What lead to Joe's '122' layout?

[Green Maned Lion]

I don't mean him offering a keyboard with a lot more buttons than a full size. I mean the actual layout of the thing. There are plenty of designs of bigger-than-full-size keyboards that are not derived from the IBM 122 layout, obviously. But I would think if what you are used to and want is an IBM 122, you'd want the IBM 122 layout. If I was going to make an 'enhanced' IBM 122 layout, what I would do is a block of ten to the left of Alpha, a block of 24 above alpha (both exactly like an IBM 122), a block of 3 or 6 above the nav cluster, and a block of 4 or 8 above the numpad, as well as an escape key above the left-block.

But I'd have the block of 10, the the block of 24, the alpha cluster, the nav cluster, and the numpad exactly as it is on a Battleship. I mean seriously, who is going to be ordering a 122 from Joe who isn't already using a 122?

The other question is, I get that Joe finds the cross-nav inferior... but I would think he is in the minority. If you are using the cross nav, you hit the up arrow with your fingertip of the middle finger, and the down arrow with the pommel of the first digit of your middle finger. The T-nav is vastly inferior in this regard.

[Johnbo]

On page 2 or 3 of the main thread for the beamspring project, myself and others gave our input on what we'd like in a 122-ish layout.

I love me a battleship form factor and have many large keyboards. But just cause I daily an F122 doesn't mean I think it's perfect and that I want the exact same layout in a brand new, designed from scratch keyboard. I like that the layout has been modernized but still kept the 120% spirit.

Personally, I can't stand cross nav. Just too much muscle memory for T-nav, so I always remap my cross navs to T-navs.

[Hak Foo]

As someone who built a custom battleship, I think there's merit in matching modern norms.

I built mine with the express intent you could use a cheap and available standard ANSI-104 keycap layout and then just cover the rest with scraps. It also means that the arrow keys and editing block are exactly where I expect them from growing up on 101/104 designs.

I had previously built another battleship (the old GH-122 project) with the function keys in two blocks of 2x6, but went with a more conventional set of three 2x4 blocks, in part because it looked weird having the blocks change colour in the middle with a standard keyset.

Mine also borrows from the GH-122 three keys above the print-screen/scroll-lock/pause block which ended up being used for a layer modifier and to access the calculator-mode functionality I put into the firmware. I didn't have room for extra keys above the numpad because that's where I stuffed the MCU and an OLED, but in practice I probably didn't need more custom binds at that point.

[Ellipse]

The new F122's support cross nav through a full 3x5 section; some folks ordered a cut out case. The barrels and PCB positions are populated so anyone can currently mod their current board, if they can cut their case or use one of the pre-cut cases from the factory.

As I mentioned last year, now is the time to request all sorts of custom layouts to see which ones are most popular. Generally unless you want to spend several thousand dollars on making one keyboard, the minimum order quantity can be as low as 25-50 for a Model F or beam spring design. It's often more cost effective to have a macro pad if the new F122 layout is not sufficient.

Everyone please feel free to check out my April 2025 post for the Google form link if interested and to see more details.

Yes, the thinking was to match current 104 standard layouts which are quite popular, but add additional keys which can be used for media, functions, navigation, macros, etc.