Solid ABS Keycaps

The Migra TKL Prototype by Thebloodyez “This is my keyboard. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” - William H. Rupertus. In another life, if Major General William H. Rupertus, the Marine who coined the United States Marine Creed, had been a keyboard enthusiast, we might've gotten this line instead. All joking aside, this has been an article that I’ve wanted to write for quite some time. There are many reasons why we love the keyboard hobby, and today, I wanted to introduce you to one of mine—prototype keyboards and helping keyboard designers by joining prototype runs. Now, it’s not risk-free, and one should weigh the pros and cons of joining a prototype run, so I encourage you to pay attention to the disclaimer portion of this article. I know that there are prototype runs for keycaps, switches, and other cool things in our keyboard hobby, but for this article, I’ll be focusing only on keyboards. Also, please know that not every prototype run will be handled...

I thought a fun little Xmas project would be to add a virtual numeric keypad to a ten-keyless keyboard. In my case, the DROP CTRL. But it should work with any 87 or 88 key keyboard (i.e., has the insert/delete/.../PgDn cluster and cursor keys). I chose a TKL over a full width keyboard because I don't need the numpad all that much and having it there pushes my mouse too far to the right to my taste. Should I really need a numpad for a few hours, I'd use a different keyboard. If I should ever need one very often, I'd get a separate numpad so I can put it whereever I want. But... there are times where this is overkill and it's still nice to be able to type numbers a bit more easily than using the number row. I'm a pretty good touch typist but using the number row is still a bit too error prone. Especially when copying numbers from paper or another window so you're not looking at what you're typing. Ok, so what's the deal? Simple: create a layer with the following key...

Figure 1: Nope, not a single one of these is necessarily better than the rest... For no particular reason, I’ve been spending more and more time over the past few months in and around various mechanical keyboard help forums and servers. Despite having never really relied on their services back in my day when I first joined the hobby, I can kind of understand the appeal of them to new and curious enthusiasts as they generally seem like go-to places to connect with people who know a thing or two about keyboards. What I cannot wrap my mind around, however, is the sheer number of times that the exact same comments, questions, or concerns that get raised by the newer hobbyists get repeated. Even with FAQ or pinned set of questions, people seemingly only seem to think about and/or be concerned about the exact same set of things when it comes to their first keyboards. One of these types of questions that I find particularly concerning are those that are directly or indirectly...

I thought a fun little Xmas project would be to add a virtual numeric keypad to a ten-keyless keyboard. In my case, the DROP CTRL. But it should work with any 87 or 88 key keyboard (i.e., has the insert/delete/.../PgDn cluster and cursor keys). I chose a TKL over a full width keyboard because I don't need the numpad all that much and having it there pushes my mouse too far to the right to my taste. Should I really need a numpad for a few hours, I'd use a different keyboard. If I should ever need one very often, I'd get a separate numpad so I can put it whereever I want. But... there are times where this is overkill and it's still nice to be able to type numbers a bit more easily than using the number row. I'm a pretty good touch typist but using the number row is still a bit too error prone. Especially when copying numbers from paper or another window so you're not looking at what you're typing. Ok, so what's the deal? Simple: create a layer with the following key...