Yeah, I believe it was fixed quite some time ago and any you can get new now are fine.
I was surprised how easily typing on it came back after not using a 40 for like six months, but that really is the size that my typing speed takes a big hit, I need my number row and punctuation easily accessible and if/when I need to dig for them is when I start to get slowed down. I came up with a layout I was pretty comfortable with back when I was really trying to use 40s where I only use two layers because I have trouble keeping track of much more than that, but luckily I don’t have any workflows where I need the F keys/anything that is generally not on a 60% so I could make it work pretty well.
People who use 40s a lot will tell you it’s more efficient because you don’t have to move your fingers as much, but I think that’s really workload dependent, if you need the symbols on the numbers for example now you need to push three keys to get ‘%’ rather than two, and if you don’t have the muscle memory it can really kill your WPM. Doing a lot of spreadsheets/data collection/coding/CAD I’ve found it to be a pain point, but if you were to spend a lot of time, say writing, I could see where it could definitely be more efficient.
Another one that is popular for 40s is split spacebar, which can eliminate some of the pain from above, but I also found I struggled with that, when typing I always hit spacebar with my right thumb, but when I’m doing CAD I will have my right hand on the mouse and left on the keyboard, and I will use spacebar with my left hand there, so I ended up with a split spacebar where both keys were space, and with the size of my had my left thumb was right on the corner of the left spacebar which was annoying. I just had too much muscle memory to be able to do the thing where is space when you tap it and a modifier when you hold it.
The last pain point I’ve found with 40s is that I am in the minority in that I primarily shift with my right hand, and I always want right shift to be the right most key in that row so that I can find it easily. If you look at the keyboard in the picture, the right most panic key is actually my shift key, and then the blank grey key to the left of it is a momentary layer one key, as is the blue key on the left with the ‘^’ on it. I found that I actually needed function layer keys on both sides of the board to be able to push numbers with just my left hand while I was doing CAD, but that I could get away with just the right shift.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, not sure if you actually wanted to know how I type on it, but I’d bet what I’ve come up with is pretty unique and not a lot of people would enjoy the layout that I find optimal for me, and that’s something that I always find interesting about people’s custom layouts, and especially how they can make small keyboards work for them. (At the end of the day standard 60% with a split backspace is the perfect size/layout for me). If I remember correctly what is below is what I ended up with for layout (I might have missed something, it’s late and I should be sleeping and the board isn’t in front of me).
Edit: Ah now I remember the tab key becomes shift on the function layer, sometimes the left pinky gets parked there in my CAD software.
No question mark. Blah.
I’m not sure why the ‘.’ is there under the ‘/’, it’s just a normal ‘/’ key and shift plus that makes ‘?’
wait, where is 8 on that layer lol
who needs 8? what a dumb number!!
jk, like I said it was way past my bedtime and the keyboard was at my office. It should read ‘6 7 8 9 0 DEL’ and enter becomes ‘\’ on the function layer I think.
Sorry to bump this old post, but where can you get one of those hourglass things?
The kids play area at any bank in 1994
Yeah, exactly. I used to have one of those.
I like this simmetry.
nice, what is this?
I got my KAT Milkshake set in yesterday! Wanted to put them on my Sirius which I left at work before I got told to work from home, so I went into the office today to put them on… and I got to the last row before realizing I didn’t get any caps for a 7U bottom row. Whoops
So for now I’m still using my GMK TA bottom row. The R5 1.5u caps certainly help make it feel a little less mismatched, but I’ll need to find a different board for these caps once I get home; at least until I can buy a few kits from the extras sale.
Regardless, KAT seems nice and I absolutely love the font of these keys. I wish I had done a bit of typing with the GMK set before putting these on so I could get a decent sound difference test. I’ll have to try that later, but from what I remember the sound of the GMK caps on this board (cream switches, POM plate, POM case) had more of a crisp click to them whereas these are more like a dry clack.
Let’s get this I can’t for the life of my figure out what I did with the devtty keys for hhkb compat
Looks sweet with the devtty profile. Might look cool with Triumph color way too