I knew it! Incidentally, my father was a world-renowned professor in cardiac electrophysiology. He recently passed away. (Hence, my late answer and absence from this forum.) Myself, I have also worked as a product specialist in cahtlabs, programming pacemakers and implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICDs).
I do not recall seeing that specific keyboard over here in Europe, but I can definitely explain the meaning of most key legends. Here we go…
The yellow keys on the numpad are for entering hemodynamic pressure measurements. The highest blood pressures are at the top, the lowest at the bottom.
ART: Arterial Resistance and Tone
AO: Aortic pressure
LV: Left Ventricular pressure
LA: Left Atrial pressure
PV: Pulmonary Vein pressure
PCW: Pulmonary Capillary Wedge pressure
PA: Pulmonary Artery pressure
RV: Right Ventricular pressure
RA: Right Atrial pressure
VC: Vena Cava pressure
Ven: Venous pressure
SP: Systolic pressure
Some of the green sublegends:
Electrophysiological measurements:
SNRT: Sinus Node Recovery Time
ARP: Atrial Refractory Period
RRP: Relative Refractory Period
Electrophysiological annotating:
Arrhy: Arrhythmia
Block
Refr: Refractory
Hemodynamic measurements:
FFR: Fractional Flow Reserve
And now the fun part! The red keys are for pacing the patient’s heart straight from your keyboard: Trig(ger), Offset, Pace, Sense, Gain and Sweep. The latter increases or decreases the patient’s heart rate to the point of inducing a potentially dangerous arrhythmia.
This reminds me how, sometimes already at 7AM and “barely awake” in the operating room, I had to temporarily “kill patients” (induce ventricular fibrillation ) twice from the tip of my finger. This was to assure the proper functioning of a newly implanted ICD. Fun times… but with a lot of responsibility for a young dude. At that very moment, not the physician, but you are the boss in the OR.
Condolences, and thank you for the information. It’s strange to think of what each of these boards has seen.
I actually just finished an external Soarer’s for it today, except for a 3D printed case. So far, I have just used it to add USB compatibility and a Windows key.
One can enjoy this hobby without being a collector.
Unlike the New Nixies, Cherry Hirose has same sound and feel as Cherry Black which I already have plenty of. If they can recreate the original Cherry Blacks (aka Vintage Blacks) which sounds subtly different in pleasing ways, I’d be all over it.
Thank you all for the condolences. The friendliness and kindness of our conversations here is what makes this forum so uniquely great! Indeed, the last couple of months have been particularly rough on me; even for more reasons I care to mention. I am happy to be back!
And yes, that is what I tried to convey with my reply: Some keyboards are one in a million in what they were originally used for. Congrats with your “rescue ” purchase.
“Delivery of replacement keys: after reviewing your replacement request and once the 28 days period ends, you will be informed about the approval/denial of your request, and the replacement keys will be shipped to you if your request has been approved”
Saw this on the QC guidlines for the SLK sets. Was this put up before the sale or after they found out the sets were botched? IMO they should completely replace everything & not put QCing on the customers. Also the fact they could possibly deny people doesn’t sit right with me at all. It’s a shame what went down with this.
Remember the ring from LOTR? It’s like their OG mx black injection mold is in someone’s hand in the abyss, just like the ring in Gollum’s hand for centuries.
Also @ListlessLlama, @schizobovine - I talked myself out of getting an HSA set for now, but thanks for your feedback! I know I will get a set at some point. I’ve already talked myself out of KAT Doubleshot Milkshake even though I know I want a KAT set. I’m just waiting for the right moon phase or something.
Just saw your message about SLK Dessau. I received an email after CK received them and had a chance to review but before they shipped to customers that mentioned the alignment issues:
I don’t love how this went either, but I do want to mention that CK has been easy to deal with on this so far. Hopefully, the manu. doesn’t reject the replacements request I submitted, but hopefully CK will back up their customers on this.
IMO, this is a pretty significant misstep for SLK (or whoever approved the tooling molds). If I had followed the QC guidelines of “0.2mm” being the threshold for replacements, I’d have to request nearly an entire new set of caps. I stuck with only requesting caps that were at least a millimeter off the mark and still had 20+ caps needing replacements.
It’s definitely frustrating, because the design, shape, and overall plastic/print quality is quite high… when the legends are in the right locations.
I found a set of WOB in Akko’s SA-L profile on Amazon Warehouse Deals for twenty bucks. I like the concept, one profile for F row and num row, another for the rest, in particular for my funky no-stabilizers DIY boards. Akko and Womier/XVX have really generous kitting for the price, including my much-needed 1.75u Enter keys, but there are a few places where their kitting didn’t match my layouts.
The only real issue with the SA-L kits is the paucity of convex spacebars under 2u, typically just being a pair of 1.25u (a frustration common to the “ISA” kits XVX sells). Luckily for me, I did a much saner build with a YOB set of SA-L a few months ago, so I happen to have two spares, and four is good enough. Since it acts like a non-scultped set for most purposes, I can use the 1.25u Caps Lock intended for the bottom row and some other keycaps without row alignment issues.
I’m working on a set of caps inspired by (but not exact replicas of) Wyse terminal keyboards. I decided I wanted to actually type on one, to try to get a better idea of the vibe, if nothing else. I haven’t seen one in person since the late 90’s, and have never used one before. So I bought a vintage 1985 WY-85 Gate Array board off eBay:
And then I ordered a PCB like this, to mount a Pro Micro and RJ11 jack onto, so I can connect the keyboard’s cable to the Pro Micro non-destructively.
We’ll see how Soarer’s 11+ year-old firmware holds up… If it all works out, I’ll construct a case to fit all of the converter hardware into. And I hope it does work out, since it doesn’t seem like there’s any TMK firmware for Wyse boards out there if Soarer’s fails.
I recently built two Soarers for Model M’s. One for a Terminal board that originally had an RJ-45, but I was able to non-destructively do that one internal. Then I did an external one for a PS/2 Unicomp, or presumably many PS/2 boards, but right now I just have the one. Both worked perfectly, though I’m not a demanding gamer or particularly quick typist.
Wanted to buy the drop shift V2 with the holy panda clears not sure if I would be happy without media controls anyone have any experience with the shift V2? Or something comparable with media controls?
Well, I don’t really know much about this keyboard, and have zero direct experience with it, but I did find some info from a quick Google searches.
The page How to Configure your SHIFT Keyboard | Drop, which seems to be about the V1 version of this keyboard, mentions that media controls are available via the function layer:
I’m guessing this would be the default behavior for the V2 keyboard as well. That page also describes how to reconfigure the key layout (for the V1 Shift board) via their proprietary system. However, it seems that the V2 Shift board will have support for other standard tools for modifying your key layout: “QMK and VIA programmable (Vial coming soon)”.
Thus, if you wanted to make the media controls more easily accessible (i.e., not requiring the Fn modifier), such as by replacing some function keys with media controls, then it seems that it would be easily possible with this board.
Hey @Buckknife, welcome to KT! Honestly I would avoid both products. The Drop Shift V2 is the same chassis as the V1, it just comes with foam & a newer PCB that supports QMK/VIA. It’s very much overpriced for what it is. The KB itself is a unibody type that use an integrated plate (the plate is actually part of the top housing, not a seperate piece, widely considered the worst plate style by many enthusiasts). Which is gonna give you just about the stiffest & worst sounding (hence the foam for V2) typing experience you can find in a modern KB. Then the Holy Pandas Drop sells are very subpar as well, they definitely need spring swapped & hand lubed to get to even a decent point. On top of that the plastics used to create the housings is particularly bad, very brittle, which cause the legs that hold the top housing to the bottom housing to break off extremely easily. Also the price is just astronomical compared to much better designed budget Chinese custom KBs like the QK/Neo series & similar.
Integrated plate has come to be seen as very big no no on custom KBs since they make for an extremely unforgiving typing feel that is not good for even shorter typing or gaming sessions. They also have a much harsher sound than any other mounting style. Drop has also come out with Holy Panda X (basically HP V2s) manufactured by Gateron that is much higher quality than the BSUN manufactured Invyr branded V1s that are super brittle. Overall the IMHO the whole Drop made line up of KBs are very far behind the curve of what even budget custom KBs have become in the last two to three years. I suspect they’ve just invested too much money into their series to drop them & start from scratch, which would be fine if the didn’t try to advertise them as true high end custom KB with mid level pricing.
Since you are looking at the Shift which would be considered a 1800 layout I see that you are looking for a fullish sized KB. Given that, I would suggest a QK100. It is a traditional custom KB design (top case, top mounted or gasket mounted, a PCB programmed through QMK/VIA/VIAL which will give you access to media controls you can map to any key on any layer, then a bottom case with either a functional brass weight or decorative alum. weight. All for less than Shift V2. Pair them with Drop Holy Panda X switches & not only will you end up with a much better version of the type of KB you are looking for. It will also be a much more comfortable typing experience that can be tweaked with different plate materials & gasket hardness to be able to dial in a typing feel you are happy. While also remaining cheaper or just getting close to the price of the Shift V2 build pricing pricing.
Also addressing your worry about lack of physical media controls (I’m assuming you mean knobs & keys specifically dedicated to media controls). They both can be programmed to have you media control keys wherever you want them to be on the board itself & whether you want them on the top layer or secondary layer. If you need any help with this decision feel free to PM me on here or just ask in a appropriate thread. The community here will be more than happy to help steer you towards a KB that has all your requirements, many QOL improvements compared to a Drop Shift, & most importantly cheaper yet higher quality!
) twice from the tip of my finger. This was to assure the proper functioning of a newly implanted ICD. Fun times… but with a lot of responsibility for a young dude. At that very moment, not the physician, but you are the boss in the OR.
The friendliness and kindness of our conversations here is what makes this forum so uniquely great! 
Indeed, the last couple of months have been particularly rough on me; even for more reasons I care to mention. I am happy to be back!
” purchase.
