I’d love to see some macropad users play with Svalboard. If you want to order one, I’ll sell you a half for half price 😆 but obviously I’d prefer to build you a full rig 😜

I can guarantee you that Svalboard will last as long as you want to type, with anything that breaks also being easily replaceable. The lack of springs and electromechanical contacts is incredible for long term reliability – my Datahand rigs are 20+ years old and all still basically work perfectly aside from one which I stupidly broke some keys on during travel, and some grunginess in one or two mechanisms probably due to dirt intrusion.

But with Svalboard the keys just drop right in and pull right out (in the right orientation), there’s no mechanism to assemble – so cleaning is as easy as popping the key out and blowing out the keywell with compressed air. And you can replace individual key clusters and PCBAs individually if needed. And print your own keys, etc. Suuuuuper maintainable. 😀 Tearing down an original Datahand for cleaning is a lot more involved and annoying, and can only be done to a limited extent.

Cool! Join the discord and ping @_claussen I’ll keep you posted on the kit situation. Waiting on a new finger cluster PCBA rev to improve some assembly yield issues from the factory.

Thanks, and fingers crossed! I’m trying out some SLA prototyping houses to see how modest volume runs could go, but of course that will take some time to sample and sort out all the kinks when handing off fab & assembly of the mechanicals to someone other than myself.

working on that, if you have a MK3S or equivalent printer. where are you located?

We have a longtime DH user on the Discord who spent the past year on charachorder. He’s giving it up – reliability is awful with their poorly thought out hardware, the sticks fail super fast – I think he went through like half a dozen units in a year :wide-eyes:

He liked it otherwise, but found the speed promises didn’t really hold true, especially as a SWE. DH/Svalboard/lal typing is truly superb.

what kind of controller are you used to? NES original, or? :D

If you don’t have RSI or fatigue issues, then yeah, QWERTY’s fine. I’ve been using QWERTY on Datahand for years. But the increase in comfort going to Dvorak/Colemak is huge, reducing the frequency of the worst movements. Dvorak basically fixed my dad’s RSI issues and he made the change at like age 65!

When traditional methods literally cripple you… yeah. This isn’t a hobby thing, it’s more like a survival tool/prosthesis – RSI is way more prevalent than a lot of folks realize, and for people who make a living typing, it’s worth a lot of adaptation. I wish nobody needed my weird keyboards, but damn there are a lot of us RSI cripples out here! The weird-keeb enthusiasts are just a niche submarket in that context. :)