deskthority

Hello Deskthority!
This is my first post here, and I hope to write in the correct section.
I'm an aged programmer, who will never forget the feeling of his IBM AT keyboard back in the glorious days of personal computing dawn.
I own several mechanical keyboards, and I started to thinkering about a personal customized layout, mainly aimed at programming tasks.

I ordered an ISO keycap set, from a seller which I'll avoid to mention.

When it comes to keycap unit dimensions, you guys have more experience than me, for sure.
Could you please evaluate the spacebar dimension, referring to its surrounding keycaps?
I already have my opinion, but I prefer to keep it hidden, so to don't affect your reply.

Thanks everybody.

6.25 as the shift is 1.25 and rest is 1u each.

Most definitely 6.25u

As guk said: 5 x 1u + 1 x 1,25u = 6,25u

Yup. 6.25 units is the most popular spacebar length of all.

Your AT was quite different, notoriously so!

Thanks for your quick replies.
It's just the size I ordered, within a bottom layout of 1.5u - 1u - 1.5u - 6u - 1.5u - 1u - 1u - 1.5u
I'm argueing with the vendor from 10 days now, because they sent me the wrong sized bar.

The post sales support writes things like: "On the keyboard, there is gap between each keycap, 6.0 spacebar is equal to 6 of 1u keycaps plus total gaps dimension. "

I'm getting angry, but trying to stay onto politeness rails.
In last reply to their support, I attached these pictures, hoping they'll stop kidding me.

Their reply is crap.
Total length for the "alpha" part of most (pretty much 99%) keyboards is 15u wide.
You actually need a 6u spacebar, and not a 6.25u.

Muirium wrote: Your AT was quite different, notoriously so!

Indeed. I love it. Still alive and kicking, in my retro-stuff collection.
This!

chzel wrote: Their reply is crap.
Total length for the "alpha" part of most (pretty much 99%) keyboards is 15u wide.
You actually need a 6u spacebar, and not a 6.25u.

Yep. That's the dimension included into their set, when you pick their "6u bottom row" option...

Anyway, this is the layout I designed with the awesome Keyboard Layout Editor tool.
I know, the pageup-down keys are in the wrong row, but I have two blank caps to customise and place there.

Corummo wrote: Indeed. I love it. Still alive and kicking, in my retro-stuff collection.

Here's mine:

Not a great picture, i need to reshoot it and document my mods properly some day. Note the arrow keys, the ANSI layout, and the detachable USB cable at the top! There's a lot of life left in a good AT. Plenty of new tricks.

Muirium wrote:

Corummo wrote: Indeed. I love it. Still alive and kicking, in my retro-stuff collection.

Here's mine:

Great piece of hardware, when things were made to last forever.
The weight of that keyboard is on par with my Clevo desktop replacement.

I'm not as sure as all the others in this thread, because it's true that there are gaps between caps on a keyboard that add up.

However, it`s pretty easy to find out: One unit (dinstance between centers of 1u caps) is 0.75'' or 19.05mm, so a 6 u bar is 4.5'' long or 11,43mm, minus one gapsize. If yours is any longer than 11,43mm, it's a 6.25u space bar. If it's shorter, the seller is right.

There are gaps, but wouldn't all those 1u gaps make this picture impossible for a true 6.0 unit spacebar?



The seller sounds like a chancer. The only way to deal with them is with firm, uncertainty-free, facts. Such as the direct measurement you mention. It'll be 6.25 units, or all those alphas are mysteriously small!

Looks like 6.0u, if you space out the 1u keycaps properly. Why don't you just put it on the board you intended to buy them for?

Maybe it's me?

u = unit = 1u = a single unit
6u = a single unit * 6
1.25u = a single unit + 0.25u (1 + 1/4 of unit)

The layout spacing isn't part of the sum. Do We refer to keycaps units of measurements, or to their clearance inside a keyboard layout?

Please, let me understand why this theory only applies to the bottom row, while all the others align perfectly.

I'm starting to think I haven't understood nothing!
Maybe.

No, you've got it. I'm not sure why these fellas are being wrong. But I do understand your seller: they're trying to rip you off.

Muirium wrote: There are gaps, but wouldn't all those 1u gaps make this picture impossible for a true 6.0 unit spacebar?

I can only agree with you.

The seller sounds like a chancer. The only way to deal with them is with firm, uncertainty-free, facts. Such as the direct measurement you mention. It'll be 6.25 units, or all those alphas are mysteriously small!

They sent these pictures, that show up an unexpected stems position for their (so-called) 6u spacebar.
I'm feeling like they're trying to save the shipment costs to repair their mistake.
Otherwise they actually do *not* manufacture a real 6u spacebar. And this is their "6u" spacebar, perfectly aligned (strange) with the standard bottom row (6.25u spacebar) of my E-Element RGB keyboard: I said everything.

Corummo wrote: I said everything.

Talk. Did you measure yours?

The white spacebar on the last picture is clearly shorter than the black one underneath it on the board. If this is the one they sent you, that's clearly a 6u space bar. Compare the lengths of the bottom sides. Compare by putting them next to each other, not above each other.

Halvar wrote:

Corummo wrote: I said everything.

Talk. Did you measure yours?
The white spacebar on the last picture is clearly shorter than the black one on the board.

Perspective, my friend.
You can check it by comparing the alphas in the upper rows, progressively less wide than the lower ones.
I haven't the spacebar with me right now, but I'm going to measure it as soon as possible, because it seems the only way to prove I'm not in error.
And I'm going to remove the E-Element standard spacebar too, to make a clearer comparison.

Corummo wrote: The layout spacing isn't part of the sum. Do We refer to keycaps units of measurements, or to their clearance inside a keyboard layout?

1 unit is the distance between the centers of two 1 u keys on a keyboard. Every keycap is 1 gap size smaller than the number of units it takes. A 1 unit cap is 1 gap smaller than 0.75''. A 6 unit space bar is 1 gap smaller than 6 * 0.75''.

Halvar wrote: 1 unit is the distance between the centers of two 1 u keys on a keyboard. Every keycap is 1 gap size smaller than the number of units it takes. A 1 unit cap is 1 gap smaller than 0.75''. A 6 unit space bar is 1 gap smaller than 6 * 0.75''.

If it was true, we should warn the author of the keyboard layout tool.
Coming from a microcontrollers experience, the thing you name 'unit' is known as 'pitch'; i.e. the distance between the center of two contiguous pins of a microcontroller.
It's related to board layout, and not to the overall space occupied by the whole microcontroller (package + pins extension).

Anyway, I'm sincerely interested in a deeper learning about this topic.
Now it's time to sleep.

The keyboard layout editor is fine, it uses a gap size of 0, which wouldn't work on a keyboard but is the best way to do it on paper. Print out a layout in real size and you'll see that the real caps are a little bit smaller than the caps on paper.

Halvar wrote: I'm not as sure as all the others in this thread, because it's true that there are gaps between caps on a keyboard that add up. […]

Muirium wrote: There are gaps, but wouldn't all those 1u gaps make this picture impossible for a true 6.0 unit spacebar?


[…]

Of course not: the number of gaps differs in the bottom vs. the top row (7 gaps in the bottom row vs. 13 in the top row).
Putting all caps on a table without any gaps equates to eliminating the added width of 13 gaps in the top row, but only 7 gaps in the bottom row.

Here (miserable, I know, but still) photographic evidence with a completely different keyboard and other key sizes, but the result is the same: the top and bottom row are exactly the same length when the caps are on the board, the bottom row is longer when the caps are juxtaposed on a table:
Edit: sort of ninja'd by Halvar, whose gaps argument is so obvious I wonder it had been doubted at all

Edit2: on my second pic the space bar looks like 6.5u, but on my first pic it shows its real length of 6.25u.

The seller's reply is correct.
With a unit length of 19 mm, typical cap widths are 18 mm for a 1-u cap and 113 mm for a 6-u cap.
Thus, a 6-u cap is expected to be 1/4 u wider than the sum of six 1-u caps (but it still is 1 mm narrower than 6 u = 114 mm).

Oh, it seems I'm in error then, even if the stems position do not match the plate produced by keyboard-layout-editor and SwillKb web tools.

Anyway, the vendor is going to arrange a new shipment to provide me with all the 6u spacebars they manufacture.
Looks like I'll have - at least - to pay for the goods, in the case they prove me wrong.

Tomorrow I'll be back home to make all the measurements and comparisons needed to have empiric references.

On a side note, I'm more than happy to learn something new everyday.

OleVoip wrote: The seller's reply is correct.
With a unit length of 19 mm, typical cap widths are 18 mm for a 1-u cap and 113 mm for a 6-u cap.
Thus, a 6-u cap is expected to be 1/4 u wider than the sum of six 1-u caps (but it still is 1 mm narrower than 6 u = 114 mm).

Keycap and Spacebar sizing is one of those things that i wrestle with each time i look at a keycap set or keyboard
that has a different layout than the default one (if there is such a thing as default).

Having both the FC660C and the FC660M in my keyboard collection doesn't help mutch

i looked at the space bar wiki and was surprised that both Leopold models were not included

But there is a nice wiki for the FC660C but alas no details about about the different sizes of keycaps..

kbdfr wrote: Edit: sort of ninja'd by Halvar, whose gaps argument is so obvious I wonder it had been doubted at all

Yep, I didn't think I'd need to explain it at that time in that meticulous detail or take photos, when the thing can be decided in seconds once the OP, the spacebar and a ruler are all in one room.

Halvar wrote:

kbdfr wrote: Edit: sort of ninja'd by Halvar, whose gaps argument is so obvious I wonder it had been doubted at all

Yep, I didn't think I'd need to explain it at that time in that meticulous detail or take photos, when the thing can be decided in seconds once the OP, the spacebar and a ruler are all in one room.

No, not in the same room.

Ehm... it seems I was wrong.
I have to apologize with the vendor.
I don't even took a ruler. It is so evident and clear I was wrong...

Thanks everybody for the precious information. I learnt a lot in this thread.

(That central stem position though...)