deskthority

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.

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.