A1200 keyboard with. modern key arrangement

[aeberbach]

I'm thinking about designing a PCB to place keys in a way such that modern sets of keycaps can be used to fill it, leaving only F1-10 and Help/Del keys blank. What do you think of the following layout?

A1200 layout with modern keycaps

It has to conform to the shape of the cutout in the A1200 case. I can _almost_ fit everything but would use a few 3D printed blanking plates. Blanks are shown as "ghosted" keys in the layout.
- no blank keys any more
- "big ass enter key" in place of ISO Enter
- Caps Lock moved up to the F row
- 0.5U blank to the right of Enter and Shift
- standard sizes for all of the modifiers like tab, shift, ctrl, BS, etc.
- 3D printed assembly allowing 7U spacebar to be used with 1U blanks either side

The motivation is that while making a PCB is pretty easy, filling it out with keycaps is not. Amiga used many weird sizes like 9U space, 2U Tab, 1.25U F keys etc.

[torsti76]

Very nice idea! However, keep in mind that the "big ass enter key" collides with most keyboard layouts other than English.

So, perhaps keep the option to solder the two additional keys and use the smaller enter key that is common with, e.g., German keyboards.

Thanks!

[solarmon]

I don't personally like the proposed layout - especially with the CAPS LOCK relocation.

The ENTER key needs to be the smaller one to accommodate non-UK keyboard layouts - i.e. see the differrent layouts at:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...miga-computers

The UK keyboard has blank keys for unused characters in those positions.

I'd rather keep the layout as exact (to original) as possible and have extra blank keys (like for the SPACE bar), or just blank spaces (i.e. spaces between the F keys).

Just my personal opinion.

[Predseda]

I do not see your layout "modern". And I especially dislike Caps Lock position. Also look at + - * / keys on numpad - this is something that makes me problems when typing on Amiga after a long PC usage, so I would consider remapping these.

[aeberbach]

I mean "modern" in that you can fill the keyboard with keycaps having correct legends that are available in current sets. You can fill an Amiga keyboard as it is now, but some keys will be blank. There isn't a perfect solution.

If Amiga On The Lake were to sell the MX-compatible keycaps that would be ideal, but they can't seem to ship keyboards (or communicate with anyone). I am going to look into the cost of having a MX set made in the original layout.

[AmigaHope]

I've always wanted a replacement USA keyboard (big-ass enter key, full size shift keys, no blank keys) for my A4000 when mine died, but by the time it died all the new-old-stock was based on the A1200 blank-key-european keyboard.

As far as I know, no software ever uses those blank keys because a huge number of Amigas never even had those keys. No Amiga I ever used in the USA (A500, A2000, A3000, A4000) It was only the A1200 and late (Escom) A4000T keyboards that universally shipped with the extra blank keys.

[Jope]

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of Amigas ever sold (germany + the nordics) needed those extra keys, as our keymaps use them for <> '*. :-)

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by Jope

I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of Amigas ever sold (germany + the nordics) needed those extra keys, as our keymaps use them for <> '*. :-)

The main point is that I don't need those extra keys and I've never encountered a piece of software that required the use of the blank keys for anything (except for tools that explicitly let you map them as hotkeys for stuff)

I like my bigass shift and enter keys that I can hit with my pinky fingers without much accuracy. xD