Mechanical keyboards

As the primary user interface for many generations of computer users, the humble keyboard surely deserves its place in the history books as one of the twentieth century’s greatest inventions. From the surface, at least, it appears to be largely unchanged since the electric typewriter of the ’30s, with the layout even older still — a lattice of switches which, when closed, send an appropriate electrical signal to the computing device — and as a frequent, heavy computer user, I should probably have paid more attention.

Of course, no invention is safe from innovation and human ingenuity. In the last couple of years, I've become interested in mechanical keyboards as a hobby: building them, swapping components, and learning new layouts. Below you can find some details about the keyboards or kits I currently have.

An opensource DIY keyboard originally developed by dox, featuring a split, ergonomic layout and QMK support. 80 (or so) keys, USB, customisable like few keebs. I bought a kit and starting building with Mina at Domain, but it has languished in a drawer since then. Maybe when we find our next rental property I'll be able to setup a soldering station and actually finish some stuff?

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Reddit

GK61 from 极客定制 (Jí kè dìngzhì? “geek customisation”) is a 60% keyboard with hot-swappable switches and a custom firmware. It's my first “Alibaba” keyboard purchase, and I really do like it, although I miss having Fn keys (and will likely buy something that includes them next). I capped Kailh red switches with some front-printed Cherry-profile keys, switched off most of the RGB glow, and use it to hack Python and other things on a Macbook Pro via a USB cable.
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Reddit Drivers Opensource

The Idobo75 kit from YMDK comes with a coffee-brown aluminium case and backplate, and hot-swappable, QMK-programmable PCB. I'll be installing Kailh brown switches (because I have some, and to stick with the coffee colouring) and DSA keycaps. It's an ortholinear ‘board, which may take some getting used to but I'm hopeful that the extra keys (5x15 = 75) will let me add Fn keys as I miss those from the GK61.
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The Iris keyboard, a split ergonomic keyboard with 4x6 vertically staggered keys and 3 or 4 thumb keys. Time to stop stretching your thumbs out on the Ergodox!

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The name Nyquist comes from the Nyquist sampling theorem, which says that if you want to sample a signal to convert it from analog to digital and be able to uniquely reconstruct the signal later, then the sample rate has to be twice the bandwidth of the signal. So here, if you want to sample this PCB, you're going to need 2 of them.
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The 6Gv2 is the lower priced mechanical gaming keyboard from SteelSeries. Compared to other gaming keyboards, the SteelSeries 6Gv2 doesn’t come with a lot of spectacular features. It focuses on the most important aspects and gives you good value for your money. The SteelSeries 6Gv2 uses original Cherry MX Black Switches.

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