Here's one I bet you've never seen before.


I added 4 additional active keys to a standard 84 key US Model M mini. Ignore the odd key labels for a second, this is a Bernie Madoff Special that came from a brokerage house so it's loaded with oddities. Someone reminded me in a post that there are extra pads that are unused in your standard US keyboard. Specifically, on a full size keyboard there is one next to Keypad Enter and the four black keys shown here in the pic.

The scancodes I get from AutoHotkey are:

Key Next to Backspace - FF 07D "F14"
Key Next to Enter - DC 02B "\" - duplicate of key above
Key Next to RSHIFT - C1 073 "Not Found"
Key Next to LSHIFT - E2 056 "\"

Aquatest gives me the same values but doesn't recognize the key it should trigger (If I played around with the Int'l layout settings it probably would).

The point is I can pick up 3 new distinct keys and remap them to whatever I want.

To do this you have to do the nut/bolt mod here. (The parts list for the mini is further in the discussion section.)

Had to dig up some ivory paint this time to cover the bolt heads.


Then it's a matter of stuffing some extra springs/hammers into the new keys you want. Once again, my Poor Boscom to the rescue.


You can see in the pic the white spacers that I pulled above the 4 keys you can add. Next to the spacebar is and open well that is used as a stabilizer but there is no pad under to access. Unfortunate - it woulda been great to create an Asian style keyboard as well. I stole some random keys to go next to the black ones from some of my terminal Model Ms.

So....if you don't like your IBM's layout here's one way to further tailor it. Don't like ISO? - pull the Enter key, swap the springs/hammers, and plug in a big L style key.

I think that these "extra" pads on the membrane are IBM's answer to the whole ANSI/ISO headache. Greenock could stuff European layouts and Lexington could stuff US layouts with common parts and then just add the appropriate keycaps.

This particular keyboard I have all the bolts installed on but am testing with just 9 nuts installed (all you really need to hold together the board but a bit pingy). It will be easy for me to add/change keys as I wish. I'll probably go back to a standard US ENTER key since the extra key next to it is just a duplicate of the "\". I'm testing the left shift now - I'm not really having any problem with a smaller one. I NEVER use right shift so that's an extra key in a pretty accessible place. Jury is out on smaller backspace.

I'll update as I play with this further.

Attached Images

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Created by ripster, 05 September 2009 at 17:19 Last edited by ripster, 05 September 2009 at 17:34 Last comment by microsoft windows on 30 November 2010 at 02:00 33 Comments, 5,976 Views (protected)