Designing algorithms that play well in a SMP environment under heavy loads is not easy. It isn't just a matter of locking within the protocol stack... contention between cpus can get completely out of control even from small 6-instruction locking windows. And it isn't just the TCP stack which needs be contention-free. The *entire* packet path from the hardware all the way through to the system calls made by userland have to be contention-free. Plus the scheduler has to be able to optimize the data flow to reduce unnecessary cache mastership changes.

It's fun, but so many kernel subsystems are involved that it takes a very long time to get it right. And there are only a handful of kernel programmers in the entire world capable of doing it.

-Matt

Utter crap. Codenomicon are very friendly to FLOSS and FLOSS developers. They're also great guys. They have been providing free test services to the Samba project for many years now, and have helped us fix many many bugs.

In case you hadn't noticed, the code they're reporting on here is closed source proprietary code...

Ooh. We'll have a look. Thanks!

Hi @dotdancohen, We're using Matias Quiet Click switches. We're definitely aware that different folks have different preferences and assuming we can make the numbers and logistics go, we hope to offer several other Matias Alps options including their louder variant.

The ÂTron isn't for sale. (Nor is the Fingerworks or any of the other weirder stuff.)

I'd love to hear/read more about the leather keycaps.

And yep, I've actually been documenting my prototypes on GH :)

Yep. It's not for everybody. This is the first thing we're making. If it goes well enough, we'll definitely be looking at a 'traditional' layout option.

Bamboo is certainly on the list of wood-like things we're considering.

We're not planning to make them PS/2 compatible out of the box, but we'd love firmware patches. (and or design help) to make them so. If you can do it with an Arduino Leonardo, you'll be able to do it with one of our Keyboards

Shenzhen was amazing. I need to spend more time there. But we need to get a little bit further with product design before I have a legitimate reason to go back.

We're planning to launch a crowdfunding campaign this fall. But we'd rather delay the campaign than launch something that we're not confident we can deliver and be proud of.

Initially, we intend to ship fully assembled & working keyboards. We believe pretty strongly that open hardware shouldn't require users to pick up a soldering iron. But we know that some folks _want_ a kit and we hope to get there eventually. If you're looking for something sort of like a Keyboardio keyboard in kit form, check out the ErgoDox on Massdrop: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/ergodox. (They require login before you can see things. It's unfortunate.)

There are definitely many awful MicroUSB ports out there, but there are also high-quality MicroUSB ports out there. The price difference between a cheap MicroUSB port and a high-end one is several orders of magnitude. As _specced_ they're supposed to be rated for more insertion cycles than MiniUSB.

We haven't made final component choices yet and this is something we're keenly aware of (and have debated internally). I'd be pissed if my keyboard's USB port failed. I'd be even more pissed if my customers' USB ports failed.

There are a few such sites, but http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/ is probably the most amazing of em.

That's correct. If you pop open a Maltron, there's a gorgeous web of fine copper wire. :)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/eichin/8413586842 is a photo my friend Mark took of my Maltron and Kinesis with the bottoms off.

The durability we're looking for is somewhere between aluminum and balsa.

For the contours we're going for, the mechanical engineers and product folks we've been working with have assured us that we couldn't get away with stamping. It's pretty much die casting or milling. The numbers we've been getting for die-cast tooling just don't work out for the scale of production run we're expecting. I'd love to be wrong about all this.

The interior "key plate" and the bottom plate of the enclosure will, of course, be stamped aluminum.

Black anodized isn't the look we're going for but yes, there are a number of things we could to to differentiate it while sticking with the aluminum.

I probably wouldn't call it 'silly', though I have no problem with you doing so. I agree 100% that this is a niche product. I made one because I wanted one. We wouldn't be having a go of making a full production run if people didn't keep trying to buy our personal test units.

If you catch me calling it revolutionary, please make fun of me.