Figure 1: Oh yeah, I meant it when I said obscure...
There’s no doubt that mechanical keyboard switches have gotten increasingly better in their stock forms over the past half decade of releases. Despite switches now having tighter manufacturing tolerances, smoother factory lubing, and overall higher quality per dollar spent, aftermarket modifications of switches is still one of the most discussed topics by people freshly joining the hobby today. This hyper fixation on switch modding is due in no small part to the glut of keyboard content creators that produced videos, shorts, and all manner of content during the peak of COVID talking about the art and science behind lubing and filming for switches. For a while there, it almost seemed as if you had to have some content about lubing, filming, and/or ‘frankenswitching’ switches if you wanted to cut it as being a true keyboard content creator in the space. However, as people like this have flooded the internet with...
That would be a cool shop to go to in a mall.
In some of my past posts and reviews I’ve written there have been requests to walk through my own process for building a keyboard for myself. I’m fortunate in that I get to build many keyboards. I haven’t logged every single keyboard that I’ve built, that would have been great, but hindsight is 20/20. The vast majority of the builds that I do are for other hobbyists. I built a small name for myself doing commissions and build services specializing in leveraging my extensive knowledge of the hobby to help acquire unique boards, make recommendations in build materials, and providing a truly personalized board for those who might not have known much about mechanical keyboards before reaching out to me. I started doing this service back in 2018, and now, being a dad, husband and full time IT specialist, I tend to only accept a couple commissions at a time. I’ve got my own backlog of boards, my collection seems to continually grow, and I...
If you watched Star Wars for the first time, without seeing images of the Empire’s perfectly spaced thousands of goose-stepping minions in spotless white-lacquered armor. If you didn’t see the fleets of black and grey tie-fighters, the immaculately designed star cruisers, the evil moon-shaped flagship… you wouldn’t know that the rebels were rebels.
After all, rebels don’t look like rebels if they don’t have something to contrast them against. They just look like normal people. That’s probably why when you see Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Finn (all rebels) dressed in stormtrooper garb, they somehow seem even more rebellious then they were before. It’s not what they’re wearing, it’s how they wear it. Dirty, scuffed, broken. Helmet missing or askew. An out of place, beat up weapon slung diagonally across their body. It’s the simple act of defacing the uniform that identifies them in our mind as counter-cultural.
Funnily enough, it works in reverse. To the dismay of...
Keymap optimization: language statistics and important indicators
Welcome back to this series where we’re designing kick-ass keymaps! After covering basics like how good/bad QWERTY is, the power of layers and the potential of custom keymaps, we took the first real steps in designing your tailor-fit keymap by looking into some options for compiling a corpus in general and also with a more useful personal corpus in mind.
Quick recap: in this context, corpus is simply a fancy name for a big chunk of text.
Today, we’re going to analyze your corpus (or pretty much any text if you haven't done your homework yet) and discuss some basic language statistics along with common metrics that can be used to quickly evaluate a keymap, and also to compare layouts. This is the next logical step in our journey if you're aiming to craft the optimal keymap for yourself.
Character/bigram/trigram frequencies
To begin with, let's examine the character frequencies in our corpus. The occurrence of different letters can vary significantly not only between...
Making your keyboard work for you!
When shopping for a new keyboard you may have heard that you want to have a keyboard that is compatible with QMK, VIA, or VIAL. These are three different programs that allow you to modify the assigned keys on a keyboard. This is one of the major advantages of using a custom mechanical keyboard and one that I feel is criminally underused. Making small adjustments to your layers can allow you to tune your keyboard to your exact specifications. For example, I always swap the position of left control and caps lock. I’ve always felt that caps lock was a waste of such a valuable space. For those of you that read some of my earlier articles, you’ll know that my first mechanical keyboard was a Happy Hacking Keyboard. As you’ll see later on, my personal layouts are heavily inspired by this keyboard, even going so far as to mapping my backspace to the pipe key on nearly every single physical layout, yes including tenkeyless. Today, I hope you can take away...
I don’t think this is an article.
I’m pretty sure it’s the beginning of a book.
The "technology" section of every thrift store is a potential treasure trove. Swap meets, estate sales... they're the same. I honestly enjoy sifting through stacks of typewriters, radios, turntables and dusty old keyboards... hunting for treasure. That's what has led me to ask my friends in the hobby a pair of simple but nuanced questions… what’s your dream thrift store find and what’s your holy grail?
It turns out, that for many, that’s the same question. For a lot of people in this hobby, finding the perfect board for you happens at some point, and rather than staring at your collection of boards on the wall, or continuing to buy keyboards until your room looks like Wall-E’s trailer…
Instead, mature keyboard hobbyists tend to do a number of things:
Sell/trade artisan keycaps
Purchase keycap sets
Sell or trade rare/nice (and sometimes new) keyboards to keep things fresh
Most of us haven’t...
Layout optimization best practices: sources of your personal corpus (part 2)
Welcome back to our series on designing custom keymaps! After looking into how good/bad QWERTY is, the power of layers, and the potential of custom keymaps, last time we took the first real step by examining your options for compiling a corpus.
As a recap: The corpus is simply a big chunk of text. We use this collection of textual data, often a single text file, to characterize your typing habits (calculating various language statistics), and feed it directly or indirectly as an input into layout optimization algorithms – to find the optimal keymap for you!
Today we’ll expand on this idea by exploring your options if, like me, you prefer a personalized corpus rather than grabbing some general (and mostly irrelevant) data available online.
Image 1: Letter frequencies – the most basic use of corpora – in this very post
We've seen that a well-crafted, personalized corpus plays a key role in determining the outcome of the optimization process. We've also explored...
Figure 1: This is the keyboard of someone (0range) who clearly knows how to ask proper questions.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been lurking around the channels of a couple of different entry level keyboard forums and I have to admit that the experience is quite bleak. I’m not saying this because of “toxicity” or people being given wrong information, rather I see so many people’s questions going unanswered… and to be honest they’re kind of to blame for it. While I recognize that not everyone coming freshly into the keyboard space enters it with the same level of inquisitiveness that I did when I first joined back in 2017, these questions going unanswered really feel way under-thought or over-thought compared to where I was. On one hand, you get questions like this:
What is best gaming keyboard?
And on the other hand, you get questions like this:
Hi, there everyone! I am just now starting to look into mechanical keyboards as an avid gamer and I need some help in...
Layout Optimization Best Practices: The Corpus (Part 1)
In this series we are designing our own custom keymaps, logical layouts, you name it. We’ve laid the groundwork by looking into how good/bad QWERTY is, the power of layers (SpaceFN), and also the huge potential of alternative layouts and custom keymaps. Today, we take the first step in designing your ultimate keymap by exploring our options for compiling a corpus.
What's a corpus? Essentially, it's just a fancy term for a big chunk of text. In this context it means a usually large collection of textual data used directly or indirectly as an input for our layout optimization algorithms. Often literally a single text file.
Why does it matter to you? Because a well-crafted, personalized corpus is crucial for keymap wizards. If you're aiming to design your own custom logical layout, the corpus plays a key role in determining the language statistics that reflect your typing habits, thus the outcome of the optimization. These statistics, which we extract through analysis of...
Fear and loathing on a PCB
At a recent keyboard meetup I was talking to someone very new to the hobby and they said that they bought a board and were surprised to discover that it was not hotswap. They were really intimidated by the idea of soldering their switches into their keyboard. Turns out, for some people, whipping out a blazing hot metal stick and possibly wrecking your expensive purchase gets them jittery.
All kidding aside, for the first year or so in the hobby, I purchased exclusively hotswap keyboards, avoiding soldering for a couple reasons. Firstly, I didn’t want to commit to any one switch. I liked clicky a lot early on (still do if I’m being honest) but I saw that the folks who had been in the hobby for longer moved away from clicky, and I predicted accurately that I too would do the same. Secondly, I was just coming to terms with what it cost to buy and build a keyboard, and soldering seemed like an unnecessary risk.
I can trace my initial...
I Think My Switch Is Stuck! - The Tale of Cherry MX Locks
Over the years of collecting mechanical keyboard switches, I’ve been lucky enough to have encountered dozens upon dozens of rare and unique ones that have stuck in my mind to this day. Prototypes, factory errors, and even a few switches so rare that there is literally zero documentation about them anywhere in the world all fill that personal list from top to bottom. However, I realize that talking about switches so far outside of most people’s reaches, and even sometimes my own grasp, doesn’t make for the most exciting of articles about switches. To this newest generation of keyboard enthusiasts, though, there is one pretty rare MX-style switch which has made its way to the top of everyone’s “must try” lists – Cherry MX Locks. These often undiscussed and even more rarely seen switches are something that few people have seen and even fewer have had the chance to try at a meetup before. However, the list of people who really know how these unique Cherry switches work is even shorter...
I must have watched this GMMK Pro pre-sale build video from a YouTuber named IO Sam a dozen times before I pulled out my wallet and pre-ordered it.
In retrospect, I learned a great deal about building keyboards from Sam’s straightforward, professional delivery. I watched and re-watched sections I didn’t understand, and certain phrases and moments in the video stuck with me in ways where I still think about them. Especially at 23:10, when he compliments the MT3 White on Black keycaps with an actual chef’s kiss, locks eyes with the camera and says “Perfecto.” (I still do that whenever I put MT3 WOB on a board.)
In that video, IO Sam introduced me to DROP, when he referenced the MT3 WOB’s and the GMK Kaiju keycaps that he set the Glorious GMMK Pro up with. I was in love with the look and feel of the MT3 profile. (I still am, as you can read in my previous article “In defense of MT3”) As a life-long Godzilla fanatic, I fell head over heals for GMK Kaiju. In the latter parts...
Typing out all the Harry Potter books would be crazy, right? What would be the point? Seems like a weird flex even by keyboard enthusiast standards. Yep, that's right. Typing it out once makes no sense. That's why I'm going to type out the books a few million times! For the benefit of humanity and especially of you, fellow keymap wizards.
This demonstration of the power of alternative/custom layouts is a shortened version of the original article at kbd.news. Given the huge extent of this topic, we can barely scratch the surface here so consider this write-up a mere teaser.
Imagine you are an aspiring writer with a brilliant idea, just about to start typing out your magnum opus, staring at a yet empty document on your screen. Cursor blinking, annoying orphan relatives locked up in the cupboard under the stairs.
Your story, about a young boy who ends up saving the world, is quite complete. You "just" have to type out heaps of your manuscripts and notes: about 6.5 million...
Image credit @zhugunic https://drop.com/talk/67372/gl-2-k
Do I need an amp? What are these acronyms like DAC, DSP, or DSD? What even are all the components that make up an audio chain? Let’s take a beginner’s look at the core, essential building blocks of a digital audio chain, and lay it plain what each piece does. We can cover the major pieces separately, but I’ll still include a few tips to optimize playback here. Please hit the little bookmark button and feel free to check and share this guide whenever you need a reference!
For people who need a visual and audible explanation, or are worried it would take too long to get a working knowledge of the audio chain, here is my YouTube video on this subject that is just 7 minutes long! I like writing though, so let’s get started with an overview, then break it down into what each piece does and how an upgrade would benefit the final sound quality.
Signal Path
Image credit @SpeleoFool https://drop...
As we publish more articles in the "Mech Keys How-To" series currently ongoing, navigating the various topics and finding previous articles will only become more difficult. This thread will serve as a table of contents to help add some structure to the whole project.
Feel free to also suggest future topics in this thread, as it will surely be easier to identify gaps and opportunities for further exploration when viewing everything as a whole.
Mechanical Keyboards
Introductory Topics
Mechanical vs Membrane
Sizes and Layouts of Mechanical Keyboards
Short Intro Into Split Keyboards (dovenyi)
Staggered and Ortholinear Layouts
Low-Profile vs High-Profile Keyboard Designs
Build Materials and Other Case Design Considerations
Selecting Your First Mechanical Keyboard (The_Manic_Geek)
Keyboard Layouts
Support for Alternate Layouts (dvorcol)
What is SpaceFN and why you should give it a try (dovenyi)
Keymap Layout Analysis (Keymap wizardry: Typing out the Harry Potter saga)...
Figure 1: No, this is not a mistake. This is actually a real force curve I collected...
I’ll be the first person in line to swear up and down that force curves are and should be the absolute gold standard of information to have about any mechanical keyboard switch prior to buying them. Even those questionable, hacked together diagrams from manufacturers provide more of an idea about how a switch could or should feel than any sort of buzzword or marketing fluff about them. If you’re serious about buying switches, weird onomatopoeic descriptions or comparisons drawn to other switches just shouldn’t cut it – unless they’re in a longform switch review from your favorite switch reviewer, that is. While many of you probably already have a half decent familiarity with force curves as a result of my introductory article to them here on Drop, as well as my over 1,200 different switches that I’ve collected force curves on to date also thanks to Drop, not many of you probably...
One of Jack Kester/Pikatea's Many Boards That He Brought To The 2024 Iowa Meetup
The mechanical keyboard hobby is fantastic. Whether you’re someone that originally wanted to upgrade your desk setup with a cool-looking board, or someone that found the hobby because of ergonomic reasons, there are many ways that we found the hobby - and many more reasons why we’ve stayed in the hobby.
However, you can definitely get overwhelmed by the vast amount of information. OR, you may burn out and realize the time you’re spending negatively impacts your life. I’m hoping that by sharing my own experiences and tips, I can help newcomers and enthusiasts avoid those situations. Everyone enjoys the hobby in their own way, and that’s fine - as long as it doesn't negatively impact your life.
Let’s take a look at these 5 tips, and remember, these are just my personal opinions!
Tip 1: Don’t Bankrupt Yourself
I think this is important during the whole year, but especially because we’re...
5 Ways to Fix Jio Cinema Not Working – Expert Tips for Seamless Streaming
If you’ve been trying to watch your favorite movies and shows on Jio Cinema, but things aren’t working as expected, jio cinema not working you're not alone. Streaming issues are common across platforms, but the good news is that many problems with Jio Cinema can be resolved with a few simple fixes. In this expert guide, we’ll walk you through five effective solutions to help restore your Jio Cinema streaming experience.
1. Check Your Internet Connection
A stable internet connection is essential for uninterrupted streaming on Jio Cinema. Slow speeds, intermittent connectivity, or poor network strength can cause buffering, freezing, or even prevent the app from loading.
What to do:
Test your connection speed: Open a browser and run a speed test to ensure you're getting the bandwidth required for HD streaming (usually at least 5 Mbps).
Switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data: If your Wi-Fi connection is unstable, try switching to mobile data. Alternatively, switching to a stronger Wi-Fi...
Assembly Steps:
1. Remove the 8 case screws with a phillips head screwdriver. (Note: If your keyboard already comes with stabilizers already pre-installed and you do not want to change your switch plate, you can safely skip to step 7.)
2. Remove the structural top case once all the case screws are removed.
3. Take out the keyboard plate and PCBA assembly together and flip them around. Remove the 6 screws connecting the assembly with a phillips head screwdriver.
4. The plate and PCBA assembly should now be separate, allowing you to add the PCBA stabilizers. You will need to make (4) 2u and (1) 6.25u stabilizers for the CSTM80. Please see image below on how to create stabilizer assemblies. (Note: Test the stabilizers and make sure the stems are freely moving up and down to ensure everything is installed correctly.)
5. Ensure IXPE foam is affixed properly on the PCBA with all holes aligned. Install the stabilizer assemblies onto...
Figure 1: Are these even long pole? I don't know, but they're really serving 'long pole vibes'. Something tells me I should probably be a little more rigorous about them than that though..
Honestly, I’m a tad bit compelled to kick off this article by once again hammering on the meme that everyone newer to the hobby loves to repeat in that “all linears are basically the same”. While my aptly named last article from Drop titled ‘Not All Linears Are The Same!’ likely did a good enough job of dissuading most readers of that age old falsehood, this one may help put it to rest for the remaining few of you who weren’t so convinced. Don’t worry to all of you reading this who don’t care that much for linear switches, either, as the idea of ‘long pole’ switches can also apply to tactiles too! Once an odd design quirk developed to help emphasize sharp, forceful, and pointed bottoming out sensations in BSUN and Tecsee switches back in 2020, ‘long stem poles’ have since morphed into a...
Figure 1: Not even all of these (mostly) KTT-made linears are the same!
After all of my years of collecting, reviewing, and obsessing over switches, I can say with certainty that linear switches are the most misunderstood of all of the switch types. No, I’m not talking about mechanically either, as all of the claims of them “just going straight up and down” are somewhat kind of true. (Not too much though, don’t get that excited.) The part that is often misunderstood, though, is usually in what is being implied when people say that these switches just go straight up and down – “All linears might as well be the same.” If the title of this article didn’t make that obvious enough to you, I find that sort of idea to be completely and utterly wrong. The people who make these implications wouldn’t say that a Cherry MX Black is the same as a Novelkeys Cream switch? They also certainly wouldn’t ever claim that every Gateron-made linear is the same as every fancy TTC one out there...
“Anne Marie? Do the interns get Glocks?” asks Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) in Wes Anderson’s classic The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. “No” she replies without pausing from looking up from sunbathing… “they all share one.”
If you’re new to director Wes Anderson and his collection of artsy, charming, and sometimes problematic but otherwise entertaining films, The Life Aquatic is a good place to start. Not because it’s his best work (The Royal Tenenbaums) or even his most approachable (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) … but because it is all of the things I described above and is a perfect example of what a Wes Anderson movie is. The actors, who make up his all-star casts are reduced (if that term can be used this way) into extensions of Anderson’s creative mind and play their parts to perfection. The plot is funny and also tragic, the music in the movie is completely unique and also instantly recognizable (Portuguese covers of David Bowie songs) and the movie blends dialogue and...
The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works.
My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up.
On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special?
In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly.
I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....
This is a summary of how alternative layouts have been supported by kits such as Colevrak and Homing. It is not a discussion of alt layout performance and development, but if that interests you I highly recommend starting with Pascal Getreuer’s A guide to alt keyboard layouts (why, how, which one?). It’s a concise and comprehensive overview with links to some great sites that go deeper. He also has a separate Links about keyboards page. The Keyboard layouts doc he recommends explains layout goals and metrics in detail, summarizing the alt layouts discussed here as well as more than one hundred others.
Sculpted-profile
The majority of custom keycap sets are sculpted-profile (Cherry, SA, MT3, KAT, etc. - more on profiles generally here) so let’s start there. Because each row has a unique keycap shape, alt layouts require a unique keycap for each legend that moves off its QWERTY row.
At first there were two
The Dvorak layout was patented in 1936 by August Dvorak & William L....
Figure 1: Sometime around here is a good time to ask that question...
If you’re new to the mechanical keyboard hobby, I have no doubt that planning your first keyboard build is a bit of a daunting task. To be entirely honest with you, it’s only a tiny bit less daunting for your second or even third keyboard builds should you stay around a little while longer. You’ve got the keyboard itself to worry about, stabilizers, keycaps, and even switches on top of all of the intangible marks you want your dream keyboard to hit. Switches are especially daunting right out of the gate as there’s just so many options out there to pick from – each with their own unique specifications, manufacturers, and more. Yet, in spite of all of these differences between switches, time and time again I find people always asking about lubing switches as one of their chief concerns when it comes to picking some up. With countless numbers of content creators talking about lubing switches, its no...
DCX vs DCD vs DCL - Drop’s Keycap Profiles Explained
We’ve covered the basics of keycap profiles before—spherical/cylindrical, sculpted/uniform, etc. One thing that has come up more and more over the years as we’ve expanded our portfolio of offerings here at Drop is the distinction between some of our similar profiles. Specifically, what is the actual difference between DCX, DCD, and DCL?
Cylindrical Profiles
To recap the previous article on the topic, one of the most basic ways to separate various keycap profiles is by shape (cylindrical, spherical, or flat). DCX, DCD, and DCL are all cylindrical profiles.
The most famous cylindrical profile is Cherry profile, as defined by the original manufacturer of the keycaps—Cherry. GMK now owns those tools, and as such, only they can technically claim to produce “Cherry” profile keycaps. Similar keycap profiles are often called Cherry profile colloquially, but are in actuality slightly different. For the sake of not splitting hairs, all of the cylindrical profiles discussed here are...
3 or 5? How many pins does your switch really need?
One of the oldest questions, albeit one you don’t see very often anymore, is about 3-pin and 5-pin MX switches. Early in the custom switch scene, budding enthusiasts would need to determine whether their keyboard needs 3-pin or 5-pin switches. Today, the question doesn’t appear as often as it used to, but it is still important to know the difference and when one is a better choice.
The difference between these two types of switches is in the name, the number of pins. As seen in the pictures below, 3-pin switches have two metal legs for the contact leaves and registering of switch presses as well as the stem pole. These switches were traditionally called plate mount switches, as they relied on the plate to align the switches on the PCB. 5-pin switches have the same contact pins and stem pole but are also accompanied by two additional alignment pins on the left and right of the stem pole. These were called PCB mount switches, as they could be used without plates as the PCBs would...
Figure 1: I couldn't think of a more literal way to represent this article if I tried...
Looking back just a few years ago, there’s no doubt that the huge influx of people that joined the hobby at the peak of the COVID pandemic were drawn to keyboards by way of YouTube, TikTok, and other audio-visual content platforms. Even as the output from these content creators has waned in recent months, their collective impact and legacy on the keyboard hobby is rather firmly etched in the history books. As a result of all of their sound tests, build logs, and opinion videos, the message is clear to any new person joining the hobby: mechanical keyboards are all about the sound. Thock this, clack that. Whether it’s keyboards, keycaps, or even singular switches, seemingly everyone new to the hobby meticulously pores over each component of their keyboard not in an attempt to figure out how it will feel in hand, but how it will sound as they’re furiously grinding their way out from...
Keyboards at work: A rationale for returning mechanical keyboards to the office environment.
As I walk down the hall to my office each morning, I hear the discordant clattering of keys coming from my coworker’s office. In the hall… several doors down… I hear them. Like the loose teeth in my grandma’s poodle, barely hanging on, they rattle and heave. If anyone’s ever told you that mechanical keyboards are too loud, it’s simply because that person has become completely desensitized to the garbage-bomb that is the standard office computer keyboard.
In the 1980’s and 90’s, it was common to hear the sound of unmitigated excellence when you walked into an office building. The rapid gunfire-like precision of a room full of high-quality computer keyboards firing in unison. Even in the early 2000’s when I worked in a south-side Chicago newspaper newsroom, it was still filled with such keyboards. Ten to fifteen years into their professional daily use, they were still magnificent in sound and feel. Punctual, clean, decisive. In those days, professional keyboards didn’t come...
Stabilizer Shake Down - A breakdown of modern MX-style stabilizers
One of the best parts of custom keyboards is the sound they make. It’s clean, crisp, and free from any chatter or rattles. On a well-built custom keyboard, each keystroke is solid and definitive. On the smaller keys on your keyboard, keys 1.75 units or less, you can attribute that feeling to the switches themselves. However, on larger keys, keys that are 2 units and larger, stabilizers can make or break that feeling. Today, there are a plethora of different stabilizer options available for purchase. It can be confusing trying to navigate the different brands and configurations of stabilizers. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll have the confidence to purchase the stabilizer that fits both your budget and your needs.
Before laying out the stabilizer options, it is important to understand their function within a keyboard. Stabilizers serve two main purposes. The first is to ensure that when pressing a larger key (2 units or larger) there is consistency in the keycap press. This...
Figure 1: What could be so confusing about some pretty NOS Alps SKCL Greens?
Having thoroughly beaten my opinions to death on well over a hundred different modern, MX-style switches over the past few years, one of the most common questions I get revolves around why I hardly use and/or review vintage, non-MX style switches at all. After all, the wide world of vintage mechanical keyboard switches is full of unique, odd mechanisms and “all modern switches are just recolors of each other.” While I take personal issue with that incredibly misguided second claim, I can totally understand how people can look at the wide swathes of variation in vintage switches and naturally think that that would be something I’d gravitate towards. And for what it’s worth, vintage switches are both incredibly interesting and something that I have quite a lot of hiding away in boxes. Some of my favorite brands and styles include RAFI Hall Effect switches, Hi-Tek 725s of all forms, SMK Inverse...
SA in 2024: Where does the high-profile king stand in the modern keyboard hobby?
In early 2021, I only had eyes for SA Godspeed.
Raised in Florida across the bay from Cape Canaveral, I grew up watching space shuttle launches, and my dad’s life-long obsession with NASA, space and sci-fi quickly spread to me. At 27, I was introduced to Neil Armstrong, a personal hero, and was able to tell him the impact he had on me and my family. So on that fateful spring day when I walked into my IT department and told my coworkers that I was thinking of getting into mechanical keyboards, the first set I wanted to own was Godspeed. It took awhile, and I mean awhile for me to accumulate all the different versions of that set. It has three alphas (Solar, Lunar and Supernova), a few full alternates (Mito & Genespeed) and several alternate modifier sets including the transcendent Ares colorway. But several hundred dollars, and many months later, I had constructed a few keyboards all equipped with different versions of SA Godspeed. I made an Earth keyboard, a Mars, an Asteroid, a...
Figure 1: My Imada force gauge machine gifted to me by Drop mid-collection of a Drop Holy Panda X force curve.
Over the course of the last year or so of writing switch reviews of my own, I’ve been integrating more and more data into my descriptions and comparisons of switches. This is seen no more clearly than in the dozens of wiggly-lined graphs, known as ‘Force Curves’, that now sprout up in the dozens on each of my latest reviews. While I’ve managed to avoid dragging the discussion of force curves into any of my short articles on Drop thus far, the increasing use of them throughout my work means I should probably get around to discussing them sometime soon. After all, while I live and die by this kind of information for switches, I fully well understand that I am more obsessed about switches than the vast majority of (admittedly kind of already weird) mechanical keyboard enthusiasts. However, I think that knowing a thing or two about force curves could make a big...
The secret bedrock of any technology-heavy hobby is a whole bunch of slang and jargon that makes it feel borderline like a second language to outsiders listening in on discussions about the hobby. Mechanical keyboards are, much to your surprise I’m sure, no exception to that rule. Unfortunately, having been around for as long as I have been, I’ve become a bit of the problem and have found myself casually shooting acronyms and concepts way above my friends and coworkers heads as I talk to them about keyboards. Equally as disappointing of me is that this has also seeped into my content, as well. In fact, as I was looking through some of my old writing the other day, I realized that I have eternally used one phrase - “OEM” - without ever actually elaborating on what explicitly I mean by such in the broader context of mechanical keyboard switches. While I get that it feels really basic and easy for many people who have been deep in the hobby for some time to kind of understand...
My mechanical keyboard journey started when I fell into the rabbit hole around August 2020. Since then, I have tested over forty different switches, built or modified over twenty keyboards, and experimented with many different layouts. I usually carry a mechanical keyboard with me, and have built keyboards for friends and family members. Many consider mechanical keyboards superior to normal membrane keyboards due to their feel, sound, looks, layout options, software, and various customization options. While many swear by mechanical keyboards, they are expensive, and the landscape of mechanical keyboards is confusing and hard to navigate. That said, if you do decide to look into and possibly build one, here is some more information to guide you through the rabbit hole.
The first thing you will probably notice while looking through videos about mechanical keyboards is the sound. Many people build their custom keyboards with sound in mind, and because of this there are endless jargon...
About
Photos, insights, discussions, you name it: Consider this home base for all your interests. Take a look around and discover more about what you love.