Support for Alternative Layouts
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others. Sculpted-profile The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row. At first there were two The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Apr 23, 2024
- Coolermaster Masterkey S PBT as the base without switches, MCU, stabs or keycaps
- Add Unloved Bastard MCUs with EasyAVR and eventually TMK/QMK
- Profit
Enthusiasts could get a completely custom programmable platform to build a custom TKL at low cost, estimate this to be ~100USD even at retail prices; 65 for the PCB with switches at Amazon and 40USD for the MCU from 1upkeyboards.If MD decided to pick it up, they could create packages with switches, stabs and keycap bundles to go with the base kit. Then if this took off, people could standardize around the CM M S PCB and offer aftermarket cases in Acrylic and Alu.
Anyone else think this is a workable idea or just plain stupid?