Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

bdpq · 06-Jul-2011 01:42:18

Hi,

My name is Erika Sato and I work for a Japanese keyboard company, we manufacture high quality mechanical Keyboards in Taiwan.

Recently we have noticed a growing interest in the Colemak layout and we would like to find out if there is enough demand for us to make a batch of Colemak keyboard available in either Cherry mx Blue or Brown switches.

Yes, mechanical keyboards are more expensive, but we believe most of the Colemak users have invested significant time learning the layout, it would logical to invest in a properly made mechanical keyboard. Therefore, at this point, we are not considering robber dome membrane keyboard or scissor switch keyboard, as most of them have identical keycap profile on every row, users can simply switch keys with relative ease.

If the feedback is good and the demand is strong, we may produce a batch of true hardware colemak keyboard, meaning your colemak will stay as a colemak even under DOS.

I am in the process of making a more thorough survey on survey monkey; in the meaning time, please tell me what you think.

Indeed, the more feedback I can get from you the better the chance this project will get a go ahead.

Thank You!

Sincerely,

Erika Sato

Tony_VN · 06-Jul-2011 10:57:33

I am a Colemak user and I still keep the Qwerty layout for others to use my computer if necessary (backward compatibility). Any Colemak user can touch type, so the physical Colemak layout is optional.

Unicomp also have Colemak layout as an option, but they charge $20 extra.

bdpq · 06-Jul-2011 11:06:59

Thanks for the reply!

We did have some discussions on the backward compatibility issues. One thing our engineers brought up was the possibility of an "all-in-one" keyboard with a dip switch to allow the users switching between the qwerty, dvorak and colemak on the fly.

These implementations are quite easy from the manufacturer point of view, however, the question is always on the demand side.

Erika

Last edited by bdpq (06-Jul-2011 11:08:12)

dante · 06-Jul-2011 22:50:39

How about instead a PS/2 or USB adapter that can translate the keystrokes?

See:

http://www.keyghost.com/qido/

It is very expensive including $29 shipping from New Zealand!

Also it does not support Colemak.

Strike while the iron is hot!

Edit: I don't mind buying a high quality keyboard but I am a staunch supporter of Elite Keyboards here in the states. Unless they sold the keyboard I would not buy it. But I would buy several of those adapters if the price was right.

Last edited by dante (06-Jul-2011 22:53:46)

bdpq · 06-Jul-2011 23:55:00

a USB would be a workable approach, but it is unexciting for us :-( we like making keyboards! (truth: the support cost)

I saw some discussions on geekhack awhile ago, some members were talking about making one.

Regarding elitekeyboard, if we had the keyboard made, the volume would be too small for retailers. Of course we would love to have elitekeyboard carry it for us. :-)

Erika

dante · 06-Jul-2011 23:58:45

If it is possible please include an Otaku/"Enthusiast"/blank version - even if it is limited edition.

Good luck in your endeavors

Last edited by dante (06-Jul-2011 23:59:01)

bdpq · 07-Jul-2011 00:10:59

Oh that's the plan indeed!

For the all-in-one, we may offer the qwerty/dvorak/colemak for the customers to choose as their default. I am pretty sure otaku would be one of the defaults, from our point of view, we'd prefer that too!

Erika

Tony_VN · 07-Jul-2011 06:17:40

I now use Ninja keycaps for my keyboard. You can use whatever layout on that keyboard. Just touch type.

webwit · 09-Jul-2011 22:02:56

bdpq wrote:

I work for a Japanese keyboard company, we manufacture high quality mechanical Keyboards in Taiwan.
Recently we have noticed a growing interest in the Colemak layout and we would like to find out if there is enough demand for us to make a batch of Colemak keyboard available in either Cherry mx Blue or Brown switches.

Yes, I'll buy your DIATEC FILCO MAJESTOUCH with Colemak layout!

(did I guess correctly?)

input nirvana · 10-Jul-2011 04:34:57

bdpq wrote:

a USB would be a workable approach, but it is unexciting for us :-( we like making keyboards! (truth: the support cost)
I saw some discussions on geekhack awhile ago, some members were talking about making one.

Regarding elitekeyboard, if we had the keyboard made, the volume would be too small for retailers. Of course we would love to have elitekeyboard carry it for us. :-)

Erika

Hi,

I'm the person on Geekhack that is putting together a group to make a USB Colemak layout dongle. There will be a wiki on it soon.

Also modifying a 4 layer Qwerty-Dvorak-Colemak-4th layer board we have.

I am creating a website for several import items to sell in the U.S. and Europe.

Last edited by input nirvana (10-Jul-2011 04:36:12)

bdpq · 10-Jul-2011 05:25:11

My husband frequents geekhack and he is the one showed me the impressive work on the USB dongle. It is a very good community project indeed, and it has a very unique niche that most manufacturer would never want to get into.

That's right, even it can be made quite easily and mass produced, the user pool would drive up the support cost and let's be honest, customer support isn't our greatest strength.

So a self-supporting community approach is the right one to go for the USB dongle + opensource firmware.

Now the 4 layer board is similar to what has been brought up in the meeting, but it is on the back burner for various reasons. The biggest being that even there is a demand, the big wigs upstairs want to see progresses and strategies on the growing population of Chinese gamers. The reality is that the factory is getting so busy to fill the demands from the gaming crowd, a magnanimous Colemak/Dvorak/Bepo/Workman/alternative project can wait.

I am probably saying too much already, but as a otaku girl, I do want to see an elegant keyboard which solves the modern layout and usability issues once and for all. We are getting close!

Erika

webwit · 10-Jul-2011 10:57:25

The reality is mechanical keyboards died in the early nineties, and now are on a comeback with gamers as a prime market. But that did not happen out of a vacuum. It was the Asian and western keyboard communities which trendsetted the thing. Without a kbdmania or otd, would it have happened? And trickling down, without sites like overclock which brought it to a larger audience, would it have happened? Diatec should be credited, but if the management thinks it's their magic alone, they are not very good managers. How much have they created, and how much was just reaction? To be fair, they reacted the best of all.

It would be naive to expect gratitude towards the keyboard communities that put live in mechanical keyboards again. Business is business. But it would be equally naive and arrogant to stop feeding these communities and seeing their importance as catalysts and only target the gamers with short term strategy. There are various problems with that which endanger a long term business. There is the counter movement of tablets of people who feel all keyboards are irrelevant now. There is the counter movement of people who feel it is like expensive audio cables and that it is a scam - the $15 rubber dome works just as well. There is the problem of companies selling gaming keyboards with switches which are suboptimal for gaming (Cherry MX Blue), which means they don't take quality serious, only a quick win based on clicky clicks. There is the problem of just a few OEM manufacturers (from Taiwan), and of various customers going for a race to the bottom - while that kind of price competition is what killed mechanical keyboards in the first place. Many already refuse to buy a Filco because they can buy a Razor. And then Ducky will try to go below that, etc. For long term business, you cannot depend on just an end market like gamers. It's fickle. Long term you need continuous pressure from keyboard enthusiasts and pro users, as a sustaining business, and to keep other markets vitalized.

bdpq · 10-Jul-2011 11:25:36

I am a bit sympathetic for the razer guys. There was a queue in the OEM production line and reds were rare (blame cherry!). To satisfy their quantity, it was only either wait or facing customer's wraith having the same model of board coming out with different switches. Razer chose the third option, MX blue. It was brilliant!

The story of the mx red had a more interesting twist, but that will have to wait. It's time for me to wake the family for breakfest!

Erika

Happy-Dude · 10-Jul-2011 14:32:11

@TonyVN -- You mean Unicomp has the option for hardware-level support Colemak keyboards?!? Only $20 dollars more??

(Does shift-caps lock turn on the caps lock?)

Last edited by Happy-Dude (10-Jul-2011 14:34:00)

input nirvana · 10-Jul-2011 18:07:40

bdpq wrote:

My husband frequents geekhack and he is the one showed me the impressive work on the USB dongle. It is a very good community project indeed, and it has a very unique niche that most manufacturer would never want to get into.
That's right, even it can be made quite easily and mass produced, the user pool would drive up the support cost and let's be honest, customer support isn't our greatest strength.
So a self-supporting community approach is the right one to go for the USB dongle + opensource firmware.
Now the 4 layer board is similar to what has been brought up in the meeting, but it is on the back burner for various reasons. The biggest being that even there is a demand, the big wigs upstairs want to see progresses and strategies on the growing population of Chinese gamers. The reality is that the factory is getting so busy to fill the demands from the gaming crowd, a magnanimous Colemak/Dvorak/Bepo/Workman/alternative project can wait.

The Colemak USB dongle will have other features, not just qwerty-colemak. Still putting the framework together. We recognize a company probably won't make this. As part of this, or related, a project board, USB, 4 layer, user programmable.

Tony_VN · 11-Jul-2011 02:45:05

Happy-Dude wrote:

@TonyVN -- You mean Unicomp has the option for hardware-level support Colemak keyboards?!? Only $20 dollars more??
(Does shift-caps lock turn on the caps lock?)

No, they only give you the Colemak keycaps (T and N keys have bumps then).

pettijohn · 13-Jul-2011 23:27:48

Interested - yes. Currently I have a Filco Majestouch Tenkeyless with MX Brown switches and otaku keycaps. Would love Colemak keycaps and/or a hardware board. Yes to DIP switches to turn features on & off.

input nirvana · 15-Jul-2011 07:08:45

We may be making a hardware Colemak layout. It's still being decided, you can follow along/contribute. Here is the link to the project:

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?1945 … e-firmware

bdpq · 15-Jul-2011 07:34:11

Thanks for the link. It is now becoming more and more difficult for us to push the project - I'll admit that we have lost the window of opportunity. The market is now flooded with mechanical keyboards and this was no surprise. Only once so often did the hardware manufacturer get a chance to upsell a perfectly working peripheral such as the keyboard. We admit we are a bit late when it comes to a solution for the modern keyboard layouts and we should have done it a year ago.

It is becoming more and more difficult for people to justify a "YAMK" - yet another mechanical keyboard - in their collection. A usb dongle is indeed an elegant solution for keyboard enthusiasts. Functionality wise I can see it become a separate class of peripheral of its own. One can perhaps store macros, sms/email templates / login credentials (so the dongle can even function like a hardware key - credentials encrypted in the hardware, not in the OS).

dante · 15-Jul-2011 15:32:04

http://forums.adafruit.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22022

add your voice if you are interested

Last edited by dante (15-Jul-2011 15:33:28)

input nirvana · 15-Jul-2011 19:22:34

bdpq wrote:

Thanks for the link. It is now becoming more and more difficult for us to push the project - I'll admit that we have lost the window of opportunity. The market is now flooded with mechanical keyboards and this was no surprise. Only once so often did the hardware manufacturer get a chance to upsell a perfectly working peripheral such as the keyboard. We admit we are a bit late when it comes to a solution for the modern keyboard layouts and we should have done it a year ago.
It is becoming more and more difficult for people to justify a "YAMK" - yet another mechanical keyboard - in their collection. A usb dongle is indeed an elegant solution for keyboard enthusiasts. Functionality wise I can see it become a separate class of peripheral of its own. One can perhaps store macros, sms/email templates / login credentials (so the dongle can even function like a hardware key - credentials encrypted in the hardware, not in the OS).

Yes, issues seem to be "physical key layout" and "features". We are going to eliminate the "features" argument with this design. And as it is being made as a universal plug-in, the user will use any keyboard of their choice.

There is already more work done on this project than is reflected in the thread http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?1945 … e-firmware but we are trying to rapidly flesh out as many ideas as possible so nothing is overlooked. An all-inclusive unit with little or no compromise is the goal.

topherc · 26-Jul-2011 19:39:17

I _would_ be interested in such a keyboard.

I have been learning Colemak for a couple months now, and while I can touch type just fine on it I still get thrown off now and then when entering passwords, various control/alt keys, and alphanumeric entry. At those times I habitually glance at the keyboard and especially when my hands are out of normal typing position I make mistakes. I think being able to swap keycaps around would help with this a great deal. I do like the feel of typing on Colemak MUCH better than on qwerty.

Your post caught my attention because I just started a new job and have a keyboard now that's fairly cheap and obnoxious. I began swapping keycaps yesterday and found that they were molded differently for the different rows. The N key for example would simply jam when in it's Colemak spot.

That sent me into keyboard research mode, and today I was hovering over the "buy" button for a Filco (with Cherry MX browns) keyboard when the thought occurred "Wait, can I rearrange the keycaps?" The answer was no, which sent me to this forum looking for an alternative.

At this point I'm considering the Ninja model -- perhaps having qwerty labels on the fronts of the rearranged keys would not be too bad. I could possibly put stickers on the tops of those keys, although I'm a little concerned that the feel would be wrong. Otaku keys are another interesting option.

I'm very interested in whatever you come up with if you can make the successful business case and go into production! I'll check these forums and keep my fingers crossed.

p.s. My biggest Colemak-adoption-hurdle has been emacs. I'm a long-time emacs user, and by now a large set of control key sequences lie in muscle memory. Fortunately I never insisted on caps lock as the control key so I don't have *that* problem. But frequently-used sequences include C-x-C-s, C-x-C-f, C-k, C-y, C-e, C-x-r-t, C-x-r-k, C-x-r-y, C-g, C-d, C-u, and C-x-e to name just a few. My fingers get these wrong every time! And repetition is low enough that these remain mostly un-learned on Colemak. I briefly tried remapping many of these sequences, but that only tricks my brain into thinking I'm on qwerty again. Ugh! So I think that perhaps by glancing down at key labels I might accelerate my re-training as well as overall productivity.

erw · 27-Jul-2011 03:21:27

topherc wrote:

p.s. My biggest Colemak-adoption-hurdle has been emacs. I'm a long-time emacs user, and by now a large set of control key sequences lie in muscle memory. Fortunately I never insisted on caps lock as the control key so I don't have *that* problem. But frequently-used sequences include C-x-C-s, C-x-C-f, C-k, C-y, C-e, C-x-r-t, C-x-r-k, C-x-r-y, C-g, C-d, C-u, and C-x-e to name just a few. My fingers get these wrong every time! And repetition is low enough that these remain mostly un-learned on Colemak. I briefly tried remapping many of these sequences, but that only tricks my brain into thinking I'm on qwerty again.

Hm, this is interesting... it makes me think about how we learn shortcuts. I use many readline shortcuts and use vim extensively, but it didn't take long to adapt. Maybe it's because I verbalize or visualize the letters in the shortcuts?

EDIT: Also, how can you use emacs and not put control on caps lock?!

Back on topic: I would have been interested, but now that I've gone Kinesis, I probably won't buy any expensive flat keyboards in the near future. Also, I would want Colemak on top of Danish or another Scandinavian qwerty, but the market for this is probably not big enough yet :-)

Last edited by erw (27-Jul-2011 04:42:59)

DreymaR · 02-Aug-2011 08:58:07

For me it'd be very important that such a board had a VK_102 key (ISO setup). With only the long left-hand Shift key of the ANSI-type boards and therefore no good hope of correcting the stupid inwards stagger of the ZXCVB keys relative to ARSTD it'd be a no-go for me at any rate.

Shouldn't it all be about merely changing key caps though? I think the IBM/Unicomp way works fine, with replaceable caps.

Last edited by DreymaR (02-Aug-2011 08:59:38)

penguin · 22-Nov-2011 05:07:41

The price is reasonable:

87-Key Laser Etched Cherry MX Keycap Set
$46.99

http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/ … p-set.html

Last edited by penguin (22-Nov-2011 05:09:21)

Colemak forum

#1 06-Jul-2011 01:42:18

Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#2 06-Jul-2011 10:57:33

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#3 06-Jul-2011 11:06:59

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#4 06-Jul-2011 22:50:39

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#5 06-Jul-2011 23:55:00

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#6 06-Jul-2011 23:58:45

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#7 07-Jul-2011 00:10:59

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#8 07-Jul-2011 06:17:40

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#9 09-Jul-2011 22:02:56

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#10 10-Jul-2011 04:34:57

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#11 10-Jul-2011 05:25:11

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#12 10-Jul-2011 10:57:25

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#13 10-Jul-2011 11:25:36

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#14 10-Jul-2011 14:32:11

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#15 10-Jul-2011 18:07:40

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#16 11-Jul-2011 02:45:05

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#17 13-Jul-2011 23:27:48

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#18 15-Jul-2011 07:08:45

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#19 15-Jul-2011 07:34:11

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#20 15-Jul-2011 15:32:04

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#21 15-Jul-2011 19:22:34

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#22 26-Jul-2011 19:39:17

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#23 27-Jul-2011 03:21:27

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#24 02-Aug-2011 08:58:07

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

#25 22-Nov-2011 05:07:41

Re: Interest in Mechanical Colemak Keyboard?

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