would have to test one to find out F or V could be traded for any of the QWEB keys that are not in your list of required keys.

Membrane keyboards with a NKRO matrix do exist but they are less common. The Razer Ornata is one of those, but I would never recommend Razer and especially not that one as it is "fake mechanical".

[Aqo]

membrane is exactly the opposite of what I'm looking for. having something with only "anti-ghosting" for WASD is also useless for me, I specified exactly which keys I need

[Daniel Beardsmore]

"membrane is exactly the opposite of what I'm looking for" — you do realise that all scissor switch keyboards are rubber dome over membrane? All the scissor assembly is for is to reduce the profile of a rubber dome keyboard (it replaces the top cover and its keycap guide shafts).

Membrane doesn't imply no overtravel either: many membrane keyboard designs have overtravel, most notably the IBM Model M. It's rubber dome keyboards that have very little overtravel (although the specifications I found for NMB dome with slider do include some overtravel, so this is something in need of further study).

What you ask for isn't impossible but whether it exists, I don't know — Microsoft have produced a high-rollover membrane design (used in their NKRO Sidewinder keyboards), which is one option if you want no overtravel.

Unfortunately few of us are going to be paying attention to such designs.

[Aqo]

Aight, thanks for clearing up how this stuff works. Guess I'll just assume this doesn't exist.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Keyboards that require you to bottom out are a failing brought about by cheapness — you'll notice that the trend now in gamer keyboards is to reduce the pretravel so that keys register even sooner, and there have been all manner of mechanisms devised to give you overtravel over the decades (including multiple approaches designed for use with membranes). There might be a gamer-orientated membrane matrix that covers your specific set of keys (deliberately or accidentally) — however, finding it may be quite a challenge.

I've never measured the travel of a scissor switch, but it's comparatively low (and these days, often (when coupled with soggy rubber domes) so low and so weak that you can hardly perceive that you've pressed a key at all) — what's your motivation for requiring keys to be bottomed out to register?

[Findecanor]

There are some scissor switches and other rubber domes that I quite like. The one property I want in a keyboard is tactile feedback - to feel when a key is supposed to be registered. By bottoming out a scissor switch, you get that.

[klennkellon]

There are some scissor switches and other rubber domes that I quite like. The one property I want in a keyboard is tactile feedback - to feel when a key is supposed to be registered. By bottoming out a scissor switch, you get that.

you might like matias quiet clicks. they are very tactile, the bump is towards the top, and they have shorter key travel because they are quite dampened.

[chyros]

What you ask for isn't impossible but whether it exists, I don't know — Microsoft have produced a high-rollover membrane design (used in their NKRO Sidewinder keyboards)

Are you sure these are NKRO? They talk a lot about anti-ghosting but of course that means absolutely nothing. If there is a genuine NKRO membrane keyboard I'm very interested in it - I'm trying to explore this topic deeply.

[FoxWolf1]

There are some full-travel membrane keyboards with NKRO-- Zalman ZM-K600S (rebranded SkyDigital nKey-1), Qsenn GP-K8000 or GP-K8000U, Cougar 500K, etc. Scissor switch versions seem harder to get, though. Still not sure if there's a better way than buying 1000 KB-801n from Digimore (that's the MOQ) and selling the extra 999, which isn't really a practical solution for most people.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

What you ask for isn't impossible but whether it exists, I don't know — Microsoft have produced a high-rollover membrane design (used in their NKRO Sidewinder keyboards)

Are you sure these are NKRO? They talk a lot about anti-ghosting but of course that means absolutely nothing. If there is a genuine NKRO membrane keyboard I'm very interested in it - I'm trying to explore this topic deeply.

Sorry, you're right, it's not NKRO (I knew that — I don't know why I wrote that though!)

The actual figures are complicated! One person says (like I believed) that it was 24KRO, but that in reality the best they could do was 11:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=12804.msg248065#msg248065

However, it's actually driver-dependent!

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Microsoft-SideWinder-X4-Keyboard,review-1508.html

It's a little too weird for my tastes. They can't even make IntelliPoint work properly.

[chyros]

There are some full-travel membrane keyboards with NKRO-- Zalman ZM-K600S (rebranded SkyDigital nKey-1), Qsenn GP-K8000 or GP-K8000U, Cougar 500K, etc. Scissor switch versions seem harder to get, though. Still not sure if there's a better way than buying 1000 KB-801n from Digimore (that's the MOQ) and selling the extra 999, which isn't really a practical solution for most people.

Thanks; do we know how these work and how they managed to achieve nkro?

[FoxWolf1]

There are some full-travel membrane keyboards with NKRO-- Zalman ZM-K600S (rebranded SkyDigital nKey-1), Qsenn GP-K8000 or GP-K8000U, Cougar 500K, etc. Scissor switch versions seem harder to get, though. Still not sure if there's a better way than buying 1000 KB-801n from Digimore (that's the MOQ) and selling the extra 999, which isn't really a practical solution for most people.

Thanks; do we know how these work and how they managed to achieve nkro?

I'm only going by marketing materials, but the diagrams Skydigital and Qsenn provide suggest that they're both using a matrix where each key gets its own trace, like so:


I'd assume that the Cougar model is using the same tech as Skydigital, since Cougar has rebranded Skydigital products in the past.

You might also want to check out the two different forms of capacitive sensing used by Fuhlen. The version in their SC950 model appears to be purely dome over membranes (but also capacitive, somehow-- the bad machine translations from Chinese call it an "air capacitance" system), while the version in the FL8000 appears to involve domes over a membrane over a PCB.

I'm not sure what system the Digimore model is using. Unfortunately, there's not much information out there about it, and that's unlikely to change unless it makes it into production.

[Findecanor]

Yes, each key has a trace to a PCB with diodes on it. On the Razer Ornata it is a narrow wide PCB above the keys and I think I have seen that same design a few years before when it was mentioned that some Asian manufacturer had done it.

Are you sure these are NKRO? They talk a lot about anti-ghosting but of course that means absolutely nothing. If there is a genuine NKRO membrane keyboard I'm very interested in it - I'm trying to explore this topic deeply.

The inventor of that keyboard mechanism: Paul Dietz was here back in 2011 and talked about the Sidewinder X4. He no longer works at Microsoft.

[chyros]

There are some full-travel membrane keyboards with NKRO-- Zalman ZM-K600S (rebranded SkyDigital nKey-1), Qsenn GP-K8000 or GP-K8000U, Cougar 500K, etc. Scissor switch versions seem harder to get, though. Still not sure if there's a better way than buying 1000 KB-801n from Digimore (that's the MOQ) and selling the extra 999, which isn't really a practical solution for most people.

Thanks; do we know how these work and how they managed to achieve nkro?

I'm only going by marketing materials, but the diagrams Skydigital and Qsenn provide suggest that they're both using a matrix where each key gets its own trace, like so:

Show Image

Show Image

I'd assume that the Cougar model is using the same tech as Skydigital, since Cougar has rebranded Skydigital products in the past.

You might also want to check out the two different forms of capacitive sensing used by Fuhlen. The version in their SC950 model appears to be purely dome over membranes (but also capacitive, somehow-- the bad machine translations from Chinese call it an "air capacitance" system), while the version in the FL8000 appears to involve domes over a membrane over a PCB.

I'm not sure what system the Digimore model is using. Unfortunately, there's not much information out there about it, and that's unlikely to change unless it makes it into production.

Yes, each key has a trace to a PCB with diodes on it. On the Razer Ornata it is a narrow wide PCB above the keys and I think I have seen that same design a few years before when it was mentioned that some Asian manufacturer had done it.

Are you sure these are NKRO? They talk a lot about anti-ghosting but of course that means absolutely nothing. If there is a genuine NKRO membrane keyboard I'm very interested in it - I'm trying to explore this topic deeply.

The inventor of that keyboard mechanism: Paul Dietz was here back in 2011 and talked about the Sidewinder X4. He no longer works at Microsoft.

Thanks for the clarification you both — I was guessing that that was the approach they had taken. With a diode-ridden PCB that seems ridiculously circuitous, though, as does it when everything has its own trace — by that time you wonder how much more expensive it would've been to just go for a full mechanical keyboard Oo .

[klennkellon]

Wendell from Tek Syndicate/Crit made his Model M NKRO by making a custom membrane out of copper foil. Last time I heard he was working on a guide but this was a long time ago.

[Findecanor]

Wendell from Tek Syndicate/Crit made his Model M NKRO by making a custom membrane out of copper foil. Last time I heard he was working on a guide but this was a long time ago.

Off topic: Tek Syndicate split into Crit (Logan) and Level1Techs (Wendell) after a dispute between Logan and Wendell. Wendell was never with Crit. The "Tek Syndicate" Youtube channel became "Crit.tv". The "Tek Syndicate Hardware" channel became "Level1Techs".