Typing
Oh yes, I love it, you love it, we all do it, I have been a strong believer in that the things we use every day should be the ones you spend time learning about or looking into quality examples of. The modern world has us typing every day to some degree or another and so it only makes sense that you and I would have different and strong opinions about the tools we use to do said aforementioned typing. Out of all the computer related rabbit holes one can get sucked into, the tool you use to interact with your computer in the first place, the keyboard, seems like the most obvious one for the normal “I don’t care about computers I just use one” crowd to get at least semi interested in.
10 years ago that may have been a hot take but apparently there are now a billion + 1 options out there not only for layouts, which were always a hot topic, but also swiches, companies, builders, kits……. this is actually insane looking into this now in 2026 after not reading a single thing about keyboards since 2017 or so.
The last time I thought about mechanical keyboards it was when there were literally only Cherry MX options, those being
- Blues: loud as with a tactile bump part way through
- Browns: the classic amongst people at the time, tactile bump but not too loud
- Reds: smooth and way to easy to press more than you intended
- Blacks: these came around like a year into this, reds but less likely to keep pressing random buttons.
Aside from these there was the HHKB with Topre switches but I knew no one with one of these through school. There was also a green colored switch made by Razer which, I mean who knows, but it existed. There were also buclking spring keyboards which are essentially modern rebuilds of keyboards of yester-decade which I’m sure are sick as but I’ve never typed on one, at least in a circumstance in which I took notice.
Modern Times
Holy fuck! I think the patient expired like right as I bought my Acco keyboard which I’ve just had for years and never though about since. But now there are so so many options of companies that all work with similar keycap attachments but have changed the springs, attachments, weights, sounds, lubes if any, and so on such that there is no longer a fixed color scheme to decide which of the 4 options you like.
Okay, honestly this is pretty cool. More options the merrier and honestly it seemed weird to me how small the market was beforehand with just the Cherry switch options. Another strange trend was ‘browns’ were the defacto “oh you’re actually typing” switch but that seems to have changed to linear style switches. See my post from what I think was 2018 where I mentioned preferring linear switches for typing as early as 2014…. suck it nerds.
Price
Back in the day any and all of these were expensive. I’m not complaining, as I said before, I think if there are places to spend money it’s in the things you interact with daily. But, that all also has to do with what you can afford and what you deem as an important part of your day. If you just type begrudgingly because you have to, don’t bother. But I find that, at least on some occasions, I do actually enjoy using my computer and that mainly takes place through the keyboard, and if this is true for you too then you should keep reading.
Recently though because I’ve been just rocking the modern GNU/Thinkpad keyboard for a number of years now as we’ve been sailing. I’ve become, let’s say, reinterested I guess in the whole keyboard thing as our new yacht is so much more inviting to have actual personal hobby related tools stored aboard. That’s half the reason I was movtivated enough to jump in and totally rebuild the sailing blog site.
So where does one end up? YouTube of course. Okay the first thing I notice here is these videos are so aesthetically interesting to look at it appears these reviewers don’t type too well? What is that? There are these noice lookin’, lovely soundin’ videos of hands typin’ away on some fancy ass, you’re never going to own this, keyboard but they’re using like 3 fingers per hand typing some jibberish?! What this makes me think of is that there are now so many options you can be into keyboards separately than you can be into typing.
Believe it or not, these two things used to be related, keyboards and typing and the interest en los dos.
Metal
I think this almost deserves it’s entire own section as this was almost not a thing at all when I was initially interested in this. Metal cased keyboards now are available for under $100usd at the beginning of 2026, which is, entirely insane. Back when I bought my Akko it was a grand ole deal mainly because the case was made, in plastic, such that it flex as little as the super premium and hard to even find to spend your money on, aluminum cases were doing at the time. All that being said, it seems there are deep, padded, foam filled fancy switched keyboards you can buy now, with full metal cases, for under like 70$….
It’s never been so easy to buy 2 or 3 keyboards instead of doing heaps of research and ending up with just one you’re extremely happy with.
All That Being Said
I think it’s time I return to using mine, the trusty ole Akko 3068 I think it’s called. I’ve had this a number of years now but for the last few it’s been dust collecting. I think, because it’s a little bit more novel than typing just on the ole laptop board, that I’ll use it more often if I have it around and it’ll in turn make me write for the sailing blog more often. What’s not to like?
I am now though, of course, re-curious maybe is the phrase, about the HHKB keyboard. Thankfully, all that I’ve said above about everything just expanding massively means there are now mechanical cheap keyboards with the HHKB layout, wireless support? Hot swappable switches where you can try a billion and 1 options of quieter deep thocky sounding linears all available for like 15$ per 100 count?
Might have to give that a whirl….
Thanks eBay.
Options/Quality/Customization
I can’t believe how different the experience of finding, buying, and now using this Epomaker Hack59 is in comparison to the last time I made a keyboard related purchase about 8 or 9 years ago.
First of all, the fact there are other brands making the HHKB layout is pretty wild as that points to there being enough options out there for all sizes and layouts that they’ve even made it to making these.
Second, once I discovered that there are now other brands making this layout, some of them weren’t 300+ dollars! There has been a huge shift in price, or maybe it’s that there are enough brands that there are just more options at the lower prices.
Third, I was able to find this available right away?! Back in the day the only readily available keyboards were the gaming ones from Razr and Corsair and the like. In comparison, I was able to find out about this, find that it was available right now on their site for immediate shipping, and then even find a used one on eBay for 30 something dollars?!
Fourth, now that I have it in hand, it’s clear that the previously common modifications people made became mainstream enough to be built into the boards now. The features this 30 something dollar board has is something that previously would’ve been all custom afterwards. There are different layers of foam in the case, the keycaps come pre-lubed and holy moly you can tell! It has wireless and Bluetooth built in, that’s just awesome. I might actually use this now. And the sound is what was previously obtainable only through fancy cases and GMK keycaps.
This board has hot swappable keys, this is entirely new since I last looked at keyboards. Gone are the days of soldering all the keys on and having to spend days planning and executing a keyboard build. Cases now are even available which are like magnet held together so there are no screws anywhere. There are a lot more keycaps available but hunting on eBay before hand did yield similar results in knock off keycaps. That being said a lot of the cheap ones are double-shot PBT ones which before they were like just pressed water bottle tops with printing on them.
I got a hold now of my previous daily driver, the Akko mentioned above, and it feels cheap and tinny compared to this chonk thock master of a board.
Changing the keycaps was a classically pretty annoying process but dang these 14$ keycaps feel noice! They’re way way more solid than anything I’ve ever used before that wasn’t at that meet up I went to in Seattle back in the day. The printing and everything looks really nice and the texture they have is satisfying to type on which is a good thing of course. They even came in a box organized and everything! The sets I used to buy came just wrapped in a huge pile in random plastic packing tape essentially.
Of course because I bought a standard and cheap set there isn’t technically support for the funky HHKB layout. This isn’t too big of an issue. I wish the blue space bar was the right length and I could replace the two ALT keys that came on the board but they’re like a 0.3u longer so I’m sticking with them for now. Though, in conjunction with the rest of the darker and blue accent keys I think it looks pretty nice. These are generally a pretty plain but professional looking typeface and everything so overall the board doesn’t look to “gamerie” which I can’t stand.
Conclusion
After about a week on this board I really like it. I don’t think I’ll be using my old board anymore as it seems scratchy and no fun to type on. This board is so nice especially as I’ve gone more and more keyboard centric on the way I use my computer. I do wish this had a trackpoint though that’d just be so cool.
I do think though that these switches are a little light on the touch though. I’d be cool to find some equally lubed and smooth switches but with almost double the actuation force. Because this is hot swappable maybe I’ll seek something out and give it a go! That is the point here after all.