Video A Warm-Feeling Wooden Keyboard (Video) 82
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Plastic, plastic everywhere! Except on most surfaces of the Keyboardio ergonomic keyboard, which started as a 'scratch his itch' project by Jesse Vincent. According to his blurb on the Keyboardio site, Jesse 'has spent the last 20 years writing software like Request Tracker, K-9 Mail, and Perl. He types... a lot. He tried all the keyboards before finally making his own.'
His objective was to make a keyboard he really liked. And he apparently has. This video was shot in June, and Jesse already has a new model prototype under way that Tim Lord says is a notable improvement on the June version he already liked. || Note that the Keyboardio is hackable and open source, so if you think you can improve it, go right ahead. (Alternate Video Link)
His objective was to make a keyboard he really liked. And he apparently has. This video was shot in June, and Jesse already has a new model prototype under way that Tim Lord says is a notable improvement on the June version he already liked. || Note that the Keyboardio is hackable and open source, so if you think you can improve it, go right ahead. (Alternate Video Link)
Re:That... looks... horrible. (Score:4, Interesting)
Maltron keyboards are kind of crazy - they're still made using very low volume manufacturing techniques. The keyboard shells, AFAIK are vacuum formed and (unless things have changed recently) I think they do manual point-to-point wiring on the switches. But if you look at the sculpted shape of a Maltron, they don't lend themselves to conventional PCBs.
I'm typing on one now - I think it's quite an old one but it looks as though the design changes are mostly smallish refinements and updates to the controller / electronics. I got mine from an office clearer on eBay, otherwise they've very expensive and I probably wouldn't have got it.
I've also got a Kinesis, an ergo board which came later (and with a strikingly similar design). It feels a bit more like a slick, mass-manufactured product but I've known people insist that the Maltron is ergonomically better overall. I'm not so fussy, I'm just glad I got two cool keyboards for prices I felt I could afford!