Week in Keyboards #28

Keyboard of the Month

This is something that I kept overlooking and even forgot when I was entirely aware of it. So I have missed the boat ever so slightly. The last keyboard of the month was in fact the keyboard of the year, which does make sense because it is of course a new year.

The Keyboard of the Month was started by katushkin on geekhack and it’s a good to celebrate some of the extremely interesting keyboards that people have assembled.

Winning this year’s title, is E3E’s Duck Eagle With Hotswappable Alps.

Granite R4

My favourite addition

Granive R4 is looking as though it will be running in the near future (possibly a couple of days), and the current designs are looking excellent. Also, note that this might be the last time Granite is run.

The images are of the beta stage so things can change and input is welcome.

Sentraq S60-X on Massdrop

This has been in waiting for a long time and it has now come to massdrop. Despite the interesting lead up, there does not seem to be an overwhelming amount of interest. This seems to be mostly up to the price of $129 + shipping. But it could also just be a factor of the large amount of 60%’s that have been on sale recently.

What does make the S60-X stand out is the fact that it is a DIY kit. If you are looking for a kit this looks to be a solid community designed 60%.

Interview with Eitti Wada

For those who don’t know Eitti Wada is the creator of the HHKB. This should interest you enough to read the interview. It was also conducted and written up by Andy (livingspeedbump) of keychatter.

K-Type Prototypes

The K-Type is a tenkeyless made by Input Club who created the Infinity Ergodox and the Infinity 60%. For this reason there is a fair amount of belief that this will be a nice keyboard.

There is not much new information, but nor is there much information needed. The price is really going to be the important factor. The pictures do look fantastic and I am very happy to see a usb-c connector. See the forum post for additional images.

The K-Type is currently at CES so if you want to see it in person you will have to find a way to get there. See the Forum post for addition information.

Topre Keyset

It was not much of a surprise that the Massdrop was not successful. It just wasn’t making up the numbers these past few weeks. But it is not completely dead. And I am happy to see that the original thought is still there. This was entirely brought about by peoples interest and I still think with some tweaking this could be a future possibility.

The Latest update from Massdrop employee.

Hey everyone, we are currently still talking to Topre about this drop and we are bringing up a lot of points that were made here in the discussion.

Topre is checking things out now but with the holidays coming up we probably won’t have an answer until next year in January. So in the mean time we will let this drop end. Once we are ready we will bring this back!

The Katana Keyboard Prototype

I would like to mention this as it is an interesting custom keyboard from the community. It has a very interesting description “a tilted, rotated, symmetrical custom keyboard” which certainly caught my eye. The inspiration for the design Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 which is a keyboard I hear a lot about.

I am working on an Artisan Roundup for December and something else. I am just a bit slow.