Do you want an ISO layout, sub tenkeyless keyboard?

[IanM]

The lucky folks in regions that use ANSI and JIS layouts now have a variety of nice Topre and Cherry MX keyboards to choose from, in smaller than tenkeyless format e.g. Happy Hacking, Noppoo Choc Mini, KBC Poker etc. For those of us in ISO layout regions (inc. all of Europe) we have to make a choice: accept standard tenkeyless as the smallest format keyboard in the correct layout for our languages, choose an ANSI layout keyboard and be inconvenienced by missing keys, or suffer the horrors of membrane and scissor switches.

If you're feeling envious of these new compact style layouts, vote on this poll and show your desire to buy a keyboard with the ISO layout that fully supports your language input. If there is enough interest perhaps one of the keyboard manufacturers will step up and create a new keyboard that satisfies this niche.

[sixty]

I grew up typing on the German ISO layout for about 5 years and eventually switched to ANSI like 10 years ago. I can still type my max WPN on both and feel comfortable on both layouts, but I much prefer ANSI. The enter key, the backslash key. So much better.

Switching to ANSI was the best thing I have done!

[javifast]

Perhaps I like more the ANSI layout,...but I'm spanish and with this layout I lose the major and minor symbols.

[IanM]

I don't want to turn this into an ISO v. ANSI thread, I imagine that topic has been done to death a million times over. That said I don't really know what the fuss is re the double height enter key, or ISO requiring extra long pinky fingers. I see either enter key style as being fine and I've been wondering why there isn't just a worldwide layout that has all of the keys of ANSI, JIS & ISO all together.

I keep looking at the Poker group buy (because I want the small keyboard, and want to try red switches) but I just can't imagine being happy with certain things:

• £ sign - requires two modifiers on the US International layout, and given that it's my primary currency I have to write it often. I did consider that I could maybe change the keycaps and make a custom layout, but I swap between Windows and Linux, and more than one PC so it would be annoying. Maybe if it was programmable at the hardware level it would be OK.
• Extra key lower left - I use it a lot, I can get used to having some re mapped keys, but this one would be physically missing and I don't really want to be without it.

[xbb]

I'm Italian and I think I'm going to switch to ANSI, much better for programming too.

[Minskleip]

Software remapping guys! A standard keyboard has too many redundant keys anyway, so remap them to get back what is missing when using Ansi.

[daedalus]

The US International (Alt Gr Dead Keys) layout, available on GNOME and KDE, is great for Europeans who want to use an ANSI keyboard. Unfortunately, the KBC Poker doesn't have a right Alt, which makes it not only unideal for this layout in its current ANSI form, but a hypothetical ISO version would also be unideal for the many European keyboard layouts that make use of Alt Gr.

Maybe if it was programmable at the hardware level it would be OK.

If the computers were set up to use the UK layout, it would be possible. Too bad the KBC isn't re-programmable.

[Ascaii]

I would be very interested in a tenkeyless ISO or an affordable reprogrammable ANSI that I could "fix" to match my typing.

[Spharx]

Let the geekhack guys suffer with their ANSI stuff. Imo this site should be at least 90% full of ISO boards.
But this wont happen the manufacturers kinda don't like Europe.

[keyboardlover]

90% ISO? Ewwwww.

[sixty]

Actually most manufacturers nowdays are ready for ISO, in theory. If you take a look at the PCB for the Leopold boards they have full support for ISO already in... it should be possible to order the boards as long as you reach the MOQ. But since Bruce carries Filco, i guess its unlikely he will sign up a deal with Leopold anytime soon.

[Peter]

Let the geekhack guys suffer with their ANSI stuff. Imo this site should be at least 90% full of ISO boards.
But this wont happen the manufacturers kinda don't like Europe.

Hear hear !!!!
If we had left it up to the Americans to decide, we would ALL be using US-ANSI ..
Somebody in IBM-Europe once made a stand for all us non-Americans, he told the US-guys
that we would stop using our silly national characters when the americans stopped using 'Y' ...

[hemflit]

In my language's layout the extra key at bottom left is kind of optional, so I use it easily with physically-ANSI keyboards when I need to.

I guess it sucks if your layout needs that key for the backslash (and pipe, if you do any command-line stuff) and you're forced to use an ANSI keyboard. But then, key remapping should ease the pain somewhat.

I wouldn't really mind seeing some kind of a coordinated global rise of a monster ISO/Japanese/Brazilian/ANSI hybrid physical layout and a bunch of logical layouts being gently updated to put the new extra keys to good use. It's not like the current standards and "standards" aren't mostly historical accidents.

[NewGuy]

The biggest issue for me with ANSI is that one key that's missing compared to ISO. I also much prefer the return key on an ISO board compared to ANSI.

The other issue is when you are swapping the keyboard between multiple machines. It's one thing to have your main system set up with a custom layout that you like, but another when you have to switch between various machines and operating systems.

I would probably find it much easier to life with an ANSI board layout if you could flash a custom layout onto it so that your layout is stored in hardware rather than software.

[IanM]

I guess it sucks if your layout needs that key for the backslash (and pipe, if you do any command-line stuff) and you're forced to use an ANSI keyboard. But then, key remapping should ease the pain somewhat.

The ANSI layout has the \| key above enter and below back space, so that would just be question of adapting to the different mapping (some programmers say they prefer this) Interestingly JIS looks better to me for this particular key - it has the extra key on the bottom row, but next to right shift, so they place \ directly adjacent to /

[ripster]

I voted for the Tablet.

Set your preferred layout and off you go.................

It says, "Dear InterPol. This is a Terrorist Forum. Death to counter-revolutionaries and Dutch Cartoonists!"

[webwit]

Where are the cursor keys?

[IanM]

touch screens are too cool for cursor keys

[hemflit]

The ANSI layout has the \| key above enter and below back space, so that would just be question of adapting to the different mapping (some programmers say they prefer this)

Yeah, but I figured this was about ANSI vs. ISO, not American vs. British vs. German etc. Most people should be able to just set the layout options in software and ignore what's printed on the keys.

ANSI as in physical layout with 10 keys between left and right Shift, a horizontal Enter, a 1x2 Backspace, and a 1x1.5 key between Backspace and Enter - regardless of the keys having legends for a logical US layout or for Colemak or, I don't know, Czech. You could still turn on the British (logical) layout in software and use the 1x1.5 key as #~, the top-left key as ¬, Shift+3 as the sterling sign... the real problem being that missing British key for \.

But if my logical layout is one of those ISO-based ones that use that extra key for something less important (like «») then it's reasonably comfortable to use that layout in software with one of these fancy new ANSI mini keyboards the OP was complaining about. Unless I'm anal about having a vertical Enter, of course.

Interestingly JIS looks better to me for this particular key - it has the extra key on the bottom row, but next to right shift, so they place \ directly adjacent to /

Mind it sends a different scan code than the ISO key next to the left Shift. It would be interesting to know if the common OSs do interpret it as the same key when you set an ISO-based layout in software and have a physical Japanese kbd.

BTW, if you're experimenting with this, you know how Brazil doesn't like the concept of "standards" and uses a different voltage in every city? That mindset produces some cool keyboard layouts over there - you might like the ones with extra keys next to both Shifts.

[IanM]

Yeah, but I figured this was about ANSI vs. ISO, not American vs. British vs. German etc.

It wasn't really meant to be about either, I made the thread because I think the vast majority want to stick with what they are familiar with. I feel these forums represent something of a niche, there are knowledgeable people here who are willing to adapt and make sacrifices on some things in order to get the best mechanical compromise. These limited run and custom keyboard designs are superb, but I think wider acceptance requires familiarity with the layout.


I'm on the fence - I can see some benefits to ANSI, I want the small keyboard, and others appear to feel the same. It also seems to me that many people are looking for smaller keyboards, hence the popularity of all the Logitech & Microsoft compacts, but for whatever reason the mechanical keyboard manufacturers are extremely conservative and either don't see this niche, or see it as too small to risk.

Most people should be able to just set the layout options in software and ignore what's printed on the keys.

That I'm not so sure about, correct touch typing is a minority skill, and I think the minority is shrinking. You read it time and time again: in many offices people are shocked by €120+ keyboards, and amazed by typing speeds. People are happy with hunt & peck on disposable €10 keyboards, so I suspect it would be an impossible task to persuade those people to make a change to a keyboard where they don't have all the letters to see.

BTW, if you're experimenting with this, you know how Brazil doesn't like the concept of "standards" and uses a different voltage in every city? That mindset produces some cool keyboard layouts over there - you might like the ones with extra keys next to both Shifts.

I haven't been experimenting as such, I have a few ideas which have included both extra keys as you also suggest. However the conservative mindset of manufacturers and potential customers makes me question whether such designs would be viable enough to put into production.

[Culinia]

I have always used ISO but for my next planned keyboard (Unicomp) I was thinking about doing Bugfix's idea: a customized ANSI/German hybrid (but in my case it would be a UK custom). I think this is a good idea since it keeps symbols familiar to me in the positions that they have always been (mostly) and gives me a chance to test drive the long enter which I think it is in a perhaps better position (plus I will get it in colemak, and yes I kept the symbols in the same position if you are wondering)

PS: does anyone know why ISO changed the enter key around, who's bright idea was that and when did it come?

[sixty]

PS: does anyone know why ISO changed the enter key around, who's bright idea was that and when did it come?

I'm not sure, but if you look at older IBM keyboards - the "enter" key was originally always big, similar to the ISO one. Like on the Selectric typewriter. So maybe it was the ANSI layout that originally started to change stuff around.

I have no clue on this, and wikipedia seems clueless either.

[IanM]

I think it is the left over from typewriters - it's not the enter key, it's the (carriage) return key. QWERTY - invented in 1867 by a man who couldn't prevent his typebars crashing together under any other layout, nothing to do with being the most intuitive typing experience.

[hemflit]

It wasn't really meant to be about either, I made the thread because I think the vast majority want to stick with what they are familiar with. I feel these forums represent something of a niche, there are knowledgeable people here who are willing to adapt and make sacrifices on some things in order to get the best mechanical compromise. These limited run and custom keyboard designs are superb, but I think wider acceptance requires familiarity with the layout.

I agree mostly and disagree a little

The French have been using AZERTY for what, a century now? Of course your Typical French Dude #17 is familiar with it and has no motivation to try to get used to QWERTY.

But I remember a time when every typewriter or computer had a slightly different idea of the layout outside the alphabetic block. It was perfectly normal to see, say, French or German computer keyboards with a horizontal Enter. I was a naive user and accepted this variation for a natural thing for ages after it disappeared - after IBM's most recent idea of a layout squeezed all the others out of the market and got canonized as a standard, it still took me years to start noticing a pattern had appeared to those horizontal and vertical Enters.

I find it very easy to extrapolate that state of mind to the modern-day naive user: they have built-up expectations about where the A or Z key is, but I think Typical French Dude #17 who uses his keyboard for Facebook, Gmail and WoW would barely notice the difference if you gave him an AZERTY kbd with a different layout of the little "details" like the Enter key. He already locates it visually anyway. It takes a bit of a high-level user, typically a trained touch-typist (how common are those?) to be really anal about having those parts exactly "right".

What I'm getting at is this: you could take any ANSI keyboard, mini or not, and just slap some French/German/British legends on it, and to the mass home-user market it would be at least 95% as attractive as a proper ISO-layout French/German/British one. In some of the smaller (or poorer) countries it would go even easier, because people there already use cheap US-layout keyboards half the time. And if you're a limited-run manufacturer, this relabeling is obviously an order of magnitude easier to pull off than producing variants with an actually different physical switch layout.

I'm on the fence - I can see some benefits to ANSI, I want the small keyboard, and others appear to feel the same. It also seems to me that many people are looking for smaller keyboards, hence the popularity of all the Logitech & Microsoft compacts, but for whatever reason the mechanical keyboard manufacturers are extremely conservative and either don't see this niche, or see it as too small to risk.

I don't think the mass market wants proper mini keyboards very much, because to them "more is better". If they want more space on their desk, they'll rather take some "compact" thing with all keys, just smaller and squeezed to the side. They're just not that ready to give up the "normal" "features". Mass-market tenkeyless is already uncommon enough. With many system builders offering "free" full-size keyboards with every desktop, how much would an average Joe be ready to pay for a mini?

Wider acceptance of the mini form factor is blocked by issues of fashion, not the lack of layout variety - American and Japanese masses have as little interest in minis as the Europeans. If the fashion changes - if we start seeing cheapo rubber-dome minis and they get some broad acceptance - I'm sure Dell and Logitech and Microsoft will race to offer ISO variants.


That's for the mass market. Everything you say about the niches, I totally agree with - I even read your OP at first as only referring to them. This actually shines a little light in the gloom: appearance of fancy ISO mechanical minis may be limited by a bunch of market forces, but at least the mass appeal of minis in Europe isn't one of them. I'd imagine the creators of the Poker and Noppoo Choc were counting on total sales in the range of hundreds, not thousands. Convincing them that there's a market for 100 more if they can modify their design to accommodate an ISO layout might make it worth their trouble to come up with the variant, which is where a poll like this is a useful starting point.

Most people should be able to just set the layout options in software and ignore what's printed on the keys.

That I'm not so sure about, correct touch typing is a minority skill, and I think the minority is shrinking. You read it time and time again: in many offices people are shocked by €120+ keyboards, and amazed by typing speeds. People are happy with hunt & peck on disposable €10 keyboards, so I suspect it would be an impossible task to persuade those people to make a change to a keyboard where they don't have all the letters to see.

Yeah, totally agree - I did mean that as "most people likely to be interested in a mechanical mini" not "most people everywhere".

Actually, in some of those "smaller or poorer" countries, where market forces just bring too many US-labelled keyboards to the masses, I've seen a surprisingly high portion of naive users resign to learning that e.g. "[{" stands for "Š" and ";:" stands for "Č" or "Ë" or whatever they have. But this is just coping, not a happy acceptance, and it's far from universal.

I haven't been experimenting as such, I have a few ideas which have included both extra keys as you also suggest. However the conservative mindset of manufacturers and potential customers makes me question whether such designs would be viable enough to put into production.

As a mass-market product, in this day and age, IMHO it could only succeed if it's bundled with something super-popular, on the scale of a new Mac or something. Otherwise it would call for some real financial bravado.

But as a niche thing, who knows? I learned from this forum that people actually sell DIY kits with circuit boards and metal plates, where you put in your own switches. Given that these are labours of love, how impossible would it be to make them so they leave a few options open here or there, to put a shorter Shift or Backspace if you want? It only takes one person with enough interest and willpower on the project to pull it off. This wouldn't have to compromise the product's appeal to the more conservative users too much.

I have a coworker who's Romanian and a programmer, and he would love a keyboard with extra keys to let him type both Romanian letters and programming-language squigglies without AltGr-acrobatics. He got me thinking that I wouldn't exactly mind trying something like that myself. Maybe there are enough people like that in the world to justify a larger-run $35 rubber-dome thing. Maybe there are even enough for a $120 mechanical. It's more of problem of reaching them.


About this "who invented the ISO vertical Enter" thing:

Before becoming an ISO standard, it was just a de facto standard in the desktop PC industry, and before that it was just a pressure among clone makers to imitate IBM. And before that... I'd guess it was just an IBM* design thing, invented by a couple of guys not realizing how far-reaching the consequences would be.

* - or maybe that other company that invented the modern-day American placement of right-side non-alpha keys just before being bought by IBM. But I doubt it. I think IBM had some vertical Enters before that.

Selectric typewriters aside, a horizontal Return/Enter seems to have been a stronger at least as strong a trend on computer keyboards in their formative decades. (I get this from looking at lots of Google image results, not from some rich personal experience.)

Of course, proper mechanically mechanical typewriters have no key for that - they have a lever on the side that you slap and it pushes the cylinder and paper all the way to the left margin and "scrolls down" a line.



Edit: needs BBCode strike-through tag.
Edit edit: Aha, that's how you do it!

[Ekaros]

I would love to have sub tenkeyless in ISO. Mainly for that extra key. And from those I might prefer Noppoo Choc Mini for extra functionality. On other hand it's quite a lot getting used to, have had some typing on G84-4400, but it messes up my typing somewhat...

[IanM]

Edit: needs BBCode strike-through tag.

it has one: text use s in square bracket to open, /s in square bracket to close. Nice post, will respond properly later.

[gore]

ISO SUPREMACY! I do really like having the big ISO enter.

[RiGS]

I guess no one likes the BigAss enter, but me.

[ripster]

Danish Companies like Steelseries and Cool People That Use Celeritas like BigAss Enter keys.


Not sure why the Danes like BigAsses. Must be a cultural thing. Like the Dutch eating Indonesian food and calling it Rijsttafel.

[Ekaros]

Danish Companies like Steelseries and Cool People That Use Celeritas like BigAss Enter keys.


Not sure why the Danes like BigAsses. Must be a cultural thing. Like the Dutch eating Indonesian food and calling it Rijsttafel.

Acctualy, I think they use BigAss for big assed americans, and use the normal iso-for themselves ;D