So you want to buy a keyboard and have seen all sorts of different sizes of keyboards? What is a 40%? 60%? 75%? TKL? Let’s answer that:
What is the percentage based on?
It is typically based on the number of keys used divided by the number of keys a standard full size keyboard uses. (Which is 104 keys for a Standard ANSI keyboard). For example your Poker keyboard has 61 keys; divide 61 / 104 = 58.6% this gets rounded to the nearest whole number making is a 60% keyboard. Another example: Your JD40 keyboard has 44 keys; divide 44 / 104 = 42.3% which gets rounded to 40%.
Its not a perfect system: The standard percent sizes you will hear of are not always a perfect fit due to the varying designs; but it at least gives you general idea of the size. For example the 75% keyboard typically has 84 keys; divide 84 / 104 = 80.7%. As the TKL has previously been referred to as an 80% (at a true 83.6%) it makes sense that a more compact version of a TKL would need to be noted as smaller; thus 75%. Like I said, not perfect.
Maybe it would be a good idea to include a section in the future on why sometimes some boards go with key designations instead of just percentages, and how that can often lead to confusion.
Additional column I’d say is the differentiator but I find it easiest to describe using staggered by example, 45 (on most layouts) allows for an additional 2 punctuation keys over 40’s single. It makes the transition down from 60 surprisingly much easier to swallow.
Breaking it down by column doesn’t really work for the minivan, though since it isn’t a whole number of columns wide at 12.75u. It is actually much closer to 45% sized than to 40%.
I also mentioned a Razer Blackwidow as a common board. Which fits the same bill. But truth be told, these are generalization of keyboard SIZE not specific layouts. Or else we’d need to address WKL, Blockered layouts and different bottom row options on all of the compact boards. 1u 1u 1u vs 1.5 1.5u … etc.
Fair… I didn’t see the Razer board in my first read. Perhaps just a * next to the names of the boards that don’t actually fully match the layout they are mentioned under? (and a note at the bottom of the article that shows the star denotes a board with a slight deviation from the pictured layout)
I’m surprised that the MX version of the HHKB layout is meant to be control and alt.
I was expecting it to be a bottom row consisting of:
[SUPER] [ALT] [7U Space] [ALT] [SUPER]
By super I mean the operating system’s super key like [WIN] for Windows or super for Linux.
There seems to be an excessive number of variations considering you have the control key in such a great position.
I’ve never really needed to use the right control key even when I was using full sized membrane keyboards and always remap the capslock to something else on laptops either Control, Function or Escape.
I guess there is no standard which is good to allow customisation.
What does everyone else do for their HHKB bottom row layouts?
