After buying an Apple Extended Keyboard II on ebay, I decided to make myself a copy of the keycaps as a layout for a WASD keyboard. The make custom Cherry MX compatible key caps for $50/set (87/88/104/105 key sets are available.) They also build a pretty solid mechanical keyboard. I ordered a 104 key Cherry MX Green keyboard last week, I'm typing with it now.

Read more at AEKII Wiki

My keyboard layout is geared towards Emacs use, and the fn key is labelled as Hyper. The Caps Lock is noticably absent, in it's place is another Control key. I've also created a couple of Karabiner hacks TODO, I need to add them to this document for future reference.

The colored key caps in the WASD were added as an experiment to see if I can use them to aid my touch typing. I'm generally around 30wpm at the moment, and I'd like to improve significantly. Having the rainbow of keys on my home row, "should" allow me to orient myself quickly if my hands stray. (My most common typing failure is to g/h or y/t instead of the other, similar mishaps occur with c/v and i/u.) - TODO I'll try to add an a note on the effect of this. Note this keyboard is for use in my office, I use the Apple Extended II at home, however, I really like the feel of the Cherry MX Green switches. (I have yet to remove a couple of damps from the AEKII which might even out the feel a bit.) The AEKII is an excellent keyboard too, and at 20 or so years old, it's in fantastic shape.

After a little research I found out that the older Apple Keyboards use the Universe 57 Oblique font (although it's a slightly modified version than the one which can be purchased from Linotype.)

These keyboard glyphs are different to those the stock font:

@ # $ &  _ - = + / | \

The _ - = + / | \ are significantly larger and feature regular orientation (they're not oblique.)

The letter spacing / kerning is tighter than standard, I've tried to reproduce this modification faithfully to the original.

I hand edited the $ # _ - = + / | \ glyphs on my layout. I didn't tackle the @ & glyphs although I'd like to, especially if I have another machine or key set made up.

There is rounding on these glyphs:

2 3 6 9 S s G g J j C c

I didn't implement that on my layout design, it will require editing the font. I may well attempt this, hopefully this could be done with Robofont.

The layout took a little over 4 hours to put complete.

After ordering/uploading WASD turned it around and shipped it to Singapore (from CA USA) in about a week. The results are impressive.

Look Ma'! No Caps Lock.

Creative Commons by-nc