180

[hoijui]

Idea

I have a simple 60% USB keyboard, like this one:

I would like to use only the first/bottom 4 rows though, and have more modifier keys/layer switch keys,
to have a similar experience like on some small split keyboards, like the corne:

So I though, I could just turn the keyboard by 180 degrees, adjust the back-front inclination, and then I would have enough keys available for my thumbs:

How to

As a quick hack, I am using this to do the basic reversion of the layouts in my non-reversed config.
Note: I had to escape the \ like so: \\.

echo "  esc  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    0    -    =    bspc
  tab  q    w    e    r    t    y    u    i    o    p    [    ]    \\
  caps a    s    d    f    g    h    j    k    l    ;    '    ret
  lsft z    x    c    v    b    n    m    ,    .    /    rsft
  lctl lmet lalt           spc            ralt rmet rctl" \
    | sed -e '1!G;h;$!d' \
    | awk '{ printf("  "); for (i=NF; i>1; i--) printf("%-4s ",$i); print $1; }'

sed reverses the lines,
awk reverses the words and aligns them.

output:

  rctl rmet ralt spc  lalt lmet lctl
  rsft /    .    ,    m    n    b    v    c    x    z    lsft
  ret  '    ;    l    k    j    h    g    f    d    s    a    caps
  \    ]    [    p    o    i    u    y    t    r    e    w    q    tab
  bspc =    -    0    9    8    7    6    5    4    3    2    1    esc

This of course still requires a lot of manual adjustment.

Evaluation ...

Will this be usable, comfortable, ... does it make any sense to even try?
Lets see! :-)
If I will not come back here and report, it was probably very disappointing and/or frustrating.

[rszyma]

I can see it being pain getting used to, because of differently staggered rows.

[hoijui]

I bet so too.

Also:

• The hands are not in a symmetrical position (thumb keys are shifted).
• The keys are inclined towards the back, instead of towards the front (though that could be changed by turning the keys 180 too)
• The key heights are wrong (this can only partly be fixed by shifting the keys, and probably fully with a spare set of key-caps)

[hoijui]

Indeed.. the stagger makes it pretty much unusable. The other things seem almost no problem.

Here the config file I tested it with. It is a very rough trial only.
I also tried to stagger the lower and middle alphabetic rows shifted one to the left,
but that was even worse.
It is not worth to even try, but if you must, this should be enough. just try to each all the letters with the right finder, and you'll see.

mk61_rsthd_reverse.kbd.txt

I am still happy to have tried it though. :-)

[hoijui]

I am now trying without turning the keyboard, but moving everything up one row, and removing the space-bar key-cap. that works better, and it has the additional benefit of being able to use the palms to hit the other keys on the space-bar row,
much like with the keyboard.io; I find that useful for hold-layer-switching.
The stagger on the the top-most row though, is still relatively uncomfortable, so I it will probably remain a fun idea, but... almost!