Behind the scenes #142

Giveaway and advent calendar update, quick news, in the mailbox, meetups, vendor updates, new discount.

Hey y'all,

Sorry folks, too many projects are going on at the same time, I'm overwhelmed to say the least. I'll try to reply to all the unanswered mails and inquiries but can't promise anything.

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Welcome back for another weekly recap and behind-the-scenes write-up.

If you are new to kbd.news, you can read how this started out and what this is all about nowadays. If you like what you see, subscribe to the newsletter (free) and donate some bucks to keep this otherwise free and ad-free project alive.

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Reading for the weekend

• Milktooth's Kevin is back with October's most popular switches. I piggybacked the post and included some results of the previous switch mini poll. The new poll for your November purchases is already available, and I'll try to arrange some prizes for those who fill it out.
• The application form for the anniversary giveaway is also live! Check out the list of prizes and feel free to apply.

• Here are my thoughts about the fun 8BitDo Retro Keyboard, a wireless TKL with dials and those crazy super buttons!
• CMY (Cylindrical Minimal Y) is a new open-source keycap profile by Sadek Baroudi for both MX and low-profile switches.

• Jbam9 shared a case for the JB69, a handwired ortho with a solenoid.
• Cbskii's Storyboard is a 5x12 hotswap ortholinear keyboard with an e-ink display.

• There are still some empty slots for the MK Advent Calendar, let me know if you have a good idea for an article and would like to contribute.
• Community: the swansong of MKUltra is over. Read Thomas Baart's PSA for more details.

• Lukas Bloznelis (EnergyCreator) published kbt 2.0.0, a terminal keyboard tester.
• Keystackers/kapstackers are the new trend. After the first one by Midgetforsale (etsy) and then by KeebKrafters (etsy), here is an open-source keycap stacker by vprinting.

• ElBartoME shared a Keychron Q6 OLED module with a tutorial on how to replace the macro keys with an OLED screen.
• Just pics: a nice 44-key handwired by daaaaaaave, and another one called gvlsplit by FrostingHopeful.

• Inspiration: @fairladyxy teased a prototype of a trackball with an integrated keyboard ("just for the sake of it"):

Giveaway update

As already told, the application form is live. Click here to enter the giveaway. Once you've checked out the list of prizes (still not final), you can enter your choice in the form so I can pair winners with prizes they actually are interested in and can use. So you won't win low-pro caps if you're only into MX switches.

Last year I had to reach out to all the 100+ winners to ask them about their preferences so hopefully asking this in advance will spare me some emails.

In addition, watch out for regions! Choose prizes from your own region or expect possible taxes and customs fees when choosing "worldwide" items.

Thanks to all the vendors who offered prizes for this event:

Capsule Deluxe, Chosfox, Custom Keyboard Co., Cyboard, Dangkeebs, FalbaTech, Goblintechkeys, Green Door Geeks, Heavymetalkeyboards, Keeb.supply, KEEBD, Keebmonkey, Kemove, Keyboard.io, Keycapsss, KEYGEM, KHOR, Kinetic Labs, Krome Keycaps, Little Keyboards, Mechanicalkeyboards.co.id, Mechboards, Mechbox, Mintlodica, Momokai, Turtlekeebs, Upgrade Keyboards, ZSA Technology Labs.

Donations

• ZSA Technology Labs joined the ranks of donors with a generous initial donation. Thanks Erez!
• One recurring donation cancelled.
• And as always, many thanks to everyone who helped this project thus far, especially to regular donors. Without you, this project wouldn't have survived for 3 years.

If you missed it last time, there are some new donation options. Some of you hate PayPal and think it's a big barrier. That's why I've added Stripe, PayPal, Ko-fi, Buy Me a Coffee and Patreon now. You find all the links on the donation page.

In the mailbox

When you think it isn't really possible for a retro keyboard to be even more filthy (1976 Videoton), another Videoton shows up and you feel instantly infected by a dozen of unknown viruses just by staring at it for more than a few seconds. Time to grab my hazmat suit again.

So at first sight this seemed to be a common DEC LK-201 layout, the first with the inverted T arrow cluster, but take a closer look at it. It's probably easier to notice the difference if you live in Europe where all the funny accented and national characters usually take the place of symbols on the base layer. The strange thing is this does not happened here, we have both the symbols AND the national characters. How is is possible? This board has 113 keys because two-three extra columns compared to the standard layout! :D (And I love the nice doubleshot Ő and Ű caps.)

Despite the Videoton/TKI sticker this is a Cherry keyboard (G80-0592 with vintage black switches). No date indicated except some components (1979) – but the board itself was manufactured later since MX blacks weren't around until 1983 I guess. Cleaning later.

Keyboard archeology

Speaking of the Videoton, I still haven't unsoldered a switch but have exchanged some mails with Daniel Beardsmore who runs telcontar.net, an excellent resource, and is very knowledgeable about all the obscure boards, switches and circuits. My favorite line from his mails:

…the way people believe keyboards work (microprocessor or microcontroller running matrix scan firmware) is only valid from around 1977 onwards – Daniel.

So many things to learn.

Meetup database

Well, not publishing the newsletter on Friday makes this section quite meaningless so no upcoming meetups this time.

Instead, here is Daihuku's stream of TenKey Vol.5 (the opening starts at about 16:30):

As always, the meetup database is both a calendar and an archive so feel free to send me upcoming events or even ones from the recent past to make this collection as comprehensive as possible.

Vendor database

New shops and updates to the database of keyboard vendors this week:

• SublimeKBD offered you a 5% discount on all keyboard switches (KBDNEWS, one use per customer). Thanks Vince!
• Cleanup continued: Elboard, Superanked, Mechfashion, BeyondCustoms, Happy Coil Cables, NeonKeys removed/closed – result of the giveaway mass mail bounces and reports by readers (thanks Daniel and Nanda!).

Developments

• The map tile service behind the maps on the vendor and meetup pages was closed a few days ago – that's why all the maps are blank now. I was sent a code snippet which could hopefully solve the issue but this is not top priority for me these days.

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Still with me?

I was going to tell a time-traveling joke, but you guys didn’t like it.

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That's all for today. Thanks for checking by. As always: Keep learning and building!

Until next time,
Tamás

Top switches of October, 2023

Milktooth's Kevin helps us to capture the zeitgeist and identify October's most popular switches for mechanical keyboards.

In this series, Kevin gives us an insight into your favorite switches based on his try-at-home switch service at Milktooth.

Thanks to the unique business model (after testing a sample of keyswitches you can buy what you like the most) it is possible to reduce or eliminate impulse buying and separate hype from conscious switch choice based on real experiences of customers.

The list below, a summary of October's numbers, is compiled based on these educated purchases. (For the September switch list check out this post.)

Best selling switches

Brief analysis

The Morandis (top photo) have moved up a few spots from last month.

This is mainly because the WS Morandis are an excellent choice if you’re looking for a smooth and creamy switch. These are prized characteristics for switches at the moment. As such, the Morandis are my top recommendation whenever someone asks for a switch with a creamy feel. Due to its excellent performance paired with its approachable price at $3.75 for 10 (Milktooth exclusive price), it’s no wonder they’re moving up quickly in our bestsellers list.

If you’re interested in learning more about them and listening to a typing test, I’ve reviewed them in this video.

Switches to pay attention to

Some switches that a lot of people enjoy trying and then committing to a full set of.

Gateron Mini i and Gateron Mountain Top: These are specifically designed for office use, meaning they aren’t super loud and are a breeze to type on. In my opinion you could type hours on these with no issues. The Mini i’s are tactile and the Mountain Tops are linear, so there’s something for everybody out there.

Sillyworks Hyacinth V2: These are from a new factory called HMX. Personally, I’ve been pretty impressed by their offerings. In particular, these Sillyworks Hyacinth V2s have a distinctive deep “clack”; if you’re looking for a very marbley sound signature like tiles of mahjong clashing against each other, I would definitely try these out.

Durock Dolphin: On the other side of the sound spectrum we have the Durock Dolphins which are silent switches. If you’re noise-sensitive, these are definitely the way to go. Moreover, with a 62g bottom-out, these are medium-heavy switches. So, if you like a more substantial typing feel, these could be a good fit.

Resources

• Obviously, you can check out and buy these switches, along with many more models, at Milktooth.

Switch purchase poll

In addition to Kevin's numbers I also reached out to all the newsletter subscribers for your experiences, asking about your latest purchases in October.

Many thanks to all of you who took the time and answered some quick questions. Unfortunately, the number of answers was nowhere near the number of subscribers and not many conclusions can be drawn from the data as you'll see.

Almost half of you purchased new switches last month (49.1%) – this is pretty much the only clear conclusion I could draw. :) Because the switch types you bought and the stores indicated couldn't be more diverse. I mean, there are so many switches and shops out there that with a slight exaggeration there are no two purchases with the same switch model, making any aggregation of the data completely pointless.

After Kevin's compilation above, with the focus on MX switches, it may be interesting that, at least based on this poll, 23% of you bought low-pro switches, mainly Chocs. (This shouldn't be surprising at all if you consider the main focus of kbd.news though.) Again, too many switch types, only Sunsets and Whites came up multiple times.

For the record, there was a single Blue Alps buyer too.

With regards to stores: You visited many dozens of them to purchase your switch of choice, and to make it even more diverse, in addition to stores you often entered mechmarket and other community members as the source of your new switches. No point in aggregating or visualizing this data set either. The couple of sources you mentioned multiple times were general places like Aliexpress or Amazon, all the other shops/sellers were mentioned just a few times or mostly once.

Nevertheless, thanks again for the answers. The new form for your November switch purchases is already available here, and I'll try to arrange a prize for one (or more) lucky respondent(s).

8BitDo Retro keyboard

Here are my thoughts about the fun 8BitDo Retro Keyboard, a wireless TKL, hotswap, with dials and super buttons for the win! :D

I received this cool 8BitDo Retro keyboard from the manufacturer. While they are not the most responsive folks (only two of my five emails were answered, but who's counting), they deserve a post because of the cool retro design and well, because they sent me a free sample. Sort of… The real story of how I acquired this specimen may end up in my year-end advent calendar write-up.

Quick specs

With regards to its layout this is a pretty classic wireless TKL with a unique "dual super button" add-on, in fact a cool two-button macropad with huge keycaps.

Wired, Bluetooth and 2.4G wireless modes, volume dial – and many sympathetic details in line with the retro concept.

Other than that, the 8BitDo comes with box white switches. If you start at the prospect of clickiness just by reading this, the Retro keyboard is hotswap so you can easily change the switches any time. (I typed on box whites for a really long time about 4-5 years ago. Honestly, I enjoyed them back then, but the noise made my head ache this time. Times change.)

The keycaps are dye-sub MDAs. Homing dashes, probably my favorite way of marking homing keys.

For whom?

This keyboard looks awesome, is affordable ($99), comes fully prebuilt, and is widely available from the 8BitDo site to Amazon.

It may perfectly fit you if you type in English and prefer a traditional ANSI layout. I would recommend it to the less savvy TKL users though, primarily because of the limitations of the software.

Layout & spacing

87 MX keys plus two dials (wireless mode selection and volume) plus three small function buttons – the keyboard inherited the design of the studio's control panel introduced on their Arcade Stick.

The tenkeyless layout is ideal if you don't need a numpad but prefer to have a full function row, as well as an offset arrow cluster – in contrast to crowded 60% or even smaller boards.

Design

8BitDo is known for their various controllers, and the Retro keyboard is the first one of its kind in their product range.

As a retro keyboard enthusiast I instantly fell in love with it when I saw the beautifully composed photos for the first time.

What's even better, the retro keyboard comes in two flavors: the N and Fam colorways. The company carefully avoids naming brands and mentioning Nintendo anywhere on their site but the color/design language is a clear reference to legendary consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Family Computer.

I received the N version, but both look gorgeous in my opinion, the Fam coming with Hiragana sublegends.

Build quality

This is an all-plastic keyboard. I can't say anything bad about the build quality and hardware, but for some reason I don't like the feel that much. This may be personal preference.

And it's much darker than you may expect based on the official photos. The white on the box (it comes in quality packaging!) may give you a clue:

Super buttons

In 8BitDo terminology both the red B and A keys on the main keyboard (right of the spacebar) and the huge circular buttons are called super buttons (sometimes). Let's focus on the latter in this part.

I was a bit confused about the four jack inputs and only realized they all work (sort of) when playing with the configurator, meaning you can connect up to four of these things to the keyboard.

As you can see, it's a jack connector, you won't be able to connect this macropad directly to your host computer.

The specially designed 8BitDo Dual Super Buttons offer large, programmable keys. Set macros to the Super Buttons, or map anything to them instantly without using software.

Despite this promise, I was able to assign basic keycodes to the buttons but not macros. At least those I tried (e.g. Win+L for locking my screen) did not work. More on this in the next part about the software.

Under the hood there's a single green, clicky switch, hotswap too(!), with a simple stabilizer mechanism based on (lubed) rails for the red keycaps. There is considerable wobble, but these buttons are not precision instruments.

The sheer size and spacious top surface of the buttons are a clear invitation for your clenched fists, but the single switch combined with the relatively heavy keycap makes keypresses very easy to register. I wouldn't say they are delicate but definitely more delicate than it may seem.

Software

The retro keyboard comes with 8BitDo's proprietary software. I've seen very ugly but working software. This one is beautiful but I have a lot of problems with it. It would be cool if the board was QMK or Vial compatible, instead, I had to check out the proprietary software since I really struggle on the default vanilla QWERTY, and the super buttons have no action associated by default either.

After downloading and launching the app, the 8BitDo Ultimate Software V2 offers you to update the firmware:

I can imagine that a proprietary software like this can be straightforward for an uninitiated first-time user, but coming from QMK and Vial it may cause you some headache.

E.g. the keyboard layout you see on the interface is a static image, it doesn't react to changes you make to the keymap. In addition, you choose keys from dropdown menus, classified into often unreasonable group. No AltGr? It also took me some time to find Print Screen in the navigation group.

Macro: There's only live macro recording as an option (in the app and also via a magic button, but you can't set up macros step by step e.g. typing the actions into an editor) which may result in funny or actually potentially disastrous situations – e.g. if you want to set up the super button for locking your screen.

I could go on with examples for the confusing behavior but here is a last one: you have to activate your custom keymap by pressing the dedicated 8BitDo heart key on the control panel, otherwise you get the default layout even after setting up your custom one.

Verdict

Both versions of the 8BitDo Retro keyboard look gorgeous. Lots of nice details from the dials, classic power led to the magnetic adapter compartment. It's a great ANSI TKL until you don't want too much customization – the software needs to be updated or even better it simply needs QMK/Vial support.

Resources

• https://www.8bitdo.com/

JB69

Jbam9 shared a case for the JB69, a handwired ortho with a solenoid.

Jbam9 aka Comfortable-Seat-470 shared the case of JB69, this handwired ortho built around a Teensy 4.0. The case is printed in four pieces, making it suitable for printers with print beds of only 220mm x 220mm.

I give you: JB69. It’s a handwired, 69 key ortho layout with RGB, a knob, and a solenoid. Running on custom C++ firmware on a Teensy 4.0 – Jbam9.

The board uses a simple transistor circuit to power the solenoid directly via USB power, and the encoder controls the RGB brightness.

With regards to typing speed vs solenoid behavior:

Right now it takes 20ms to activate and deactivate the solenoid, so you can do up to 3000 characters a min or about 600 wpm without missing a solenoid click. In the event that the solenoid doesn’t have time to activate, the keystroke is still sent – Jbam9.

Specs

• 69 keys, handwired
• Teensy 4.0 controller
• RGB
• encoder
• solenoid

Resources

• JB69 github repo

Storyboard

Cbskii's Storyboard is a 5x12 hotswap ortholinear keyboard with an e-ink display.

The Storyboard by cbskii is an open-source 5x12 ortho with an e-ink display in the middle. Inspired by boards like the Lumberjack, Bakeneko 60 and Ghoul, the Storyboard supports Sparkfun's Micromod processor boards, keypress interrupts, and universal USB daughterboards.

This is a hobby project so I've designed the keyboard with learning and experimentation in mind. Most components are SMT and can be assembled by the PCB manufacturer for added cost leaving only a few headers to be soldered by hand – cbskii.

Specs

• 60 keys, 5x12 ortholinear arrangement
• Hotswap, MX (only)
• E-Ink display for personalization (3.52" Waveshare e-Paper HAT).
• Sparkfun Micromod processor board support, allowing for easy swap of the underlying MCU and related functionality (requires firmware change).
• Shift register based key matrix that requires only 4 GPIOs.
• Key press interrupt support to enable lower power usage modes.
• USB daughterboard support (e.g. Unified Daughterboard).
• QMK firmware

Resources

• Storyboard on Github.

CMY keycap profile

CMY (Cylindrical Minimal Y) is a new open-source keycap profile by Sadek Baroudi for both MX and low-profile switches.

Sadek Baroudi of fingerpunch.xyz published a new keycap profile for narrower vertical spacing: the CMY (Cylindrical Minimal Y) is a new open-source profile with various keycap models for both MX and low-profile switches.

The dimensions of these are 18 mm width (standard), and 15.4 mm height (minimum vertical spacing for MX and choc switches). The CMY keycaps support MX, Choc v1, KS-27 and KS-33 switch types.

The intent is to have some comfortable keycaps to be used with keyboard designs that utilize minimal Y spacing. […] I must say, I did this as an experiment, and I absolutely love minimal Y spacing! Anyway, hope someone gets some good use out of them! – Sadek.

There are multiple types, sculpted thumbs, etc:

• 5 degree tilt
• 12 degree tilt
• 12 degree tilt with flat ends
• Sculpted thumb keys
• Edge col sideways tilt

There is also one type of homing key, with 2 dots.

Resources

• CMY Github repo with more info, renders and STLs.

Warning: I am still in the process of testing these keycaps! I can confirm that if you order the Choc ones in MJF from JLCPCB, they should be okay, but produce at your own risk – Sadek.