Poker II: initial observations

[guillaume kuster]

if you actually read what I wrote, I have explained clearly how mine handles Pn mode

Oh, I sure have. But as you stated in your original post :

The instruction leaflet may as well be written in Chinese for the amount of sense it makes.

I thought that you might not have deduced the existence of the Right Shift + Fn function

So interestingly enough, there must be different firmwares around for this board, as well as pretty different features. The one I owned was not backlit and had PBT caps, as you can see on the embedded pics on this post.

Maybe that nice wiki entry of yours could be amended.

[Muirium]

In the distance, beyond the mountains, could be heard the sound of a legendary anger. No one knew what or who it was, but the leprechauns.

[guillaume kuster]

In the distance, beyond the mountains, could be heard the sound of a legendary anger. No one knew what or who it was, but the leprechauns.

Well, I use English as a second (or even third actually) langage. I don't mean to be rude.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I actually wrote Fn+RShift in my post at the end of the programming sequence. I'm not clear what it does, though: with modifiers functional, then what happens if you hold a modifier when pressing a key that includes the same modifier in its macro sequence?

I've just spent a couple more hours photographing it; I took it apart completely.

I have no idea what any of the product differences mean. Mine has an 8 in position 4 of the serial (Y1388… instead of Y1308…) but that may just be there to separate backlit ABS from PBT models. There's no date stamp on mine and seemingly none on yours; I'll have to ask QWERTim when he originally bought it. It might take some time to get my head around what they've done.

[guillaume kuster]

I actually wrote Fn+RShift in my post at the end of the programming sequence.

Yes you have, I read it too fast. Sorry about that.

I obviously don't have the keyboard at hand anymore so I can't play this asynchronous fiddling game with you but, I found this review. I remember having read it after purchasing the board (in may or so by the way). The board reviewed is the exact same than the one I had.

These two paragraphs are interesting in our case :

On the plus side, you can switch your keyboard around to support Colmak or Dvorak if you like to use those layouts. You can permanently enable the programmed layer so that you don't have to hold down the Pn key while typing. To do this, you just press Fn + Right Shift. A LED will light up on the left side of the spacebar.

One thing to note is it keeps the secondary shift layer along with the key you program. For instance, if you program the letter "Q" to an apostrophe to change it to the Dvorak layout, the keyboard will also change the shift layer of the "Q" key to quotes when in program mode.

By way of curiosity, is your manual the same (except layout schematic) than the one I uploaded ?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Yours has a Vortex logo, but otherwise seems to be the same manual. The keyboard is at work and I've not had chance to scan it into a PDF yet.

I don't even know what the Vortex deal is! Literally the only branding on anywhere on mine, except the MX switches themselves, is "KBC-POKERPRO-K61A-2-02-02 2013.04.15" written on the PCB, and "IOMANIA" on the label, which is a new name to me.

I don't think ANSI/ISO is anything to do with it, but the backlighting requires a change to the firmware, so that's the most likely cause for the origination of the difference in the way Pn layer is handled.

Mine is fancier than yours (nice shiny metallic label), yet the firmware seems to be older. It may be that they just never bothered to fix the firmware for the backlit model. The problem is really very simple: in Soviet Russia Pn mode, modifiers are ignored. It simply prevents you from remapping the keyboard in Pn mode as you can't type uppercase or use keyboard shortcuts. It's a small but very significant change that drastically alters what Pn mode is perceived to be intended for.

It may be that they forked the code to make a backlit model, and forgot to merge the Pn layer modifier fix into the backlit branch.

At some point I'll see if I can find out which keyboards are affected by this. It will take me hours just to process all the photos I took today (and that was two hours in itself).

[guillaume kuster]

Mine is fancier than yours (nice shiny metallic label), yet the firmware seems to be older.

I don't really know about that. The picture I posted was one of the label apposed on the cardboard box of the board. The one one the bottom of the case is also metallic.

I don't think ANSI/ISO is anything to do with it, but the backlighting requires a change to the firmware, so that's the most likely cause for the origination of the difference in the way Pn layer is handled.

For what it's worth, I currently own another keyboard from the same manufacturer, the KBT Pure Pro which shares the same case, is also plate mounted, backlit and ISO as you Poker II, but it uses a different layout than the Poker II. It feels like this board shares the same (or part of the same) firmware than the Poker II I had as they behave exactly the same.

When using programming mode with the Pure pro, if I make the pn layer persistent with the Right Shit + Fn combo, modifiers keys do work as expected (as I experienced with my former poker II) as in for example:

Code: Select all

Fn + RCtrl, A, Q, Pn, Fn + RCtrl # programming the board so that Q is sent when pressing A

hitting A displays 'q'

hitting Shift + A displays 'Q'

So, as I had some time ahead of me, I took a look at the PCB and not so surprisingly, it reads POKERPRO, as showed below:

date printed on the PCB of the KBT Pure Pro

KBT Pure Pro date.JPG (590.85 KiB) Viewed 13160 times

As on yours, there is a date printed on the board: 2013.01.26. Is this a design date or a manufacturing date; I have no idea. It is interesting to note though that even if the KBT Pure Pro is backlit, and Pn layer works as expected, the date on the board is anterior than the date on yours.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I can get capitals if I use Pn, e.g. if A → B, and I press Shift+Pn+A, I get B instead of b. I just doesn't work in Pn mode (Fn+RShift).

I don't know any way to access the firmware version. Sounds like it's a bug that they fixed and I have the buggy version. I'll compare that PCB with mine later. Interestingly yours has an earlier date on it (January instead of April).

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Wait ... iKBC?

I noticed that my keypuller said something like "iKBC" on it, but I was guessing it some sort of mistake. But your PCB says "IKBC" and in fact, so does mine: they just ran the I and K closer together.

Here's an iKBC-branded PBT Poker II:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=544 ... msg1218554

In English it's a "Vortex Poker II", "KBC Poker II", or "Vortex KBC Poker II". In Chinese it is (also?) the "iKBC Poker II".

PCB

Lame photo of the Poker II PCB.jpg (473.09 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

Another lame photo of the Poker II PCB.jpg (823.6 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

Controller

Poker II controller.jpg (657.63 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

Although the photo sucks, the writing on the controller chip's label really does have bits missing: that's not my camera doing that.

ABS painted backlit keycaps

A decent photograph of the Poker II ABS legends.jpg (417.99 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

Poker II keycaps.jpg (242.53 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ah, here:

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50245.0

Firmware updates. So yes, I suspect mine is just buggy or outdated. If you read the thread, their firmwares are not exactly free from trouble …

[Daniel Beardsmore]

OK, I've rewritten the wiki page to describe what everyone else's Poker II does except mine :-P

Edit: the Poker is starting to look like it has a bigger Vortex than Alps ......

http://deskthority.net/news-reviews-f4/ ... ml#p110129

The non-backlit version has no window for the Caps Lock. That particular backlit version has a Caps Lock LED window, even though the caps lock LED (situated next to the switch) shines through the keycap legend next to the backlight LED on backlit Poker IIs without the window:

Poker II with caps lock LED lit.jpg (454.63 KiB) Viewed 13137 times

It looks like they redesigned this thing with every batch!

[guillaume kuster]

Nice investigation, and very nice work on the wiki entry.

I'm glad people will be able to find some more knowledge about this manufacturer on DT wiki. I remember having hesitated before ordering my first KBC because of the lack of information about the maker.

The PCBs of my current Pure Pro and your Poker II look very similar indeed. The controller seems to be the same (well, same shape and nb of pins, that doesn't say much but you know), only the layout is different as the Pure Pro has a few more switches (arrow keys). Other than that, the painted ABS keys of the Pure pro look exactly the same as those of the Poker II's.

I'll take some pictures of the Pure Pro with my DSLR on Monday.

About the wiki, what do you think? Should a new entry be made for each board from KBC, or would all of them fit on the entry you created?

Just from the top of my head, in no particular order and with no extensive research they make or have made :

- Race, ANSI
- Poker (original), ANSI
- Pure, ANSI
- Pure Pro, ANSI/ISO Backlit
- Poker II

that's quite a bunch and I'm sure I'm missing a few more.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It's a KBT Race, and KBC Poker. KBT is the Chinese-language keyboard community KBtalKing. KBC is KeyBoard Cheer, who may be related to Vortex (I don't really know who either of KBC or Vortex are). KBtalKing have commissioned several KBtalKing-branded keyboards over time, including at least one from Strong Man. There's a topic with some of them in somewhere on their forum, but I don't know how I found it. I suspect the Pure Pro is just a customised batch of Poker II keyboards designed specially for KBT.

I would have one page per keyboard. You can see how long the page for the Poker II is, and I've got more photos to add — it would be impractical to put all the Vortex family on the same page. Don't forget that the Poker II page also lacks any photos of the non-backlit version (since I don't have one), no mention of the history (who was responsible for designing it, organising it etc), no details on available models (there should be a table of models: switch colour, backlight colour if any, layout), and probably other things missing that I've not covered.

[guillaume kuster]

I was browsing the forum today and look what I've found :

http://deskthority.net/resources/ducky-mini/11336

Looks familiar ?


EDIT : not really news though

Also, even if I noticed the different names, I just assumed that all these keyboards come from the same factory granted commercial names do vary.

Maybe a member who used to be a reseller of KBC and KBT boards on this forum might help to understand who is behind the brands: attarian. The thing it's been a while since he showed up here.

[Muirium]

The Ducky Mini is in fact a Poker II variant commissioned by DT's very own Ducky Nordic. He talked about its development on his main PR thread (over the course of most of 2013!) here:

http://deskthority.net/marketplace-f11/ ... ml#p101133

He worked with Vortex on the backlit ISO version for ages, and I think I remember him (Kayvee) saying somewhere on the thread that all ISO Poker II's are in fact his design; although he only distributed the Nordic batch. Worth a shot to ask him about it.

[guillaume kuster]

Thanks Muirium,

that´s the nice thing about DT addicts: they know

[Muirium]

Random forum memory, at your service!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

That's the thing — I was around in March 2013, but I've never paid any of this much attention. I just saw that QWERTim needed to shift one, so I figured I'd give it a go. I may have even joined DT originally to put my name down for a European Poker with the hope they'd make ISO, but that was ruled out, so I never bought one. However, I guess I lost interest since then.

I'm not planning to document this keyboard series beyond my own — I've got enough to do as it is, and this requires a lot of research.

I just wish that people wouldn't keep abandoning their topics when I specifically do want more information about a keyboard or switch :(

[webwit]

These guys contacted sixty and me when they started their worldwide business, and gave us pre-release versions for review. This was just prior to the start of deskthority in January 2011. Reviews here:
http://deskthority.net/news-reviews-f4/ ... -t125.html
It was renamed KBC Poker from KBC 60% between first contact and review.
If I remember correctly the name Vortex came into play after that for their second board, I think because of either rebranding or company reshuffling, but I'm not sure.

This is JC from KBC Taiwan.

Nice to talk with you.

Please allow me to a brief introduction of KBC:

KBC is a specializes in designing, developing and manufacturing team for
mechanical keyboard products.

Our team members are all comes from Taiwan. Now, we have a unique keyboard
and we call it 60%.

We will sale it via our China distributor in the future, we are also
desirous of expanding the business to America and Europe.

etc.

Because of the KBC 60% will be pilot run in this week. So I have to focus on
the production line, in order to avoid the error occurs when production
process.

Thanks for your information about the mechanical keyboard market in Eruope.

The KBC 60% = KBC 40 or KBC 40%, Named according to the proportion of
keyboard size, you can also call it POKER.

[Muirium]

I wonder how old the term "60% layout" really is. And Tenkeyless for that matter.

[webwit]

Tenkeyless is not very old. It was a marketing term introduced by Diatec for the Filco range. 60% is probably even younger.

[Muirium]

Good to know. I'd heard TKL was a Filco thing, and the fact that IBM called their ancestor "space saving" instead is circumstantial evidence too.

[Ggr8]

it's the arrows I can't press with one hand, and I forget what I had been trying to do

...The Poker II made me realize how much I use the arrow keys, and as much I expect to use them with one hand only.

You can always use the trick of locking the arrow keys (left shift + space bar if memory serves) but yeah... cumbersome.

There's a better way: you could program the same arrow keys as the HHKB onto the "waste" (as Daniel called it) Pn layer. I adjusted to it in 2 days. If you don't like the positioning the HHKB uses, you can program arrows wherever you want on the Pn layer.

One handed and easy arrow keys. Done.

[Muirium]

HHKB arrows are indeed pure genius. But the Function key to reach them should really be here:

The Poker II's Pn button is a bit of a contortion in comparison to the HHKB's Fn key (which I shamelessly copied above!).

[matt3o]

if you have to place the FN key in the last row... the only viable position is in place of ALT where you can reach it without breaking your thumb. Or eventually on left or right CTRL where you can press it with your palm.

FN ala HHKB is workable if you don't use hard switches (like greens or black). Your little finger is going to cry for mercy otherwise.

[Muirium]

Mine's MX green and I'm fine. Hard training with buckling spring, see! I also have latching Fn now on Caps Lock, for extended arrow sessions.

[matt3o]

you don't use the fn layer as much as I do probably

really, while coding I press it at least 2 times per line... and I have files with thousands of lines....

[Muirium]

Indeed! I pull out my 60% when I'm going to plough through some writing, which is not layer intensive. Programming would mean my SSK, I think.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

There's a better way: you could program the same arrow keys as the HHKB onto the "waste" (as Daniel called it) Pn layer. I adjusted to it in 2 days.

The Pn layer is stupid. It's hard enough trying to learn this thing as it is, but it's worse when you have to remember that built-in functionality is Fn, and your own mappings are Pn. I have the same issue with a lot of programming languages, especially BASIC-derived ones: built-in functions have a separate syntax from user functions, and they're often more expressive (e.g. OPL32 only allowed system functions to take reference parameters). You feel like you're second class citizen to the language developers. I feel like a second class user: I'm not good enough for Vortex to deign to let me alter the Fn layer. For example, it's ingrained into my memory that Fn+Space is backlight (from the Psion 5), and Fn+Space on a Poker II is WASD toggle, which has no indicator LED and causes confusion. Am I allowed to repurpose Fn+Space as backlight? Of course not.

I've ruled out a Poker II at home. For example, it would be too awkward trying to use Inkscape shortcuts (e.g. F1 for select mode) while using a mouse, and using Inkscape with just the keyboard isn't sensible. I just realised yesterday that, while I've not done any design work in Inkscape in the office for a while, I will struggle next time I come to use it again.

QWERTim's Filco Majestouch 2 TKL tempts me (I think Ninja is silly, but you can't get non-Ninja with MX Red) but it just seems a waste of money on something that won't have Cherry stabilisers, which feel bad, but are really quiet — I like the non-clangy Pokerr sound. The Code keyboard is sold out in clears and appears to have no ISO option, the WASD V2 is sold out in reds … The Cherry G80-3850 tempts me, but it's not TKL, and the keycap profile is strange. Nothing really grabs my fancy at the moment; I'll probably just go back to my MX brown MJ1 when I decide that the Poker II is a dumb idea for a non-ratpoison UI.

It's a very well made, solid and elegant keyboard though — it's just not for me (even if the firmware didn't suck) as I use the mouse extensively just as I use the keyboard extensively. That said, I've not given up on it. Yet.

[webwit]

Filco stabilizer > Cherry stabilizer