The CODE Keyboard

Any plans for a 60% keyboard?

I like how this has good old DIP switches, but Iā€™m skeptical about the backlit keys. What happens when the black paint wears off? You have a very expensive crappy looking keyboard, I imagine.

A perfect keyboard would have engraved symbols to easily figure out the DIP switch options or a key printed on the label on the bottom! Now I have to keep the manual around to look up what does what? Despite that, itā€™s seems to be a great keyboard. I plan on getting one when they come back in stock.

Please start shipping to Brazil. This is the keyboard I was waiting for.

Thank you for this great gift to all computer geeks.

I personally never liked keyboards with deep keys like that. I much prefer keyboards with shallower keys, but that may be because I never actually typed in the ā€œformally correctā€ way.

By far my favorite keyboard Iā€™ve ever owned is the Razer Lycosa.

Not to say the CODE Keyboard is bad, just thinking outloud.

They are sold out and the next batch isnā€™t scheduled for another THREE MONTHS!!! This SUCKSā€¦

Jeff, my perfect keyboard very nearly exists - the featureset spans three great boards, and Iā€™d like to raise a couple extra considerations you might like to add to the CODE Mk.2.

First, backlighting - you nailed this one. I need not explain further. Another thing you nailed is the Cherry Clears; Iā€™m an Alps addict and this should make the transition painless. :smiley:

Second, zone-weighted keys: This was the killer app of the original Das Keyboard. Iā€™ve come to love it, but not quite enough to keep me using the thing.

Third, full, unapologetic Mac layout support like my Matias Silent Pro. CODE does have media keys - are they Mac compatible? I want the whole kit and caboodle, however. The entire magic F-row, with screen brightness, windowing controls, backlight brightness on F5 & F6, a mute button, and an eject key. Frankly, Iā€™d like to go even further than Appleā€™s own layout does - they dropped the Dashboard key on F4; if thereā€™s some way to bring this back without sacrificing quick access to Launchpad, youā€™d manage to improve on perfection.

Right now, it looks like the most unapologetic Mac support I can get is from Razerā€™s discontinued, pre-Cloud models. And that makes me sad. Unless Iā€™m wrong about what the CODE is capable of, and thatā€™d just make my day.

A number of people are saying ā€œGreat keyboard, but I need feature ā€˜Xā€™ā€.

Iā€™ll add my voice to the ergonomic crowd. I canā€™t imagine anyone who currently uses an ergonomic keyboard switching back to a straight layout.

Unless the keyboard is curved like the Microsoft ā€œNaturalā€ keyboard, I canā€™t use it for more than 10 minutes without wrist pain.

Iā€™m actually surprised you didnā€™t opt to create an ergo keyboard.

So, what do you have for someone like me?

Jeff, you asked, ā€œWhat would you do, if you could do anything?ā€ Well, I would do this:

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g228/BoltBait/IdealNotebook_zps71f11f58.png

Thatā€™s my ideal notebook.

Could anyone comment on their experiences coding on ergonomic vs non-ergonomic keyboards?

Iā€™ve havenā€™t touched an ergo in years and honestly this dell rubber dome keyboard I use makes my fingers feel quite cramped.

-David Betournay

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Truly ergonomic is the best. It finally disposes of the useless numpad (for programmers that is), allowing the mouse to stay much closer to the keyboard. Also the key positions are great, takes a little getting used to, but very ergonomic.

I have to of those, planning to convert them to Dovorak or Colemak.

They problem with mechanical keys for me is the sound, ideally my keyboard would be totally silent. Same for the mouse and the PC itself, also I always have a headset plugged in, the result would be stealth computing :smiley:

The code keyboard is pretty underwhelming to me.

To really market to the professional programmers, they should at least have a truly programmable mode to map every single key on the keyboards.

No more custom mapping in emacs or vim. If you program in C, you should be able to map [ to {, ] to } etc. and if you program in LISP, map [ to (, ] to ).

Itā€™s also missing built-in USB hub to reduce clutter on the desk.

How about an embedded numpad (toggle via numlock) for the TKL model?

High quality keycaps?

I mean programmers should definitely afford a GOOD keyboard, why not make it much better than the $100-$150 keyboards out there?

I have a Filco (Cherry Blue) at home and loving it, but I was sooo tempted to get a Ducky for its cool backlighting features.

@Jeff Have you seen the new Ducky Shine 3 keyboards? http://www.duckychannel.com.tw/en/keybroad.html. They have cool design, media keys and cool backlight features. All you wanted in a mechanical keyboard.

+1 to wireless mechanical keyboards. It would be great to see wireless mechanical keyboards. Having backlight features might lessen the usage time in a single charge thoughā€¦

My code keyboard just arrived. It is working pretty well on my Mac Mini. I love the feel of it. Having it in Mac mode seems like Alt is the Apple key and not the blank OS key, even though I have DIP SW5 OFF, is that correct? Is there a discussion forum or other support area for this? Iā€™d like to make sure Iā€™m not doing anything stupid. OSX did not recognize the keyboard type obviously. (what keyboard has anything to the right of the shift key?)

Everything seems fine with the keyboard, but the left shift key is a bit more wobbly that the right.

So far so good.

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Pretty keyboard with a nice minimalist design to it. And the MX Clears were the final nail in the coffin for this moving to the top of my list.

Sadly, with only MX blue/red/green being available in the near future, this becomes no more appealing than any other (and cheaper) gaming keyboard out there.

Hereā€™s to hoping Cherry pick up the pace and get those Clears to market sooner than a year. Canā€™t they just ignore the gaming kiddies for a while and drop the fad for the super noisy switches theyā€™re all screaming for, and instead feed us devs some Clear joy?

I make an Twitter account just so I could say that I want/need/yearn a keyboard that would be a mix of Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 + The CODE. With a big Enter of course.

Letā€™s read again how good it is/was - http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/09/keyboarding-microsoft-natural-ergonomic-4000.html

12-14 months wait?! The combination of features sounded really appealing (Dvorak switch!) but I wanted to know if a mechanical keyboard was for me. So Iā€™ve tracked down a cherry MX blue keyboard and it feels great (but loud). But now what do I do? 12 months is pretty ridiculous but I want those clear switchesā€¦ And an Australian reseller would be great too :slight_smile:

Looks interesting but create Mac version also.

The one thing I found a work keyboard really really needs is a USB power port that is not connected to data. I want to charge my mobile phone or tablet computer at work without finding a socket out of reach or accidentally bringing the wrath of management upon me because I connected a data device to the companyā€™s network.