F104+SSK+122+62+77+50+Ergo orders now open! New Kishsaver+Industrial Model F Keyboards

[Ellipse]

The latest batch of new variation keyboards:

Here's an imgur album of all the variations so far - it will be updated with new variations as they are photographed:
https://imgur.com/a/gw8FOl0

Both blue variants (plus the classic case limited editions True Red and Silver Gray) are still available to order but I only have a few left.

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[consolation]

starting to regret not going for an F77 in red.... that looks awesome.

[robo]

Couple pages late here, but yeah, users burning out circuits doing mods they don't really understand, and paying the correct and legal customs fees, are not things the seller should be responsible for.

Oh yeah, and the red case looks amazing... I was skeptical from the early photos but that looks awesome.

[Zed]

My F77 arrived recently and everything from the packaging to the build quality to the switches are all first rate. The key feel is absolutely wonderful and makes my Unicomp feel like walking through deep snow compared to gliding on ice with the Model F. Reading force curve graphs and user descriptions of the differences between M and F switches doesn't prepare one for how elegant and sublime the capacitive buckling spring experience really is and I have little doubt that the Ellipse version is at least the equal of the originals.

I do have one stubborn switch which refuses to trigger reliably despite numerous cap re-seats. It will click properly on some presses but then feel like the flipper gets stuck in the down position on others. I did watch your video on cap installation and have been keeping the board vertical BTW. Figuring that I may have to crack the plates open, I opened up the case and found that the plates were not assembled properly or had moved during shipping. The corner with the bending tab which locks the plates together was not as compressed as the rest of the assembly and the tab was missing paint in several places as if pliers were used to bend it without protection for the finish. I was able to squeeze and re-bend the tab to get things where they should be but have not gone back in to fix the errant switch or to double check that my fix is still in place.

Currently running Unicomp caps so no pictures for now. As several others have discussed, I also replaced the cable with a right angle jumper.

Although it's been said before, I'll say it one more time. Bravo Ellipse! You have successfully delivered the most (?) ambitious project the keyboard community has yet seen. Congratulations sir!

[Ellipse]

Glad your keyboard arrived Zed! Sorry I did not catch the inner assembly error. And thank you for the kind words.

Yes you are right that there will be issues if the inner assembly tabs are not in contact with each other. The below image shows an incorrect assembly with a gap between the tabs. I've had plates slide apart when the locking tab of the top inner assembly was not in the correct position.

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[Scarpia]

I moved between ordering and it getting built, address change was one email to Ellipse.

So did I. One PM.

[Mattr567]

I have caps on the way to complete my F77, but I am still having trouble sourcing a new solenoid driver PCB. Orihalcon has not gotten back to me in over a week.

I'll buy one off someone if they have an extra

[Ellipse]

We passed the 100 keyboard mark!

107 keyboards will have shipped, as of this Monday.

Below are some more photos of unique variations. The JIS set below is Unicomp's set - this keyboard shows off the medium space bar option not available as a factory option (I don't have any pearl shorter space bars but included a full size pearl space bar for this keyboard just in case). The final two photos are an F77 keyboard customized by a customer who permitted me to post them.

I have to redo one aspect of the dye sub setup after inconsistencies in the most recent round of testing (some decent, sharp results and some poor results with nearly identical settings). I will post more updates when I have them as always but we are still a month or two away from the majority of these keyboards being ready to go out.

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[Ellipse]

Some additional troubleshooting fixes for xwhatsit-related issues - these steps have fixed the xwhatsit issues I've faced with F62 and F77 keyboards, outside of a damaged controller.

For most F62's I recommend debounce 6 firmware, threshold set to manual and a value between 122-126. Anything lower is unnecessary for F62/F77 and will cause issues (lower threshold is required for some IBM F107's and maybe F122's if I recall correctly). If you go too low and did not click store to eeprom, need to restart your computer and it should go back to your last stored value. If you go too low and saved to eeprom, need to start your computer with keyboard unplugged, short PROG on the xwhatsit controller and keeping it shorted (can use a screwdriver or paper clip to short the two pads of prog), then connect it to USB, wait 1-2 seconds MAXIMUM, then remove the shorting of prog. will cause error device descriptor failed if you hold it shorted too long.

If you hold down a key and the gray square flickers in xwhatsit, need to change the threshold higher or lower (always click store to EEPROM after changing the threshold). If no combination between 120-126 works reliably without flicker, may need to flash debounce 11 firmware with other settings the same. Be sure to set the column skips 9-15 for F62 and 11-15 for F77 and click store to EEPROM before anything else.

[andrea-i]

Ellipse, what's the current status on placing new orders and shipping to Europe?

[Ellipse]

Orders are still accepted and yes I ship to Europe.

[andrea-i]

Awesome!! and what's the approximate timeframe at this point for shipping an F77 without keycaps? 8 )
(holding wallet tight while I head over to the newmodelf website...)

[Ellipse]

1-2 weeks for ordering a keyboard (without keycaps) and a first aid kit (optional but recommended)

[andrea-i]

thank you Ellipse! as in, thank you for making this whole thing real : )

[daijoubu]

Typing on the F62 is really addictive. It just feels so smooth, but in a chattery way. Like it's the most eager keyboard that wants to bring you on a typing adventure. I still cannot type on it as fast as my Topre FC660C, but the satisfaction of typing on it is better IMO.

What I'd love right now is more keycap options eventually, and perhaps a nice carrying case for it.

Also, it would be great to have a num key pad developed separately. My current one is a MX Red switch keypad, and the feel disparity is so large every time I use it it weirds me out momentarily.

[consensual-penis]

hey Ellipse, do we have a time frame for the low serial numbers with dyesubbed caps?

[Ellipse]

Great - glad you are liking the F62! I think typing speed should increase a bit after you've been using the new Model F for a while. I've seen people type 120+ WPM on the new Model F keyboards - far faster than my own speed!

How fast can everyone type on their new or original Model F?

Yes on the time frame - I have posted an update on the blog regarding the timeline if anyone's interested.

Excerpt copied below:
I am getting many emails from eager Model F fans who have been patient with all the past factory delays – unfortunately I cannot estimate when everyone’s keyboard will ship!

As soon as it does ship, you will get a tracking confirmation email – check your junk folder daily as there have been some email deliverability issues in recent months.

Still need a couple months before printed keyboards start shipping as I am still working on the dye sublimation.

[Sp33ls]

.... but we are still a month or two away from the majority of these keyboards being ready to go out.

Jc, is that including most low serial / unprinted key sets?

[segacontroller]

My camera is bad, so I will spare you pictures. There are enough very nice pictures already.

F62 normal black case with standard ANSI layout and black unprinted keys arrived Friday.

**Test/Turn Up**

I did not have to reseat any keys. All keypresses were normal straight out of the box. US to US shipping during a warm week and had in box at room temperature for hours before opening, so I can not comment on other user's issues.

Once connected to PC, USB was recognized, but no inputs. As posted above, this was due to manual threshold setting. The threshold was set to 646, and no keys were recognized. Lowering the threshold to 126 resolved any input issues.

**Comparisons to Original**

I have an original December 1985 Model F 4704 50 key that has been completely unmodded and unchanged (waiting on this to actualize before moving forward with restoration and USB), and the F62 appears to be simply a new model of that. I am not sure if I have much to add beyond that in regards to matching the original. Its just the same thing, but brand new. The case shape, weight, keys, keypresses, etc.

**Review of Board**

It is simply an IBM Model F 4704. I am not sure if my review holds much weight here, other than I have one and it matches the original.

[Ellipse]

Thanks segacontroller; it's great that you didn't have to do too much to get the keyboard up and running. Hopefully this will be the most likely scenario for everyone as my QC testing improves.

[darkcruix]

@Ellipse,
I guess you can't share, but I thought I give it a shot. Can you post some pictures of the Dye Sub failures that didn't go through your QA? I'd love to see those as well. Just too curious on things currently happening

[tentator]

Also the sentence were you say "So you couldn't use space for Fn" does not sound reassuring..

How about "So, now those are fixed", 5 lines down the page?

Hi DMA,"
you basically said you have fixed it but I downloaded again latest trunk that included the sentence "so, now those are fixed" but even if testing it many times it really does not seem to work.

Maybe you can see what is wrong:

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First I tried to define two macros about key 'A' (one for press and one for release) so that it actually would press and release key 'C' and this seems to work (a part from some minor bug in the GUI visualization right after you define the macro, the drop downs next to the close button seem to display info of the other macro). Just to confirm that I correctly define and save the macros, they stay persistent also after unplugging usb.

Then finally I defined the "tap" macro about key 'A' so that it actually would "Type" key 'B' but this seems not to work at all.

Actually while debugging it with the Aqua test I saw that for some strange reason also the F7 key gets pressed for a fraction of a second.. not sure if this could give you some hint about what's happening, but definitely it does not seem to me that the "tap" macro works..

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This now is just an illustrative test but I tried several others as well.. including trying to implement the famous "space-fn" without results..

I do believe that you can reproduce the same behaviour on your side: do you see something that could explain this?

Thanks in advance,
tent:wq

[DMA]

I do believe that you can reproduce the same behaviour on your side: do you see something that could explain this?

Thanks in advance,
tent:wq

Unclear what you downloaded. Did you go to repo, clicked "download", copied config.h to the new location and built? If not - all bets are off. "Latest firmware, latest utility" is the name of the game.

We are hijacking the topic, but I never promised 4 keys for a price of one.
Let's not go all theoretical tho and get down to practice.

Space, which doubles as Fn on a long press (..come on, how would you do right alignment if you can't just hold the space bar until autorepeat kicks in? But I digress.)

There is no "Long press" macro, because it's unnatural. I'm not going to judge people for how long they keep their keys down.
There is a "tap" macro tho. Not the most natural of things, but it's there.

So your base (the one in layout) key is Fn (no "Long press", remember?), and your "tap macro" is "type Space".
I _strongly_ recommend defining Fn keys on base layer and keeping that position in ALL other layers "transparent"/"none" or the same Fn. Transparent is better - less chance to screw up.

I tested that and it works. I'm not rich enough for a beamspring - so it's tested on a Topre I found in a garbage bin.

If anybody wonders - what happens under the hood is when you press and release base key within "tap delay" (specified in Delays) AND NO OTHER KEYS GO UP OR DOWN WITHIN THAT INTERVAL - it eats base keypress AND release, and enqueues tap macro content instead.
"Enqueues" means exactly that. The macro commands are placed into USB output event queue with future timestamps.
If you specify a 60-second delay, you can continue typing* - but one minute later something will happen in parallel to what you were doing at that time.
Not sure what will happen if you tap several times - it's a 256(?)-event circular buffer, so you firmware shouldn't crash but there will be Fun, guaranteed.

*) I hope I ignore those generated events for macro triggers, but I honestly don't remember.

[tentator]

Unclear what you downloaded. Did you go to repo, clicked "download", copied config.h to the new location and built? If not - all bets are off. "Latest firmware, latest utility" is the name of the game.

well yes I even created a new dir, cloned with git, and edited config.h so that it has correct switch, rows and cols indeed.
I'm using the d:\...\CommonSense-GIT-LAST\CommonSense\8x24.cydsn\ subproject to be precise.

Space, which doubles as Fn on a long press (..come on, how would you do right alignment if you can't just hold the space bar until autorepeat kicks in? But I digress.)

usually this is done with tapping the space two times in a row, that will make autorepeat the space.. but yeah, I could live without it probably

There is no "Long press" macro, because it's unnatural. I'm not going to judge people for how long they keep their keys down.
There is a "tap" macro tho. Not the most natural of things, but it's there.

So your base (the one in layout) key is Fn (no "Long press", remember?), and your "tap macro" is "type Space".
I _strongly_ recommend defining Fn keys on base layer and keeping that position in ALL other layers "transparent"/"none" or the same Fn. Transparent is better - less chance to screw up.

Ok doing exactly that but it still does not work: basically what happens is that the tap macro seems to never be called.. I also tried to set the tap delay to 250ms but still it never triggers.

This is current situation:

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[DMA]

It is not a sound approach to _test_ things on a speed you can't see when you have alternatives.
There is a reason new planes taxi first, then speed-taxi, then make a single loop over the field with wheels down, and not go for a ceiling-AND-speed-record run straight off the slipway.

So, for tests:
* Delays: ALL delays 500ms at least, 1000 recommended.
* Make sure your autorepeat delay is longer than any of the delays configured - or run Aqua Key Test in foreground.
* Fn keys enabled on base layer.
* ALL higher layers are EMPTY ("-----"), with an exception of a single matrix position which has "A" on base layer, "B" on Layer 2 and so on.
* The USB device is handled by the host, not forwarded to some virtual machine. We are not debugging VirtualBox USB forwarding here.

Generally:
* event delay 20ms at least - at zero milliseconds updates will go out in adjacent USB packets, 1ms apart. May work, may not, who knows.
* tap delay of less than 300ms is unrealistic: keys have inertia, hands have inertia, brains.. well..
I can press same model F key twice in 15 milliseconds, but that doesn't mean I can do that when actually typing, never mind doing that trick with space bar - the heaviest key with a heaviest stabilizer on the keyboard.

..as for "GUI visualization bug".. best I could come up with. That's macros' madness shining through. Things like "there is no keyboard at firmware level, it's all host with multiple keyboards connected to it."

[webwit]

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more later...

[nickg]

Ugh these look SO awesome! I cant wait for mine to get here!

[Wazrach]

Black ISO F77 when?

[kmnov2017]

f1.jpg

f2.jpg

more later...

How many are those? 10?

[tentator]

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* Delays: ALL delays 500ms at least, 1000 recommended.

Done, but still no tap gets activated

* Make sure your autorepeat delay is longer than any of the delays configured - or run Aqua Key Test in foreground.

you mean autorepeat defined in my os?

* Fn keys enabled on base layer.

Not sure what you mean.. but is what you saw in my previous post's screenshot ok?

* The USB device is handled by the host, not forwarded to some virtual machine. We are not debugging VirtualBox USB forwarding here.

It's a non emulated windoze, no vm..

Generally:
* event delay 20ms at least - at zero milliseconds updates will go out in adjacent USB packets, 1ms apart. May work, may not, who knows.
* tap delay of less than 300ms is unrealistic: keys have inertia, hands have inertia, brains.. well..

Both changed.. no improvement..

..as for "GUI visualization bug"..

Yeah that's a minor thing, when you enter the macro window i just select first the -new- on the dropdown, then the macro i want to see/edit and i see again the correct values.