Mechanical Keyboards Revisited

It's been over 7 years that I last wrote about keyboards.

There have been a few changes, some only recently.

The Logitech G710+ MX Brown is still my daily driver on my main gaming PC. If you mash some buttons very hard, the key caps come off, but I usually don't do that, so it still works. Because I am quite so acquainted with the G buttons on the left and I couldn't find another G710+ I bought a new Alienware Advanced Gaming Keyboard AW568 for 60 EUR on eBay around Christmas 2023, just as a backup. A first quick test did not really work out in being able to use the extra buttons.

The Noppoo Choc Mid 87 MX Black has continued to be my main work keyboard until September 2024, but then I got a Mac and Noppoo keyboards don't really play nice with Macs. It's a bit weird and apparently has to do with their NKRO implementation, there used to be an unofficial OSX driver. I had found this out in 2012 already when I got the Choc Mini.

I've been mostly working from home since March 2020, but I got a Cherry MX Board 3.0 (MX Red) basically for free in summer of 2023, and I have that stashed away at the office since then, in order to have a proper keyboard when I am there.

That was also pretty good as a replacement for the Noppoo while I decided how to continue. Originally I wanted something with a custom firmware and was pointed in the direction of either Keychron, Monsgeek, or a Neo80/Evo80. A combination of: Not in stock, too expensive, not the right switches, or ugly then made me go back to some plan a while ago where I wanted to try a Ducky, so I bought one in late October 2024. I had thought about getting the yellow one but in the end I settled for the "Origin Vintage" but I'll see if I will slap some colored keycaps on it, but it was only 100 EUR and not 140 and I wasn't sure if the novelty of the yellow one would wear off. I had used the Noppoo for 11 years after all (but with 3 different keycap sets). The Cherry moved to the office again soon after that.

The last keyboard I hadn't mentioned was the Kickstarter version of the Atreus, which I backed in March 2020 and that was delivered around September. I paid 99 USD. On the one hand I'd been curious about the form factor and on the other hand I'd been working with technomancy (its designer) on Leiningen for a couple of years already, so I knew about his self-built versions and kits, so when there was a non-wood assembled version it was kind of a nobrainer to get one. I've played around with it from time to time but I've not really tried to make the switch full time. I suppose that would be extra hard as I use my qwertz one at night after work. Now that I think about it I am not even sure which switches it has.

I had written a draft of this post about exactly one year ago and in the meantime (July 2025) there was an odd sale of a "Ducky One 2 SF MX Brown RGB LED" for 23 EUR, so of course I could not resist.

Anyway, so the total tally of mechanical keyboards is now 9. Two in daily use at home, one several times per month in the office. One simply as a backup, one or two sadly in a state of "would use again if I had another linux laptop for work", one because of the price, and two I purely for fun. Not a terrible mix, but I guess I should stop again for a while. 2012, 2013, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2023, 2023, 2024, 2025. Four in 7 years, then five in another 7 years, so I guess I can't have more than 6 more by 2033?