I’ve never taken apart a Topre board, but looking at this video video, I’d say it was doable. Fiddly, maybe, but then again, so is opening up every switch on an MX board, too. Take your time, be gentle, pay close attention to what you’re doing… You’re probably going to be fine.

For QMK, my go-to hrm-embetterment came from Achordion. Not sure if that helps OP, but it made hrm amazing for me, and it does the sort of timing tweaks that might help here.

Otherwise, the HOLD_ON_OTHER_KEY_PRESS mode might help.

Before opening up or resoldering any switches, I’d short the two pins with something (tweasers or similar) to confirm or rule out the switch itself as the cause.

They don’t, officially, as far as I know it’s always been an “at your own risk, might get your account banned” endeavor.

No, problem not solved, problem half-heartedly worked around. People dislike Discord for several reasons, bridging it to whatever different platform will at best be a bandaid.

That looks great! How do you like the melodics?

It absolutely is. Yet, as Sean said, it’s also yet another bit of software to run and maintain, and ES is known to be a bit of an effort to keep going well.

Admins having only finite amounts of time and/or resources, might make the very understandable decision to leave it out.

Just looking at it makes me wonder why you’d consider the thumb placement that strange (although all hands are different and all that). What was off about it for you?

I’m actually still on my first ergo, a Lily58 (my first mechanical was a “regular” 75%). I was a bit on the fence between this and the Corne, and I think I would’ve been fine going with the Corne; I barely used the numrow and currently it’s not even mapped, and I’m experimenting with putting the things I had left on the outer columns on layers or combos.

But regret… no, of course not. It’s been a great learning experience so far!

I’ll certainly build more boards at some point, at least a Corne because, well, gotta build a Corne, but maybe some other things as well. Maybe a Charybdis or a Cygnus or something like that.

Muscle memory needs some time, especially for symbol stuff. Don’t hesitate to tweak your mappings, I’ve made some changes at some point which made things a whole lot more workable. I started with Miryoku which was completely unsuitable for the PHP work I was doing back then, to mention something, and moving the number cluster to the right hand rather than left did miracles for my day to day work as well.

I code with it, yeah. Just have those symbols wherever you want them (I never used those inner upper keys either, except for things that I don’t mind lifting my hand for). Layers layers layers. Also home row mods.

For my next board, I’m probably going with a 6×3+3, I don’t use the number row either. Keypad on a layer under the right hand is so much nicer…

Eh, the split part is easy, it’s the lack of row stagger that’s going to trip you up for at least a couple of days.

You do get used to it, though, and after that a “normal” keyboard will feel as weird as it actually is, when you think about it.

ascetics

I think you mean “aesthetics”, an ascetic is something quite different. 😛

Why not make a “game” layer that doesn’t get in your game-playing way, and have mod-taps on the rest? (as far as they don’t interfere with the chords, of course)

Sure! I have several:

• the kit for the Lily is from 42 Keebs
• the caps are the Monster clone from Ali
• the case is based on the Lunar58 but with bolt eyes (or whatever they’re called) tacked on (I’ll ask the guy who did that for me if he plans on opening up the files)
• printed with Devil Design Copper filament

I have two control keys! They’re under D and K, through the miracle of mod-tap. Look into home row mods, it’s a game changer. Here’s my keymap for reference — it’s a bit of a work in progress, I keep finding little things to tweak or improve.

As it stands, the two outer thumbs (App/Alt) aren’t even mapped at the moment, they’re too tucky for my hands, and the outer row on the left isn’t exactly what the cap legends say, either.

They’re more ergo than a regular keyboard, I think, so personally I’m fine with it.

What are we looking at? Do share some specs!

Kbin can do Microblogs, but I’m not sure what you mean with “alternative to chronological feed”?

Oh, that is glorious.

If there’s a next time, I’ll use two MCUs and a TRRS like a normal weirdo.

Go RJ45 or go home! ;) With a Japanese duplex matrix you should have plenty of wires to have that layout working, I think. And if you go with two MCUs it’s even less of an issue.

Fun writeup, and you ended up with a functioning keyboard as a bonus! How’s the double row of thumb keys working out for you? Or do you only use your thumbs for the lower two and index/middle for the other ones, or…? I’ve never tried a board with two rows of thumb keys and somehow I don’t see myself liking them, but I see them around enough to give me FOMO.