Keyboard Builders' Digest / Projects
Nora
Nora is a family of low-profile narrow-pitch keyboards designed by Takeshi Nishio.
Published May 26, 2022
Nora is another keyboard project I've been planning to feature for a long time.
Takeshi Nishio (aka @jpskenn) designed the low-pro Nora keyboard family with a rare symmetric layout, and according to a recent article published by akiba pc, it is now available as a kit at Yusha Kobo.
The Nora kit, which allows you to assemble a thin keyboard with a "narrow pitch" and a symmetrical arrangement, has arrived at Yusha Kobo.
Nora's "narrow pitch" is one fundamental characteristics of the design: upon first reading I thought it simply meant the classic Choc spacing but, as you'll see, it's even narrower while using Choc v1 low profile switches.
The layout features symmetrical "gapless" R2-R3 rows without any offset (à la ortho) just like the author's previous, MX-spaced Jones keyboard.
And that's the origin of the name btw:
Narrow Jones --> Norah Jones --> Norah --> Nora
The other rows have a 0.5u offset which results in a layout resembling my old Reuters and for some reason also the Katana60. Ofc the Nora is unique because it manages to fit an extra column into the 60% width.
As you can see, thanks to the narrower spacing, one more key fits into a 60%-wide row, which means common GH60/Poker compatible low profile cases are supported.
Since 16 columns are crammed into the size of a 60% keyboard, the horizontal grid is slightly narrower (17.86x17mm) than the common 18x17mm Choc spacing, and requires MBK or even smaller Choc keycaps.
To make the layout more ergonomic, the alpha keys are arranged on the two sides and some symbols or even a numpad can be put into the middle. Well, sort of…
Because Nora is a family of keyboards rather than a single model, there are completely different arrangements with unique appearances:
- Full size is what you see above
- Fearless Wings gets rid of the middle keys (below)
- RE has a (rather big) low-pro rotary encoder in the middle
- and 1.8k has an 1800-style arrow cluster
All in all, Takeshi came up with a versatile layout designed around an interesting concept.
And the best thing? It's open-source.
GitHub repo: https://github.com/jpskenn/Nora
Published on Thu 26th May 2022. Featured in KBD #80 (source).
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