Tanuki-loving Tanuki Shill

It’s a Foucs 2000 Plus! It uses white Alps switches and comes with a rather odd layout (both these factors are why I bought it). Something you might immediately notice, is the so called “Big Ass Enter” key (so called by enthusiast)

Something seen on almost all Focus boards (as far as I know). Most BAE layouts split the backspace key, to make room for the displaced \ (or # on the German layout) key. Focus instead splits the right Shift key, letting it keep the Backspace key at its regular size.

The other odd thing about this layout, is its arrow keys. They’re arranged in the same pattern as the numpad, with five extra keys. The diagonal keys each act like pressing both given arrow keys together; so ⬁ is ⇦ + ⇧ &c. If you press one, the given horizontal key will “get stuck”; not physically stuck, but it’ll keep outputting, until the arrow key is pressed again. I’ve seen a YouTube review of other Focus keyboards, and they seem to have the same issue— though, if they all act like this, maybe it’s a feature?
The purpose of the Turbo key is to set the repeat rate of the keys. To do so, you hold it and press one of the Function keys; I don’t notice a difference between the settings.
Another oddity of the layout is the second * key. This is a duplicate of the same key on the numpad— why? I’d love to know. Maybe * was used a lot in DOS, which is why they included a second one? I’d love to know what the reasoning was there.
Other things of note: it uses a full sized left Shift (German layouts usually use a short left Shift). My theory is, that they just use one case and plate design for all boards, and just printed different keycaps for different languages; this is supported by it using English labels for the lock lights.

Since the left Shift isn’t split, the < key is place between the Control and Alternate key. I dunno how easy you can see it on the image, but the 3 key has a cursive n in the lower right, not a superscript 3 (maybe something from a different German layout?).

The switches feel alright. They ping slightly when pressed, but not as bad as the Model M. They sound a bit harsh, I like the sound, but it’s not my favorite. They feel kinda stiff, like buckling springs, and get a little tiring to type on sometimes. Pretty decent all around.

To make this guy work on my PC, I have to plug it’s DIN plug into a DIN to PS/2 converter, and that into my PS/2 to USB converter. Make sure you set it to use the AT protocol, there’s a AT/XT switch under the logo plate above the Escape key. Plugging it into my PC while set to XT made my PC kinda freeze, with not even another keyboard making the PC react. So, word of advice: don’t do that.

I also took off the BAE, since I was interested what stabilizers it uses. Terrible idea; do not do this. The BAE uses these flimsy, awful, small pieces of plastic that connect to the small wires, and connected it back on was super annoying. But I did learn something interesting, the stabs for the upper part use Cherry MX holes. Makes me wonder, there are adapters from Alps to MX, if I could use one of those, to connect the BAE to a regular mechanical keyboard.

This is actually not the most interesting board Focus made. They also had boards with programmable macro keys, and build in calculators, some of which even let you send the things you’ve calculated to your PC!

Overall, a weird but decent board. I thought the BAE would be nice to use, but I honestly prefer the ISO enter key. Though I’m quite happy that I got to try Alps switches!

Does anyone know of a good 1080p PC monitor, with little or no backlight bleed? I’m currently using a cheap Acer one, and it has both bad backlight bleed, and recently developed a dead pixel. My GPU has booth HDMI and Displayport ports.

Today I build my first keyboard kit, a Freebird TKL keyboard. It came with a aluminum switch plate and a hotswap PCB. Assembly was fairly straight forward. I did use a few YouTube videos as reference, for things I couldn’t figure out by myself—like the stabilizers—, but other than that, it was actually real easy to put together.

I went with the so called “Tsangan” layout, where there the Control and Alternate key are lengthened, and the Super key is shortened, the Space bar is also longer, and there is one less key on the right side. I additionally shortened the right Shift key, since I never like how it looked on ISO keyboards, and how—as seen here—another key can easily be fit beside it. I mapped the extra key to be the < key, a second Alt Gr key put in its place. Strangely, this keycap set didn’t come with any Alt Gr keys; so of the three Alternate keys you see, only one is actually a Alternate key.

The Freebird also features another F key, the “F13” key (here on my layout given a key with the Sillycon Graphics logo), which can be mapped to whatever the user desires.
I mapped it to be the right Super key, which in my OS is set to show a Workspace overview when pressed, additionally if pressed with shift held down, it shows a overview of all the currently open windows, on the current workspace.

Ten key less? More like one key more, am I right?

Sound wise, I’m not sure how I like it yet. I went with Kailh Box White V2 clicky switches. They keyboard sounds a bit hollow, and the clicks of the switches are loud, but also pretty high pitched. I’ll have to spent some time with the board, before I can say if I like the sound, or if some more dampening is required.

One odd issue I have, is with the stabilizers for the Enter, Backspace and Space key. Even though I—to my knowledge—installed them perfectly, the keys sound oddly rattely. Either I made a mistake, or I need to put lube on them. I’ll try to reinstall them, to see if that helps.
I also plan on getting a different keycap set for the board; mainly because of the above mentioned issue with the Alt keys, though I’m also bothered with how out of place the < key looks. I’m thinking of getting one from Monacokeys, a German brand, their sets even come with < keys in the accent color.

An odd part of the case design, is this little goose that’s engraved inside the case. Now, I love the goose; what I find odd, is how it’s on the inside of the case, you know, the part you never see; why isn’t it somewhere on the outside? Weird.

Freebird? More like, Imprisonedbird

Other than that I’m pretty happy with the board, and I love the layout :3. Just gotta sort out the sound.