The unix69 keyboard layout: nerdy and nice

[fanf]

https://dotat.at/@/2023-08-04-unix69.html

A proper Unix keyboard layout must have escape next to 1 and control next to A.

Compared to the usual ANSI layout, backquote is displaced from its common position next to 1. But a proper Unix keyboard should cover the entire ASCII repertoire, 94 printing characters on 47 keys, plus space, in the main block of keys.

To make a place for backquote, we can move delete down a row so it is above return, and put backslash and backquote where delete was.

(Aside: the delete key emits the delete character, ASCII 127, and the return key emits the carriage return character, ASCII 13. That is why I don't call them backspace and enter.)

This produces a layout similar to the main key block of Sun Type 3, Happy Hacking, and True Fox keyboard layouts.

Personally, I prefer compact keyboards so I don't have to reach too far for the mouse, but I can't do without arrow keys. So a 65% keyboard size (5 rows, 16 keys wide) is ideal.

If you apply the Unix layout requirements to a typical ANSI 68-key 65% layout, you get a 69-key layout. I call it unix69. (1969 was also the year Unix started.)

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/2848ea7a272aa571d140694ff6bbe04c

I have arranged the bottom row modifiers for Emacs: there are left and right meta keys and a right ctrl key for one-handed navigation. Meta is what the USB HID spec calls the "GUI" key; it sometimes has a diamond icon legend. Like the HHKB, and like Unix workstations made by Apple and Sun, the meta keys are either side of the space bar.

There are left and right fn keys for things that don't have dedicated keys, e.g. fn+arrows for page up/page down, home, end. The rightmost column has user-programmable macro keys, which I use for window management.

unix69 vs ansi 65%

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/6610c45b1c12f962e6cf564dc66f220b

ANSI 65% keyboards have caps lock where control should be.

They have an ugly oversized backslash and lack a good place for backquote.

The right column is usually wasted on fixed-function keys.

It's common for 65% keyboards to have 67 or 68 keys, the missing key making a gap between the modifiers and arrow keys on the bottom row. I prefer to have more rather than fewer modifier keys.

unix69 vs true fox

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/f1742e8e1384449ddbb7635d8c2a91a5

Matteo Spinelli's Whitefox / Nightfox "True Fox" layout has top 2 rows similar to unix69. It sometimes has backslash and backquote swapped.

Unfortunately it has caps lock where control should be. Its right column is wasted on fixed-function keys (though the keyboards are reprogrammable so it's mainly a keycap problem).

On the bottom row, True Fox has two modifers and a gap between space and arrows, whereas unix69 has three modifiers and no gap.

unix69 vs hhkb

http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/c654dc6b4c7e30411cad8626302e309f

The Happy hacking keyboard layout is OK for a 60% Unix layout. However it lacks a left fn key, and lacks space for full-size arrow keys, so I prefer a 65% layout.

unix69 vs keybird69

https://dotat.at/graphics/keybird69.jpg

Owing to the difficulty of getting keycaps with exactly the legends I would like, the meta keys on my keybird69 are labelled super and the delete key is labelled backspace. I used F1 to F4 keycaps for the macro keys, tho they are programmed to generate F13 to F16 which are set up as Hammerspoon hot keys.

But otherwise keybird69 is a proper unix69 keyboard.

Comments

[simont]

I know you said in the previous post that you're not a fan of the UK keyboard layout, but living in the UK and dealing with its money, you must occasionally need to type £ regardless, surely? What's your setup for that, or other non-ASCII code points? I don't see any key here that acts as an AltGr style modifier, or a Compose / Multi_key style prefix.

(With any other class of geek, I'd assume that they had just chosen a key they didn't use much and remapped it in software, as I've done – my "menu key" just to the left of Right Ctrl has been a Compose key for about a decade. But if you're using a keyboard layout you designed yourself, I have to assume that if you had an AltGr or Compose key, you'd have actually labelled it as one!)

[fanf]

I am in Apple land where Alt is actually Option, which corresponds most closely to AltGr I guess. (I don’t remember ever using a system that made a useful distinction between Alt and AltGr, so in my mind they are synonymous even if that isn’t true in the world outside.)

[simont]

Huh, that's a surprise – in my world, merging the two keys is something I've only heard of Americans doing, and they're normally separate!

On what I think of as a "typical" UK keyboard layout, like the Ubuntu machine I'm sitting at right now, AltGr + letter will function as an extra shift key to change what text character is entered, whereas Alt + letter typically invokes some kind of special function not related to entering text at all. For example, AltGr + F is a way to type the đ character, whereas Alt + F will do an application-dependent action such as bringing up the File menu (in the Firefox where I'm typing this, or most other typical GUI apps), or moving forward a word (in Emacs or Readline).

(I say that only Americans merge them, because in my experience it's Americans who send me email complaining that "Right Alt" doesn't do what they expect in PuTTY, by which they mean, invoke non-character-entry special functions just like Left Alt. I assume the default USA keyboard layout doesn't feel the need to have AltGr because their currency symbol managed to get an ASCII code point. I suppose in principle this might also be true of other Anglophone countries who call their currency a dollar, but I haven't had a steady stream of complaints from any others.)

[fanf]

The other important difference is that Apple has a distinct meta key (called command) for things that typically use ctrl or alt on CUA-ish systems, so the distinction is option / command instead of altgr / alt.

I started using a Mac for my input devices long enough ago that unicode had not yet taken over, so I never had a useful altgr key. (For about 20 years I usually double-headed a Mac and a FreeBSD or Linux workstation, using Synergy to share the keyboard and trackball/pad.)

[khrister]

Very interesting.

As a longtime user of Sun Type-6/7 US/UNIX keyboards, I wish I could find a regular sized mechanical keyboard with that layout, minus the 11 extra buttons to the left of a 100% keyboard, or a TKL sized one (an extra numpad isn't hard to find). I play too many games that need a lot of keys to want anything smaller.

I could go your route and build my own, but while it's interesting to peer in at the hobby from the outside, I've never felt that interested in joining in. :)

[fanf]

I found out this week that CannonKeys announced earlier this month that they have some unusually flexible hotswap PCBs that support a Unix layout. This is less hilarious than it might have been, because they don't have a 65% hotswap that would have done a lot of the work for me.

But the Bastion TKL might be something you could drop into a keyboard case of your choosing https://cannonkeys.com/products/bastion-tkl-pcb?variant=41094480953455

Their Brutal V2 1800 is another option (the 1800 layout cuddles the numpad closer to the main key block and smooshes the navigation keys out of the way; it's named after the Cherry G80-1800 keyboard) which supports a Unix layout out of the box with its hotswap PCB, but it retails for $400 which is pretty steep