agreed I use one just about every day and that would make me want to buy a framework even more than I do at the moment
5 Likes
I signed up for this forum just to reply to this thread. Woohoo!
I hate to point out the obvious, but instead of trying to have a low-production-run topcase with a split keyboard, why not design a two-piece topcase that is modular? What I mean by that is imagine a topcase that has clips or snaps for the entire human-input-device surface area. Iām talking about being able to pop in/out a giant rectangle that has your trackpad and keyboard. The mainstream, non-split Qwerty layout with a standard trackpad can be mass-produced for economy-of-scale purposes, but then enthusiasts and professionals (or even people with physical problems, such as myself) have some kind of upgrade path. Expensive, yes, but possible.
This could even support alternative pointing devices such as pointing sticks, jogwheels, trackballs, or even new innovations. No need to stop at the keyboard. Make the entire thing modular. We could even swap out the screen hinges to intentionally make the laptop thicker, as a tradeoff for a better keyboard, if we really wanted to.
Why not? Seriously.
Itās 2021 and 2022 is just around the corner. Staggered, Qwerty keyboard layouts were developed in 1878 to decrease the chances of a mechanical typewriter jamming. This isnāt news to anyone talking about keyboards; everyone knows this. Can we please move on to better, more sensible keyboard layouts? Itās time. As a society, we really need to let go of the past and someone needs to take a risk.
Open up the design of the top case. Make it like Legos. Let the community do the work.
With love and frustration,
- Someone who just signed up for these forums, but Iām passionate about what I had to say.
8 Likes
I would love to have a keyboard like this, especially if it also included a trackpoint nub, and left/right mouse buttons! Looks like there would be room in the middle of the keyboard.
6 Likes
I would be happy enough with a simple planck 48 key keyboard.
I like the atreus but find some of the offsets do not fit my hands
I would love to see an ortholinear option. Whether that be a planck, atreus, or another layout. It would be practically impossible to create a layout that would please everyone though, and I imagine the tooling would make it prohibitively expensive to make multiple ergonomic layouts.
The biggest deal for me is the ortholinear part. I can get used to different placement of modifier keys, and setup multiple layers as necessary. But staggered layouts are just so difficult for me. Particularly the c and m keys are hard to hit because of the horizontal movement required.
5 Likes
So I donāt know enough about cutting aluminum or PCB (thatās the term for the underlying circuit board, though I have no idea what it stands for) design, but I feel like it would be possible to custom-build a keyboard just like this, if the top chassis plate on the laptop is flat and replicateable, you could scan it somehow and then CNC out a top plate with the cutouts for whatever keyboard you wanted instead of the normal ones. The issue of getting the PCB to recognize everything and finding individual switches thin enough for that would be exceedingly difficult, and Iām not enough of a keyboard wizard to be that passionate about it, but i think it is certainly doable on a small scale if you have access to a CNC Mill and 3D-design software (and you could probably find a company online willing to cut the aluminum for you) And I know for a fact you can custom-order PCBs, itād be a soldering nightmare, and youād have a hard time getting it to interface with the rest of the machine, as it still needs to fit and incorporate with everything else.
If youāre passionate enough and are willing to put in the time (and money), it should be totally doable
As an alternative to designing your own top plate, you could buy an extra and then cut in the spacing you need, ignoring or filling the excess created by the original keyboard holes. (then youād even have switches and keycaps to use, assuming theyāre removable)
edit: PCB stands for Printed Circuit Board
1 Like
I donāt think youāll be able to find individual switches thin enough to fit in the Framework. Thereās a reason thin and light laptops use scissor switches. Even low profile mechanical switches are much too thick.
Iām not very familiar with how theyāre made, but as far as Iām aware, small batch manufacturing of a custom scissor switch keyboard wouldnāt be feasible due to custom tooling requirements.
The PCB is not the problem.
Edit: I actually just found this, which is the thinnest individual mechanical switch Iāve seen yet. Maybe it would be feasible. Kaih Low profile Notebook X Switch keyboard switch for laptop,brown switch,Pretravel 1.2mm clikcy tactile feeling|Replacement Parts & Accessories| - AliExpress
Edit2: Hereās an article with some photos of these in use on laptops. I would love to see someone build something with this that could fit in the Framework. Kailh releases āX Switchā PG1425 - deskthority
These switches are still 6.5mm though. Iām having trouble finding the height of the scissor switches used in the Framework, but if itās thinner than 6.5, and the difference canāt be made up by using a thinner PCB, this wouldnāt work.
2 Likes
The Cherry MX-ULP discussed here (here is the datasheet) appears to be a similar thing, but using metal stamped parts which are less bulky than plastic. It is thus shown as 3.5mm deep, albeit this seems to be due to omission of mounting pins (I guess this switch is surface mount). Current Framework key travel is quoted as 0.5mm whereas Cherry claim 0.8mm for their design (thatās >50% more).
The linked discussion suggests the Cherry MX-ULP fit the framework in terms of height. Not only might this be an interesting option for building an Atreus keyboard, this limited application could perhaps also be an opportunity to evaluate their wider adoption in Framework laptops .
4 Likes
popping in to say that I would also consider an atreus or similar keyboard option to be a huge upside and a must buy.
I currently use an atreus at my desktop. Iām planning a custom keyboard which is going to add some more keys (more thumb keys, and some additional width to make it easier to balance on my lap when I have to do that), but on the whole the design feels really good and Iād be happy to see something like that available integrated into a laptop.
5 Likes
Iām not confident that the audience for split keyboards would unify around a particular layout. What I would really like, however, would be a keyboard option that only had enough keys on it to enter the bios screen and run some basic controls that arenāt always on external keyboards. E.g. just a top-line function key line, but only with the following buttons (some are out of order, since this is just an idea):
- āBIOS Setupā 2. āvPRO BIOS Setupā 3. āBoot Menuā, 4. āCtrlā 5. āAltā 6. āDelā 7. āScreen brightness +ā 8. āScreen brightness -ā 9. āAudio volume +ā 10. āAudio volume -ā 11. āMuteā 12. āPrintscreenā 13. āSleepā 14. āScreen modeā
or maybe some others. These would pretty much be the F-keys or their equivalent with a Fn key chorded depending on the function.
With this in place, and the rest of the keyboard area blank, anyone with a favorite keyboard already would have easy keys to get into the BIOS and execute laptop-specific functions without plugging in a keyboard (sometimes usb-keyboards, especially fancy ones with embedded controllers can take some time to boot and initialize, so having a working default for entering the BIOS and boot is a bonus IMO).
How would others feel about this?
Iām afraid it does not appeal to me, I value that my 12" MacBook - even with the worst keyboard mechanism ever - can be typed on as a last resort, like now when I have it on my lap and decide to respond to a post but cannot be arsed to get up and take it to the proper keeb. Maybe others might see more benefit - perhaps it might be worth starting a new thread to develop the idea?
1 Like
A variation of the Atreus with a built in pointing stick is offered by Terminal Velocity, who have a pretty neat name too! I might actually get this for personal use, because I often carry the Atreus with my laptop, and it is fine for typing (quite often on my lap), but using the cursor occasions an ungainly reach for the trackpad on the computer itself.
Of course this is of limited relevance to application of this keyboard format in a laptop, since the Atreus is sufficiently compact that the normal trackpad can be retained.
5 Likes
The Balthazar open hardware RISC-V laptop is proposed to have a staggered column keyboard.
I am not a fan of the design they have come up with, and the position of the touchpad behind the keyboard is rather antediluvian, but hope that this makes the idea of a laptop with an unorthodox keyboard more palatable.
3 Likes
Looks like you all could potentially get your wish. The new 16" Framework that was announced today has a modular input system which allows the keyboard to be replaced with one or more modules. It uses an open interface, which will allow the community to build their own modules, which could include custom keyboards 
Though it would still require someone with the appropriate dedication, skills and manufacturing capabilities to make it a reality.
4 Likes
One great thing about the Framework 16 - at least as far as I can glean from the videos - is that the lateral placement of keyboard modules is not constrained. This is the key to how they offer the choice of whether to include a number pad on either the left or right, or tenkeyless variant in the centre with blanking plates on either side.
This is great for split format keyboards where the separation of the two halves can be adjusted at will, either together in the middle (as per standard Atreus which is not technically split) or separated. If separated, there is the opportunity to slot Frameworkās stock numeric keypad in the middle, which would be pretty neat.
5 Likes
+1 for split keyboard. Iāve been using a CORNE keyboard for last three months, it took only a week to get used to column stagger. And about a month of training to get used to layers with symbols (&^%@) and functional keys. And itās totally different experience, no way I will ever return to common keyboard layout.
I want to add few things to this discussion:
-
First of all, Iām from Russia, so I use russian alphabet which consists of 33 letters, while english alphabet has only 26.
So I wouldnāt consider any split keyboarks layouts with 3 rows by 5 columns - which are widely available in keyboard DIY community, because 3*5 will mean that I will had to use layers just to type basic text in russian. 3 rows by 6 columns looks like more sustainable options, besides russian, there are more languages, that has additional letters. -
I donāt think that four keys per column (per finger in other words) as mentioned in the first post (Atreus kbrd) are essential. 3 keys per finger does the job just fine, without the need to reach far from homerow - thus increasing both speed and comfort. However, if there is an option to configure layout, than user can decide if he wantās to use a fourth row.
To summarise, the exact type of ergo keyboard layout is not that critical, there are few dosens of split-ergo-DIY keyboards available right now, and most of them share the idea of column stagger and layers.
The number of rows could be 3 or 4. But there has to be 6 columns per arm, for better support of different languages, and even english users might benefit from additional punctuations letters on default layer.
4 Likes
One more thing to consider: You have to be advanced touch typer to understand that common keyboard are uncomfortable and limiting your abilities. So most of the users, who are looking for column staggered ergo split keyboards are touch typers. And they donāt need any legend on keycaps.
This will give a lot of opportunities to cut production costs:
- 2x time less switches and keycaps
- no need to support a language for each country you ship to
- currently there are 35 types of standart keyboards for framework notebook, adding ergo column staggered keyboard, will add only 2 types (the black one, and the white one)
- less quality control steps for keyboard with less keys and no agenda
This is also a very bold statement on the market. And very cheap and easy opportunity to became a world first ever build for human hands keyboard in the notebook - with all the free hype involved.
5 Likes
Framework 16 uses QMK firmware, which is great for custom keyboards like the Atreus. Truly great news. And as has already been mentioned, two outer keyboard halves with one or two spaces in between seems to be perfect for split layout mods.
A colab between framework and keyboardio sounds like a dream, but the technical requirements seems to be fulfilled at this point.
5 Likes
Iāve just asked keyboardio about this, the response was that there is not enough interested people for thisā¦ Is there a any tool to get some numbers here, like how many people would be intersted on something like this?
Reading the forum, it is clear that there are many, but more than a hundred? more than a thousand? how much of them could afford something like that?
It would be amazing to make a Survey for this.
2 Likes
Regarding niche keyboards I am starting to think this will have to wait for a Mk2 chassis with the tiny amount of extra headroom needed for discrete key-switches. Only then will it be possible to create keyboards in small batches. The Cherry ULP is mentioned upthread as a candidate, but Kailh probably make an equivalent.
I have agitated in the past for a third party chassis that would allow for deeper customisation including the keyboard. Whilst Framework deserve credit for having addressed the right to repair issue, repair is not customisation.
2 Likes