Made some design updates based on feedback I received from a couple fellow keyboard designers and I just received the first two prototypes this week. Super happy with how they turned out.
Looks funny and elegant, but typing appears to be a nightmare on this layout.
The joke of this board is that the “QAZ” layout is not uncommon in “40%” and smaller keyboard, but leaves the user with extra keycaps. Most folks who would try using this board would configure it so that “Esc,” “Tab,”, and left “Shift” do Q, A, and Z respectively. The whimsical keys on the right would be for macros, navigation, or whatever the individual prefers, though IIRC @cloffwrangler@lemmy.world tried it with them mapped to the letters, like the mad lad he is. :-)
No numbers, important keys shoved out of reach… OP expects you to bind OTHER IMPORTANT KEYS LIKE ESC/TAB/SHIFT TO BE BOUND TO Q in order to function…
Might as well just grab a macropad at this point. You’ll almost never use the keys for one thing anyways and you’ll be doing Ctrl+/Fn+ combos constantly(except you don’t even have those buttons, so what are you making combos out of anyways?).
I wouldn’t even use this for an emulator. WASD is completely borked and the buttons you’d bind them to instead would then be lost as well and those need to be rebound too. A controller is more useful than this ever would be.
How would you even type a “?” with that keyboard. No, I would not use a keyboard that was missing all numbers, 90% of symbols and threw 3 of the keys haphazardly to the side.
This is a joke at best and mostly just waste. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It’s junk like this that makes the alternate keyboard community look like a bunch of schizos. “Why would I use something that works when I can remove tons of functionality to be cutesy?”.
Hard pass.
