Tanuki-loving Tanuki Shill

A funny detail about my Sun keyboard, is that despite not using the Unix layout, the Control („Strg“ on the German layout) and Caps Lock key („↓“) are the same size. Making it easy to swap them.

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!

There’s this cryptic option in the Linux Mint keyboard options, called “A user-defined custom Layout”, that’ll just spit out this error when selected.
Does anyone know how to define the user-defined custom layout?

Omg, I just now understood what the ↹ symbol on the Tab key means. The two arrows represent a first and second mapping: if you hit tab by itself, it’ll tab forward ⇥, but if you hit Shift + Tab, it’ll tab backwards ⇤; I always thought both arrows together, represented the concept of tabbing!
I now feel so stupid, for only recently learning about Shift + Tab to move backwards, because this function was marked on the key this entire time.