Keyboard Wonderland – ENGLISH Version – Part I
Intermezzo – more classification
Since we are talking about keycaps and switches let us have a look on how these are organised on a keyboard. We are going to discuss the “layout” and what it means and how it can become quite confusing.
Layout is a word that can mean a lot of things. When we are discussing a layout we can mean the following:
- the form factor – detailed previously – like 100%, 80% (TKL), 75%, and so on;
- how the keys are distributed on the keyboard – some layouts have different numbers of keys. The examples here are ANSI and ISO (UK, DE, or Nordic). In short ANSI means 2.25U Enter with the pipe key above it and ISO is the BIG Enter;
- how the keys are organised on the keyboard – and here examples are the QWERTY, QWERTZ, AZERTY, COLEMAK, Dvorak layouts, and so on.
QWERTY
COLEMAK
Dvorak
- how the keys are physically placed on the plate – here we have horizontal stagger (or the classic keyboard, akin to the typewriter layout), ortholinear, ortholinear with vertical stagger, ergo split boards (which in turn can also be horizontal stagger, ortho, or vertical stagger…).
To avoid a trip to the Pharmacy in search of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen we are going to stop here with the classifications. I promise. It is all we need to know thus far.
Comentarii
Kinesis copied Maltron.
Ian, I’m sorry, but if you point far enough backwards in time a germ gets blamed for splitting in two. Maltron had the ideas but the execution has been thoroughly terrible throughout time and they never caught on. At the same time I didn’t want to touch upon too much history because the article is complex enough as it is.
That being said, Kinesis is one of the first actually ergonomic keyboards that is actually good and was available and came up in searches online back around 2005ish, so I went with it as the contemporary origins. Maltron will always be remembered for this abomination which sold for $400 – https://youtu.be/fkGpFeUQ49Y
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