[HN Gopher] A mechanical keyboard with programmable knobs and fu...
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A mechanical keyboard with programmable knobs and full color screen
panel
Author : _justinfunk
Score : 31 points
Date : 2024-02-29 19:38 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (knob.design)
(TXT) w3m dump (knob.design)
| interstice wrote:
| I like that one but I'm holding on for this one
| https://worklouder.cc/nomad-e/
|
| I also love my Nuphy 96, but it's knobless
| jgalt212 wrote:
| why do most / all of these artisanal keyboards lack numeric
| keypad?
| someotherperson wrote:
| Because the numeric keypads are largely unused and not
| ergonomic (wrist travel distance from letters to mouse). They
| are the "tenkeyless" variety, which many prefer. You can find
| full 104-key mechanical keyboards if you want as well, or get
| an external numeric keypad.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| Cynical answer: These things are expensive enough without
| adding another two dozen switches, and besides, Kids These
| Days grew up using laptops and don't get the point of having
| numpads when the numbers are all already there above the
| letters.
| airstrike wrote:
| FWIW I grew up on the desktop and also _don 't_ get the
| point of having numpads when the numbers are all already
| there above the letters
| baal80spam wrote:
| It's infinitely faster to enter numbers using a numpad,
| and some people do that a lot.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| You can configure a layer to act as one, without adding more
| hardware and making the keyboard larger and less ergonomic.
| fht wrote:
| would order this immediately if it had a function row
| nottorp wrote:
| Why does anything fun end up as a compact keyboard with no
| numeric pad and cramped navigation keys?
|
| How am I supposed to write code or even play a game on this?
|
| And tbh... people who would be interested in this have multiple
| monitors, or one very large monitor. There should be plenty of
| space in front of it for a full size keyboard.
| relyks wrote:
| I personally like preserving as much desk space as possible and
| I find that a numeric pad isn't essential. I don't input
| numbers a lot. Navigation keys are very useful for coding
| though...
| garciasn wrote:
| Look at this psychopath not using vi/m.
|
| I'm kidding. I use VSCodium on the desktop and heavily modded
| vim on VMs.
| nottorp wrote:
| Well i use pgup/down and home/end extensively. Grew up with
| Borland IDEs.
|
| The numpad... maybe i could live without it, but I do use
| it.
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| I keyed in games from magazines into things like a
| Vic-20, or C-64 or Ti99-4a, as a kid. To me, the lack of
| a tenkey means it's not really a kbd, just a toy.
| flylikeabanana wrote:
| Tenkeyless (TKL) keyboards are popular because you can keep
| your mouse hand closer to your keyboard. The tenkey is a easy
| thing to lose if you don't do much data entry.
|
| As for writing code and playing games, I use vim keybinds
| everywhere and play games with WASD controls. So nav keys
| aren't particularly critical either.
| LegitShady wrote:
| most people spend too long all day hunching their shoulders
| because they're typing. They would be better off if they
| didn't bring their hands closer together. That's the whole
| advantage of split keyboards too.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Split keyboards are a much better way to accomplish that,
| though. Standard keyboards end up pushing the home row way
| off-center no matter what, which for me at least is
| uncomfortable for anything but short bursts of typing.
| derekp7 wrote:
| If it doesn't have the 10-key, then at least put the top
| number keys in the standard typewriter position. This
| keyboard has the number keys shifted to the left a bit by
| about a quarter key width, which will cause errors for touch
| typists that also touch-type the number keys.
| gigaflop wrote:
| When people are already chopping out numpads, etc, in their
| custom designs, they can afford an extra horizontal inch of
| space on their keebs for fancy features, without getting too
| big.
|
| For a large segment of people, a keyboard like this has
| everything they need on it: WASD, numrow, arrows.
| slily wrote:
| You could easily fit extra controls on a full-size keyboard
| as long as the keyboard and mouse are not wider than your
| shoulders. TKL has no ergonomic benefit, it's just an
| opinionated design decision which is common today because
| people don't learn to use a numeric pad. Cramped designs are
| good for portability, but bad for ergonomics.
|
| Personally, I will never buy a TKL keyboard. I may rarely use
| the numeric pad, but rarely is not never, and I can think of
| a few specific use cases aside from typing in numbers quickly
| that require one. I wouldn't mind a keyboard with even more
| keys to provide better coverage of legacy layouts.
| someotherperson wrote:
| I've been writing code for many years and have never needed a
| numeric pad. My keyboard since about 2015 doesn't even have
| navigation keys: I use a combination of the caps lock
| (reprogrammed as a function key) and IJKL. Works fine for me.
| jwells89 wrote:
| Integrated numpads and navkeys end up gathering dust most of
| the time for my usage. I like the macOS global text nav
| shortcuts[0][1] better than the typical dedicated keys, and I
| rarely enter numbers in great enough quantity that speed
| matters. For the odd occasion I do need to enter numbers, I
| have a separate numpad I can pull out and set to the _left_ of
| my keyboard, where it's not dislocating my keyboard's home row
| or messing with mousing space.
|
| [0]: https://jblevins.org/log/kbd [1]:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220217071143/https://www.hcs.h...
| quatrefoil wrote:
| My first thought: gosh, these knobs don't seem at all comfortable
| to operate.
| Rafuino wrote:
| Not a fan of those low profile and also circular pad keycaps.
| Gives you even less room to hit the right key! Not for me, but
| maybe someone else likes that
| k8svet wrote:
| Looks neat. Seems entirely impractical from keycaps, to the
| staggered layout, complete with non-existent ergonomics and the
| odd choice of non-knurled knobs. But, neat.
| airstrike wrote:
| Looks great. There aren't enough low profile keyboards around and
| my wrists really prefer them
|
| But I'd trade the useless screen and slightly-less-useless knobs
| for home/end/pgup/pgdn/del/ins any day of the week
|
| And the keycaps _seem_ like bad ergonomics but I can 't really
| bash them without trying
| jwells89 wrote:
| A couple of other similar low profile keyboard projects some may
| be interested in:
|
| https://monokei.co/systems https://electronicmaterialsoffice.com/
| aethr wrote:
| One thing that's keeping my hand on the mouse and stopping me
| from going full keyboard, is the free scrolling mousewheel on
| logitech mice. I find it such an ergonomic and natural way to get
| to the right place in long documents (and code).
|
| What I would really love is a keyboard with this sort of scroll
| wheel embedded just on the edge of the keys. All the keyboards I
| see with knobs / rotary encoders look cool but I can't see myself
| using a vertical knob for scrolling a document. Do any custom
| keyboard builds feature a mousewheel?
| swader999 wrote:
| Checkout Contour Design RollerMouse Red. I've always been
| intrigued by it but haven't pulled the trigger yet.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| I use Vimium browser extension and neovim with remapped C-u &
| C-d. Navigating long pages and files is a breeze with HJKL.
| CatchSwitch wrote:
| There are horizontal rotary encoders with click functionality
| (The component is called EVQWGD001). Unfortunately the pin
| layout differs from the vertical rotary encoders so you need a
| custom PCB or hack some custom wiring together. They're more
| common on split keyboards from what I've found.
|
| You can buy a preassembled split keyboard with this from
| https://ergomech.store (I've been looking at purchasing one
| from them). There's also a seller on etsy who offers split
| keyboards with the horizontal encoder.
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Around the turn of the millennium, I had a Logitech keyboard
| which featured a scroll wheel (and dedicated keys for media
| control, search and other stuff). I don't recall the model, but
| you might get lucky on eBay with a bit of searching.
|
| [EDIT: After a bit of research, I found the model: Logitech
| Internet Navigator Keyboard]
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Lower is achy for me. Even the premium magic keyboard for macs
| hurts. I'd much rather have a nice comfortable bounce
| jerlam wrote:
| Too bad that Apple never made a standalone keyboard with Touch
| Bar. It along with the Elgato Stream Decks do show there's a
| demand for these things.
| timkpaine wrote:
| Looks like an OP-1 [1], as do those in [2].
|
| [1] https://teenage.engineering/products/op-1 [2]
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39555544
| jmgrosen wrote:
| Especially the Field model!
| Cockbrand wrote:
| Keycap design was probably inspired by 1970s/80s Siemens
| keyboards, e.g. https://preview.redd.it/6gqyzdshdfp01.jpg?wid
| th=1080&crop=sm...
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| The name might need revising for the UK market.
| spogbiper wrote:
| My first thought.. they are really going to call this "the
| knob"?
| Xiol32 wrote:
| "The year of the knob" did give me a chuckle. Almost as bad as
| that crypto company that called themselves Nonce Finance.
| tagyro wrote:
| The keyboard is nice (ish) but the keys layout is wrong for macOS
| (command-option/alt-control order).
|
| Personally I also prefer to have a numpad.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Usually you can remap the layout in the firmware, and it should
| be easy to move the caps around?
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| I've been thinking it would be fun to make a big console-like
| keyboard with a whole other set of keys above the normal keyboard
| for things like Greek letters, mathematical symbols, additional
| punctuation marks, etc. If I used OLED keycaps, there could be a
| big scroll wheel on one side that would select which character
| set was used for the supplemental keyboard.
|
| Simplicity and portability have their uses, but I've always had a
| fondness for the aesthetics of those complicated-looking
| industrial control consoles. (The ergonomics are much better,
| too!)
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| Well you could use this PCB and add the Greek letters as extra
| columns. These are 6 row 9 column.
|
| https://keeb.io/products/bfo-9000-keyboard-customizable-full...
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| I would probably make my own PCB for this if I actually get
| around to doing it. (I'm an EE, so making custom hardware
| would be half the fun.) The tricky part for me would be
| writing a driver. I suspect that's where it would fall apart;
| to my understanding keyboards (as a standard device type) use
| a limited number of scan codes and the mapping to characters
| is done in the OS based on the locale settings. I'm not clear
| on how hard it is to get e.g. Unicode code points through a
| USB port -- [1] says there's no standard way, while [2] seems
| to have hacked something up with alt codes. I suspect that
| would introduce input lag, though.
|
| [1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/37203616/how-do-i-
| direct...
|
| [2] https://hackaday.io/project/192644-unicode-binary-input-
| term...
| natpalmer1776 wrote:
| I wish there was an OEM or Cherry profile keyboard that offered
| the same features. It seems that all the innovative features are
| getting slapped exclusively onto low-profile keyboards.
| PhyllisEngine wrote:
| Compact is kinda frustrating, for years I used a full size board
| and finally swapped to a 60%. Even though you can remap keys,
| it's pretty annoying compared to my last setup.
| bloopernova wrote:
| I'm still using and enjoying my Keychron Alice-layout 75% Q10[1],
| Q0 Plus[2], and the 3D printed fully open source Ploopy Mouse[3].
|
| All are configured via QMK, although I only custom compile a
| firmware for the mouse. For the keyboards I just use VIA, which
| is plenty capable.
|
| For the numberpad, I have the macro keys and the numlock key
| assigned to A through F, so I have a hexadecimal keypad when I
| want it. On the Q10 main keyboard, I have macro keys assigned to
| ctrl-r and ctrl-t for fzf, plus alt-x, ctrl-g, and ctrl-x ctrl-s
| for Emacs.
|
| The ploopy mouse is a marvel, although I wish its wheel was
| sticky/stepped and not freely-rotating. I wish I had the skills
| to design a vertical version of the mouse and transfer the guts
| to that, but I'm a complete idiot when it comes to 3D stuff.
| Having QMK on a mouse is game-changer though; you can use one
| button as a layer switcher, and expand the number of functions
| each button performs. Being able to do a plain text paste in
| macOS, or use the side buttons for page up/down _and_ home /end,
| is really useful.
|
| I highly recommend customizing your macro keys! Especially if you
| use something like Emacs or work in the terminal a lot.
|
| [1] https://www.keychron.com/pages/keychron-q10-customizable-
| mec...
|
| [2] https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q0-plus-qmk-
| custo...
|
| [3] https://ploopy.co/mouse/
| sonicanatidae wrote:
| Without Tenkey, they can keep it.
|
| For those that don't need/use tenkey, it might be a cool toy.
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