Oops I did it again (again)

As much as I’ve been loving my MT3-profile, thocky tactile HHKB layout keebs, I wanted to get back to something a bit more stealthy for the office. (It’s nice to have choices!) This is the result:

Tokyo60 keyboard

I picked this up on eBay for about half the normal selling price, it was described as an unused kit (season 4 slate colorway) but it looked like it had been used: The rubber feet were attached, everything was unwrapped, and it came with the acrylic diffuser panel that's an optional add-on. Worse, the PCB was DOA.

The seller credited me $50 back and I used that to get the π60 HSE, which works perfectly with this kit. I built it up using Krytox 205g0 on 43 Studio RX78 stabilizers (lube applied with a Glorious brush), and the Drop DCX white-on-black keycap set (with "Mac kit" modifiers). The switches are Boba U4 65g, which I haven’t used before (I’ve used the 62s and 68s (I think?)), but so far I like them. They are, indeed, essentially silent, no one can hear them on Zoom calls or when I’m on the phone. Like my other Tokyo60s, though, this one will really benefit from either these keyboard feet, this weird but effective little wedge, or maybe ... This Belkin multiport stand/dock? (Seems like it would be useful, but it’s a bit spendy and without a USB-C machine to hook it up to, probably wasted potential.) Update: I’m going to try these, they’re cheap.

One quirk of using this π60 board instead of the Tokyo60 boards I’ve gotten to know is the software. I did not have to flash a VIA firmware, but for whatever reason the VIA app never connected (but now seems to be working fine). However, using the usevia.app site in Chrome did. But for the first time, I had to go into the Layouts pane and tweak settings in order to get access to all the keys:

Screenshot of usevia.app showing layout pane

Meanwhile I’ve tweaked my layout a tad. I mapped ']' in layer 1 to a dead key, as I kept hitting it when I meant to hit '[' in that layer (the up arrow). I also moved the '\' key in layer 1 to be another 'mute' media key, so I can with one hand mute whatever I have playing if I need to (I never use the 'ins' key). The JSON files:

2023.06.16 pi60_hse.layout.json and 2023.06.16 tokyo60_rev_1.layout.json

Alright, I have just enough pieces (Durock Silent Shrimp T1 Switches, Drop + Matt3o /dev/tty R3 MT3 keycaps (including the Apple Kit) that should ship at the end of the month (newest season), another set of 43 Studio RX78 stabs, and a brand new (on sale) season 4 black colorway Tokyo60 kit) to build one more HHKB and then I’m done. Seriously.