Do you use the \| symbols on your keyboard?
Do you use them so much that they demand a 1.5 width key to access them?
If you’re a Linux user, you also use ~´ …and probably pretty much the same amount as the \|. Do you have a 1.5 width key for those?
In a 65% or smaller layout, we often get the 1.5 \| and no ~´ at all!
I would like all keyboard designers to think very carefully about that little wasted space used by a large \| … it’s all laziness caused by picking a 1.5 for the Tab key, isn’t it? :-p You have to put something on there, and everyone else puts \| on it, so …
Stop it!
Make that 1.5 key the backspace, and then cast your eyes on the 2 width backspace above it, split that one in half and restore \| and ~´ to their rightful places, in easy reach!
I mean you are describing a “split backspace” layout, which is often a layout option (especially on soldered PCBs) and often the only choice on HHKB-like boards.
I’m voting with my wallet from now on then … If it has a 1.5 \| and no tilde/backquote, I’m not buying it. No-one will notice my attempt at market manipulation
I do have a Drop Alt, which has an extra key to the right of the \\| that I have remapped, so it isn’t as if I can’t use alternatives. It’s just that thinking about it, I can’t see any reason for that \| to be granted such a big key and I think it’s just some form of design inertia that needs to be given a kick.
Most custom PCBs support split backspace which gives you the keys you need as dedicated buttons. And in fact they’re getting more and more commonplace as well, not just in custom PCBs
I had a Nasty ISO rubberdome keyboard at work for ~5 years which had 2 \ keys! One snuggled into the ISO enter key, and one beside the left shift.
I can’t be doing ISO (enter is too small horizontally) but I’d love to buy a basically ANSI keyboard which had the split left-shift & \ keys, since my muscle memory still whacks the left shift every once in a while when I want a backslash.
If we’re adding fuel to the preference fire, I’ll throw in mine for Delete being the second key on a split backspace. For my needs, I use that WAY more than I ever would a tilde or back quote so I put that on a layer (assuming I remember to - that’s how little I use it).
Already was doing it every time possible and now making bespoke keeb with split BS fixed, although I’m not frequent tilde user (Fn+Esc is enough for it).
I’m late to this campaign, but I’m joining whole-heartedly! As one of the keymap optimizers I want all the character keys to be the same size. And also for aesthetic reasons: I think keyboards have such an important place in people’s lives, they deserve a little more design attention! Given how so many consumer devices are all made with major involvement from some highly paid designers (and it’s one of the things that made Apple market leader in many product lines), a little bit of design logic would do some good in the keyboard world.
Speaking of Apple, did you know that they have a different solution for the ‘|’ key, that doesn’t split Backspace like the HHKB pioneered it? And this solution even predates the HHKB: The enduring magic of Apple’s 1983 keyboard layout
I don’t know if self-promotion of my blog is appreciated here, but it’s very on-topic: I did the research for that post exactly because I was wondering about that weird 1.5u character key. (Also, my blog is entirely non-commercial, not trying to sell or promote anything other than my own ideas…)
Man, this layout is great! You cut an entire column of the main area and made it more symmetric by doing that! This fits the Bringing Balance to the Board theme (even more so if the numpad was broken off into a separate package… but let me not distract from your main idea which is so powerful by itself!)
I think your layout should get a proper name, so it can become more widely known. Do you have open-source plate and PCB files for it?
Now, getting into the overall issue of different key sizes as well is interesting. Seems like a whole lot of wasted effort making a keycaps kit with duplicate symboils on different sized caps just to support weird layouts … and I end up with boxes of caps that aren’t going to be used anywhere …
But I’m not brave enough to use a 1u ortho layout to fix all that, so perhaps I can’t complain too much.
