deskthority

This is a (hopefully) more determined continuation of this thread: http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/desk ... t4651.html

I will try to step in as a manager of this project *brings out the whip*, however: I do not deserve any credit for the actual design work, if you should thank anyone, thank matt3o who's working his ass off in this thread: http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/refi ... t5266.html

Now onto the keyboard:
In the title i've just referred to the board as "DT68A"(DeskThority 68-key Alps) This is so that we can have a project name instead of saying "that alps keyboard" all the time.

Regarding the board itself; there hasn't been all too much work on the Alps board itself, except for what that is mentioned in Matt3o's thread. Hopefully this will change soon.

Stay tuned!

Okay we have 3 options here:

1) make a 15x5 layout with all keys lower than 2u such as this


PROS: Signature Plastics has all the molds for that and we could make a 65% layout
CONS: No standard keys, you can't use your old ALPS keycaps for it. No ISO layout possible.

2) make a 60% standard layout (poker like)

PROS: you can use any standard ALPS keyboards for keycaps
CONS: no 65% layout

3) make a 65% 16x5 layout

PROS: ISO layout possible. It should be possible to recycle your old alps caps. maybe not 100% fancy but should be doable (maybe we miss the right shift?).
CONS: we need a lot of stabilizers. We would need a lot of new tooling from SP (so a very high volume of orders) if we want to produce new keys

no easy answer here.

old boards often have weird layouts so with old caps it's hard to cover a modern kb
I'd go with option 1) and at the same time rise funds for new tooling for future projects (75%, TKL) and try stabilizers alternatives