Baby, you can put it wherever you like.
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Not quite. Some people might take that to mean you can put it on the bottom half. It’s top half, left or right only.
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He’s not wrong. It just won’t do anything in some places 
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Just like me!
But yeah, this was a question I had too. I thought the Verge video actually answered it though, might be worth going back and rewatching it…
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If you wanted to your could have the numpad centered and use spacers in the rest of the space
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No.
I think it’s a bad question. I think the real question should be “Can you fill the keyboard with 5 or more input modules instead of the keyboard” 
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Afraid not. The middle 3 connectors are only for the touchpad. Those connectors are not compatible with the upper modules. I suspect they are i2c instead of usb.
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Hmm.
So in theory I could run the laptop with three numpad modules and no touchpad? 
I don’t understand what you mean. With or without the touchpad, it’s 3 connector locations are not usable for upper modules. And also no upper modules will fit in the lower half.
If you did 3 numpad or macropad modules, it would be lopsided. 2 on the left, 1 on the right would be the only arrangement that works with unmodified modules.
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If I don’t connect keyboard and don’t connect the touchpad does it mean that I can use three numpad modules instead of whole keyboard? It’s stupid but is this the case?
I edited my post at the same time you posted.
You should be able to use 3, yes. No need to remove the touchpad. But it will be lopsided, at least with stock unmodified modules. If 2 on each side was possible, someone would certainly do it to get a split ortholinear keyboard. Looks like it could still be done, but one macropad would have to be modified.
It would be probably possible to do it if there would be a splitter for keypad modules. Then sides would run into the splitter and into two keyboard modules each 
Edit: and then the center would be routed to the bottom to connect to touchpad (if needed).
Edit2: But this setup with side keypads would have a major issue: Layers in the keyboard would not work as in single-body QMK keyboards because those would be four different keyboards and to my understanding they can’t share layers between themselves.
Not sure what you mean by splitters. I’m guessing each connector is feed from a usb2.0 hub and can be used independently.
The problem is a physical one. One macropad wouldn’t have a connector to use, they seem to connect on their left side and there isn’t a spot for the 2nd right-side macropad.
The idea came up here Input Module Placement Qs
Yes but they seem to have a connector at the bottom. So in theory one could either
- Create a shim that makes the connection at the top to act as USB hub
- It could actually connect as a daisy-chain of numpads from one side of the device.
In any way you could have a two numpads connected at the same side. The only problem is to then position them side-by-side as the bottom one won’t even be able to fit onto the chassis.
And when you have a cable that allows to move the “bottom” numpad to the left of the current right numpad then you already have one side of the ortholinear keybaord.
I think that the numpad has some sort of connections at the bottom but I’m not sure what iti is.
P.S. by numpad I mean key matrix because “enter” key is large on the numpad.
I don’t know if I’m following. Maybe I didn’t describe things well. I’m not suggesting any macropads or keypads on the bottom half. They are too tall. Rather, no keyboard and instead macropads side by side, 2 on the left, 2 on the right. Only the 2nd one won’t fit on the right, due to having no connector available.
A picture of the connector locations might help
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Ah, I thought that they connect only at the top and daisychain to the bottom.
This means that they only connect at the bottom.
Then it could work like this:
The big red box is “usb splitter” and arrows are two cables each (back and forth to the actual connection at the bottom.
The yellow ones are just a connection to another numpad and they’re single-wires each.
From Frameworks github each macropad or numpad looks to connect on their left side only, the right location has no connector, just magnets.
The green macropad or numpad doesn’t work. The connector under there is for the touchpad and it don’t have the signals needed. That connector is also slightly offset if you look close, and doesn’t even physically align.
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Maybe this will look something like this:
- the main keyboard is completely functionally centered – “B” key is aligned with the middle of the laptop case
- the touch pad is perfectly centered and perfectly aligned with the logical center of the keyboard
- the keyboard has a Num block
- the keyboard has the navigation block – PgUp, PgDn, Home, End
- no half-sized arrow keys
- has own Insert, Delete keys
The picture either shows a much larger laptop, a smaller than full-sized keyboard, or it’s TARDIS space manipulation tech.
this is just an illustration to the imaginary keyboard with the numpad placed left from the main section
the illustration is based on a 17.4 Lenovo laptop.
I will try to sketch whether similar layout fits the 16" chassis.
And here it is:
for the main keyboard block to be centered the numeric block needs to be stripped to 3 columns