Keyboards: separate, with even speakers and half-turn

In this article I will talk about general-purpose keyboards, but with an unconventional physical layout, namely, fully or partially divided into halves, and with vertical columns.
If you are interested in keyboards and do not skip articles about them here, then you already know how straight vertical columns are better than shifted ones, and how a half-divided keyboard is better combined. If not, I will provide links at the end of the article.

No, there will be nothing about extravagant chord keyboards, or constructed for printing by shorthand method.
Only what suits each of us, those who print a lot, whether he is a programmer or just loves chat rooms and forums.
One way or another, any of us is mastering the ten-finger press method, and the sooner this happens, the better.

For seed KDPV.



First, I’ll talk about old keyboards of this type, including Apple, IBM and NEC, which have not survived to our time, then about more or less modern ones, and then about a new wave, including the domestic movement.



There are so many keyboards that classifying them is pretty hard. Let us leave this work to taxonomist professionals.

History

Tron

It’s hard to say who was a pioneer in this area, but I have a vague suspicion that the Japanese in the framework of the Tron project, which was supposed to become a personal computer platform in the mid-80s, but there is an opinion that it did not because of pressure from the US government on Japan, lobbying Microsoft. All that remained for us was a multi-page report on a study conducted on a random sample of several hundred Japanese people with the goal of making the keyboard ideally suited for most users. And well, they turned out quite interestingly:



You can notice a lot of interesting things at once:
- the columns are straight, and they go in a fan. Relax your fingers, unclench and squeeze your palm and realize that it is very natural when the fingertips are closer to the brush, then they are closer to each other;
- a few buttons under the thumbs. On ordinary keyboards, even the space is a little high so that the thumbs on it lie in a relaxed position, to say nothing about modifiers, to which the thumbs come in an unnatural way to bend;
- Space bar, Shift, Backspace on the thumbs;
- O and X keys (presumably Enter and Escape) under the index, and not under the weak little fingers;
- the block under the little fingers is shifted below. Not surprisingly, the little finger is shorter than the rest of the fingers in most people.

Nec

In the footsteps of Tron, NEC went with its PC-880I-KI, released in the 83rd year:


There were modifications, they reduced the keys from the middle block:


And then they completely removed it, at the same time adding another button under the thumb:


And then almost the whole thing the second column was removed under the little fingers, and the halves were pushed apart.

Apple

Alas, Apple either did not fully understand the idea of ​​the Japanese, or were afraid to do something revolutionary (and these were just the years of stagnation of the company), or tried to reduce the cost of the product. It is possible that American law regulated keyboards, and it was impossible to do something more or less deviating from the standard.
This is what turned out to be the Apple Adjustable Keyboard:



All the wonderful ideas from Tron were thrown away, only a half-turn remained, but it was adjustable.
It is interesting to note that the keyboard was released in order to protect the company from lawsuits popular at that time from people who received RSI when typing on regular keyboards.
The keys are low profile.

Ibm

In the same 93m, IBM released a keyboard with the same name as Apple's Adjustable Keyboard, but more flexibly adjustable:




In addition, it differed with the snap-spring mechanical switches that were traditional for IBM at that time.
A little more than 1,000 pieces of such keyboards were sold.

Cherry

A year later, Cherry released the G80-5000 (before that there was a prototype V80-5000, but the year of its release is unknown):



The same bast shoes, and even with jambs - Enter Backspace further than usual.

Silicon graphics

These people are known for thinking of their users more than other manufacturers.
In the 96th year, either an employee of the company as part of the prototype, or a hobbyist, assembled a laptop from SGI O2 parts.




I contacted the author, he is still passionate about keyboards, but now he is very busy.

NEC again

At the very end of the section, because they were released a decade later.

The models are nonetheless interesting. The first, Effortlessly keyboard, with a symmetric row shift. 95th year:



Second, Ergo Fit keyboard, with straight columns and half-turn. 98th year:

Daewoo

Unknown year prefix KOBO:

What is on the market?

Quite a lot is currently on sale. There are Kinesis, and Maltron, and many others, about which I did a great overview topic .

Since then, Matias Ergo Pro has just emerged from the new:



Yes, the mysterious Esrille NISSE, which seems to be possible to buy, but the price bites very much, and whether delivery exists outside of Japan is unknown:



UPD:
There was also Veyboard Velotype, but she, seems to be a chord:


All of these keyboards are somehow good and bad.
No wonder so many enthusiasts continue to invent more and more keyboards.
So, about enthusiasts.

Ergodox family

Immediately shocking photos. All keyboards are assembled at home by DIY craftsmen. For collective or individual projects.
An assembly kit can periodically be bought on the Internet when a critical mass of people wishing to purchase accumulate.

The original Ergodox (self-assembly kit) in various variations:










From the last version, the Axios project was born, as well as the open-source Ergodox. You can’t buy yet. One of the prototypes became the CPDV for this post:








Project Mastermind Ergodox, Key64:

Non-ergodox

A series of keyboards from Jesse Vincent, which organized the company and is now continuing to search for the perfect keyboard that will stir the public:







Atreus:



Two-handed OneHand:



Here is such an interesting concept that recently raised a lot of money on kickstarter:


A serial keyboard master with a capacious nickname suka managed to insert into his keyboards trackpoint from old notebooks:




Here is such an ugly alternative:



that's the noodles:



and here is a miracle of technology, which is already difficult to call the keyboard:




Here is the keyboard seems to me very easy, if you pick up support zapyas s:



Very nice keyboard:


And even something that could be found in the Korean forum diy:


This is not all, there are still a number of keyboards under development, they did not add to the review.

Domestic

The indefatigable ibnteo and the closest associates ( suenot ) with their CatBoard, CatBoard] [ and Ladoshki 44, which I fortunately managed to hold in my hands:





Like-minded person from Ukraine, nepotrib:



Steve_Key with his prototype:




Nylithius with the Ant-keyboard concept : Zuncl with his keyboard : Jedi_PHP with such a development: Marcel Abdrakhmanov with his concept : Vladimir with his My Keyboard . There is an option for the left hand. And modestly your humble servant:

Conclusion

The dream of many people who spend a fair amount of their free time and money on developing ergonomic keyboards is for everyone to type on a convenient, lightweight, compact keyboard.
Would you like one of the keyboards from this review? Or at least try?