Enlarge

We see a lot of gear at Ars Technica. Plenty of keyboards and mice have come across the desks of our reviewers and editors, from mechanical models to the slew of low-profile keys that are attached to the decks of laptops and notebooks. A few notable picks even get our stamp of approval. But do our editors put their money where their fingers are?

In the spirit of Chairs Technica , we asked our staff members what they rely on to stay productive, game, and create content. Through the clickety-clacks of their typing, this is the gear our editors told us they swear by.

Eric Bangeman: Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad

It's subtle, but this Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad combo matches the green iMac. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Believe it or not, I love the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. And it’s not just because they match my Apple gear perfectly (they do) or because I care about aesthetics (I do).

System76 unveiled its first keyboard, which also happens to be the first open-source configurable mechanical keyboard. It is easy to swap out the keys, choose the type of switches (Royals which offer a muted clack, and Jades which produce an addictive click sound), can fully remap the key layout in software, it has RGB lighting, as well as it acts as a high-speed USB hub to plug additional USB devices into it.

That said it is fairly pricey at $285 and may lack the additional keys that gamers like to have (media control keys with volume, macro program keys, and number pad), and in my case I like the actual keycap lettering to be lit through the keys (that allows the RGB lighting in effect to change the "colour of the key" and can be quickly changed per game without mechanically removing the keycaps. It is possible though that in future, transparent keycaps could be available that will anyway achieve this, so it may not be a big drawback.

It is well-built though and has certainly packed some requested features in, and the split spacebar makes better use of space. Being open source hardware there is also a good chance of 3rd party support for keycaps and other features. My Redragon Yama mechanical keyboard for example has limited Linux support for the customisation side and I had to use Windows to program it.

See https://news.itsfoss.com/system76-launch-mechanical-keyboard/

#technology #opensource #hardware #keyboard #system76

How to fix the Lenovo external USB keyboard?

Most computer users I know, are users of Lenovo Thinkpad. It is almost a kind of monocropping when I go to a free software event: Almost everybody uses Lenovo Thinkpad, frequently models that are many years old. So do I.

Thinkpad keyboards are not bad, but have a funny genetic defect: Where normal computers have the left control key, on the very outside lower left corner, Thinkpads have the function key. Fortunately, Lenovo detected this bug and they provide a workaround in the BIOS. Users can swap the control and function key to their correct position, which all users do (well, minus one or two).

Lenovo also makes an external compact USB keyboard, which is not too bad. It only has one terrible defect: It shares the wrong position of control and function with the builtin Thinkpad keyboards, but one can fix this by means of BIOS. Not even mighty setxkbmap nor xmodmap where able to solve the problem. Thanks to Lenovo forum user blackdot54 from Canada, there is a way to salvation. One needs to dismantle the keyboard:

Now one has to pull apart the three layers of the keyboard membrane:

With a sharp knife, adhesive tape, a fine brush and some conductive silver paint one can re-route the connections for both wrongly placed keys on the lower side:

And also on the upper side:

If you like to do this, please check blackdot54s original post, which is much more comprehensive than my summary and contains more helpful photos. I post this to say thank you to blackdot54 and to say that their instructions worked well for me!

(The photos are taken from blackdot54s post without any permission under the assumption that this post is fair use.)

#modding #keyboard #lenovo #thinkpad