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
The first was an IBM Selectric II typewriter that I would endlessly hammer on. As a toddler it was absolute gibberish, but the whirring and satisfying thwack noises it would make were irresistible. Though it was a short lived passion as my parents grew weary of the noise and the cost of ribbons.
I remember being about 2 or 3 when my dad brought home an IBM Personal System/2 which of course came with the Model M keyboard and my second noise maker. Clacking out basic commands in DOS to boot up my little indian counting game and blackjack from floppy. Every keystroke with a single pointer finger and a delightful twang.
After that was a long stream of rubber domes until one day in highschool I found that old Model M in the closet and was pleased to find it still worked. My friends at the LAN parties were much less happy.