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My dream keyboard would be a Kinesis advantage with some significant modifications to make it good for taking it on the go, since I travel a bunch and work from

by osdiab 9y ago

My dream keyboard would be a Kinesis advantage with some significant modifications to make it good for taking it on the go, since I travel a bunch and work from public places. In order of importance: 1. more compact. No extra surface, instead just have separate wells connected either by a wire like the Kinesis Freestyle, or fully wirelessly ideally. Kinda like the ErgoDox keyboard. 2. lightweight. Don’t want to be carrying a brick in my backpack. I’m totally fine with using low travel keys like how a MacBook or any decent chiclet keyboards feels, I mostly just want the layout. 3. wireless. Bluetooth with ability to switch multiple inputs like the Logitech K811 would be incredible. If anyone knows how someone would start to hack something like this together, please tell me! I have never done hardware but I would love to mess around with something like this as a project.

exergy 9y ago
There was a geekhack post on this sort of general idea, but it hasn't seen activity for a while now: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84985.0 https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84985.0 Looks stunning to me. The rather underrated Cherry ML switches strike the balance of low travel and good feel for me. Maybe one day someone will get sufficiently inspired to make such a thing.
raihansaputra 9y ago
tons of small keyboards inspired by kinesis has been developed. Iris, Dactyl, Split Plancks, and more. Depends on what you really need from the Kinesis. Is it the thumb buttons? The cups? The split layout? There are several other designs that are more compact, but I don't really remember the specifics. /r/mechanicalkeyboards is a good place to watch for the designs (yes, among all the expensive conventional keyboards there)
- osdiab 9y ago
  For me the most important are split layout and portability. The cups and thumb layouts are just icing on the cake, tenting on a flat layout would be sufficient too. Iris and dactyl look like the sort of things I’m thinking, though I’d probably want to find a way to either have f keys or configure some of those thumb keys to hit certain common f keys, I assume that’s doable though! Thanks for the resources, just mentioning names and where to look really helps :)
  - raihansaputra 9y ago
    of course, you can make it whatever you want! it's fully programmable. just hit me up if you need anything!
  - ventureV 9y ago
    I have the Diverge and it's very nice.
exikyut 9y ago
- Get different kinds of keyswitches (the kinds used in DIY keyboards) and examine how they click into place etc - Start playing with 3D modeling software - Figure out what the base/frame should look/work like and have that professionally made somewhere (ie a cheap CNC place) - Invest in a good 3D printer (I hear the cheap kit/"project" ones are terrible) or find one you can rent/borrow, and 3D print attachments to the base for iteration purposes I realize this approach describes several months of work but is probably a "99.9% solution" - as in it'll be likely to (viably) get you the absolute closest to exactly what you're looking for.

by osdiab 9y ago

exergy 9y ago

There was a geekhack post on this sort of general idea, but it hasn't seen activity for a while now: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84985.0 https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=84985.0 Looks stunning to me. The rather underrated Cherry ML switches strike the balance of low travel and good feel for me. Maybe one day someone will get sufficiently inspired to make such a thing.

raihansaputra 9y ago

tons of small keyboards inspired by kinesis has been developed. Iris, Dactyl, Split Plancks, and more. Depends on what you really need from the Kinesis. Is it the thumb buttons? The cups? The split layout? There are several other designs that are more compact, but I don't really remember the specifics. /r/mechanicalkeyboards is a good place to watch for the designs (yes, among all the expensive conventional keyboards there)

osdiab 9y ago
For me the most important are split layout and portability. The cups and thumb layouts are just icing on the cake, tenting on a flat layout would be sufficient too. Iris and dactyl look like the sort of things I’m thinking, though I’d probably want to find a way to either have f keys or configure some of those thumb keys to hit certain common f keys, I assume that’s doable though! Thanks for the resources, just mentioning names and where to look really helps :)
- raihansaputra 9y ago
  of course, you can make it whatever you want! it's fully programmable. just hit me up if you need anything!
- ventureV 9y ago
  I have the Diverge and it's very nice.

exikyut 9y ago

- Get different kinds of keyswitches (the kinds used in DIY keyboards) and examine how they click into place etc - Start playing with 3D modeling software - Figure out what the base/frame should look/work like and have that professionally made somewhere (ie a cheap CNC place) - Invest in a good 3D printer (I hear the cheap kit/"project" ones are terrible) or find one you can rent/borrow, and 3D print attachments to the base for iteration purposes I realize this approach describes several months of work but is probably a "99.9% solution" - as in it'll be likely to (viably) get you the absolute closest to exactly what you're looking for.