Support for Alternative Layouts
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....
Apr 23, 2024
More time on a machine means someone to set up the machine, someone's being paid while the machine is running even if they're not manually controlling the machine, so there is a cost increase. You factor in more time on the machine is more wear on the tools, cost increase factored in. More time making one part means less time to make other parts, so your production speed goes down and cost per part goes up. You can't just turn up the speed and cut faster as machining has max cutting speeds all based on material type, material of the tool, radius of the tool, feed rate of the tool, how cool you keep the tool. machine that's doing the work, etc.
Then the base of the case has an angled cut built into it. That requires either the machine to angle the part, an operator to set the part manually or use a jig that needs to be built for this project and requires extra money. The design of the CTRL and ALT by themselves were very basic. This has a lot more going on with it.