This is my solution for a split, tented, ortholinear keyboard for a gamer. Clarent. The Coward's blade. The Sword of Fire. The twin to Excalibur. Named for it's ability to flame people in game swiftly and decisively.
The halves of the keyboard are split in the middle, allowing the user to position each hand's responsibility individually on the table. This allows for
Because the keyboard is split in half, each half of the keyboard can be rotated so that the center part is higher than the sides. This is because when your arm is relaxed, your palms aren't parallel to the desk, rather at an angle, and tenting allows for the keyboard to mimic that relaxed angle.
The keys on this keyboard are arranged in columns, rather than rows like a conventional keyboard. Each column has a designated finger, and they are arranged in a curve that mimics the difference in length in each finger on the hand (e.g. The columns in the middle are farther because the middle finger is longer).
Column stagger is great, until you have to game. Conventionally, the homerow, or where your index finger would be, is the F key, and all the columns are positioned in a way that's comfortable for that configuration. When it comes to game, typically your index finger will be on the D key, so everything is shifted over by one. In this case, the stagger that was designed for index finger on F starts to work against you.
There are a couple of existing solutions for this issue. One is to use a separate gaming layer. When a button is pressed, this toggles a different set of keystrokes bound to each key that shifts everything to the right by one, such that the default position for gaming moves from index on D back to index on F. I did this for a couple of years, but got tired of having to constantly toggle the layer on and off when trying to type normally mid-game, when I have to communicate with others...
Another solution is to rebind each game manually. This is inconvenient...
which brings us to the last feature
Bistable means there are two stable states for the keyboard to be in. Physically, I can shift the left keyboard in sections, such that it can be switched between Column Stagger mode and Ortholinear mode, where all the keys are in a grid and there is no more column stagger. This Ortholinear mode is way better to use during gaming, due to the column stagger no longer mismatched with index on D, and is usable for typing at the same time with minimal re-conditioning of my muscle memory.
- Lower profile to get side lower to table
- Modular thumb cluster to fine tune thumb button placement