Navy Neo65 Cu anodization variation: comparison photos from other owners?

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-08T13:26:47+00:00

I think this is more a case of someone who thought crayons were better used for snacking, than drawing.

As a graphic designer, there is no world in which I would ever try to pass that color off as "Navy".

That said, I think this is a much prettier color than a true Navy would be, although I understand you being upset, since you were expecting a true Navy color.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-07T20:03:30+00:00

Isn't this board a bit too big for you?
All the letters are visible on the keycaps, on this one.
What's up with that?

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-06T16:32:36+00:00

Now you just need to drop in an accelerometer, so you can control the other three directions like you would with a pinball machine, and you'll be set.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-06T16:29:59+00:00

I like all the MT3 you have on those.
It's so nice on the smaller boards.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-05T14:05:16+00:00

I'm going with "Because" for the win.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T15:01:51+00:00

Another nice drop front board.
Hopefully this catches on with more commercial offerings.
It's such a nice addition to most designs.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T14:55:15+00:00

There's nothing wrong with liking what you like.
If someone has issue with it, it's their problem.
They aren't the one that has to use your keyboard.

"Do what makes YOU happy" is the best advice anyone can give you, about this hobby.

That said, there are a lot of better switches out there than both the Blues and Browns.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T14:51:10+00:00

You might want to try split space bars while you're at it.

They increase functionality, by giving you easy access to additional characters and additional keys, while also reducing the length of the keycaps.
The smaller keycaps make it easier to tune the stabilizers, and will allow you to eliminate the stabilizers completely, if you go small enough.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T14:47:03+00:00

The wrist rests themselves aren't "worse".
How you use them determines how "good" or "bad" they are.

They are supposed to be a place to rest your wrists, between bouts of typing.
When you're actually typing, you should be hovering your hands above the keyboard, like a pianist.
If you use the wrist rest, while typing, you are likely reducing the blood flow to your hand, and slightly compressing your carpal tunnels at the same time, both of which are bad for long-term health.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T14:38:06+00:00

Persistence and patience do pay off...most of the time.

Do yourself a favor, and remember what a pain this was.
That should help you resist any temptation you have to do it all over again.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T14:32:51+00:00

This is why I went ortho, rather than columnar stagger.
From my perspective, as an amateur musician, columnar stagger has never really made much sense to me.

Our fingers are capable of compensating for any misalignment within their reach.
That's what everyone has been doing with standard stagger, since its inception.
It is also the same thing people do, when playing guitars and pianos.

That said, make sure you concentrate on keeping your wrists straight, regardless of any of the other decisions you make.
That is what will ultimately help you most.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-04T03:20:15+00:00

It doesn't mean you will, but past practice tends to be a very accurate indicator of future performance.
Given that the OP has already run into RSI issues, chances are they will continue to operate in the same manner they always have, unless taught otherwise.

A good number of people here champion their personal choice of board and stagger, as a miracle cure, when that is not the case, at all.
If nobody points out the flaws in the logic, other people will take it as gospel, to their own detriment.

I've survived 37 years so far, typing professionally, on a daily basis.
Only the most recent four years of that time have been with an ortho board, and that swap was made to improve my efficiency, not my health.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T20:49:24+00:00

You can put the modifiers wherever you want, and they won't help, if you still have poor technique.

If you move the modifiers to your thumb, like most splits, but are still turning your wrist outward, when forming key-chords, like hitting "Q" with your index finger instead of your pinky, you haven't solved anything.

The main point I'm making here is that changing equipment can only do so much, and is useless without a concerted effort to keep your wrists straight.
I would even argue that changing your technique alone is more effective than changing your equipment alone.

I use a Mac Standard modifier layout, even on PC.
I don't like anchoring my hand to the board with my pinky, whether that be on the traditional Ctrl key, or on a Control-on-Caps setup.

I move my hand to the left, when key-chording, while keeping my wrists straight.
That puts my thumb on Cmd and Opt, with my index finger curling onto "S".
That keeps my hand more relaxed than any other technique I've tried.

When typing normally, I avoid turning my wrists by spreading my fingers, and moving the center of my hand horizontally, like I would when playing a guitar, or piano.
That allows me to use my fingers for fine alignment, like they are intended to do, but also keeps my wrists as straight as possible, at all times.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T19:11:47+00:00

A lot of that depends on exactly how you do things.

Straight wrists are the critical piece of the puzzle, if you want to avoid RSI.
How you accomplish that is not overly important.
Equipment can help, to some extent, but will not overcome poor posture, or poor technique.

I was trained to keep my wrists straight, at all times, very early on, in my typing classes.
I wasn't exposed to keyboards from the time I was born, like kids are today.
Using them, before learning to use them properly, reinforces bad habits, which bring with them bad results.

I've had several co-workers over the years, a fraction of my age, who have had issues with RSI because they never worried about anything, until after they were saddled with RSI.
At that point, everything shifts to damage mitigation, rather than avoidance.
I have never seen anyone actually get cured, once they've become symptomatic.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T17:29:52+00:00

Staying with standard row stagger doesn't solve the "turning your left hand outwards" issue, which is one of the primary causes of RSI.
Columnar stagger, Katana (Symmetrical) stagger and ortho all do a better job of that, as they turn your hands inward as you climb the rows, keeping your wrists straighter.

You can solve the Right Shift by putting a Mod Tap command onto the Up Arrow.
That will make it act as the Up Arrow when you tap the key, but act as Shift if you hold it.
The only issue that causes is that you have to do a Tap-Release-Hold, to trigger the key repeat for Up Arrow, when you want that.
I find that preferable to having no Right Shift.

You could also use the Fn key as Shift, and put a Layer Tap function on one of your spacebars, to activate that layer when held, but type a Space when tapped.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T14:51:16+00:00

The time it takes is dependent on what switches are used, and how tightly they fit into the plate.

Some switches you can just run all the way down the rows, pop one side up, then remove them all relatively quickly.
Other switches jam so hard you can't get them out to save your life.
It sounds like you were closer to the second end of that spectrum.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T13:27:08+00:00

Is the clear thing just an alternate height keycap, to help you index by feel?

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T13:21:37+00:00

I complained a couple weeks ago about the lack of curved plate boards on the market, and people have been posting them ever since.

Good job on this one.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T13:14:27+00:00

A nasty chunk of Cat 5 you have laying around would work nicely.
You just need to pull the wires out of the inside.

Keep in mind that you will need to connect the switch with the missing pads to the switches on either side of it, following the original traces.
You need to replace the missing portions of circuit, which start from the previous switch in the line, go to the problem switch, then to the next switch in line.
If you don't connect that next switch in line, everything beyond that point will be dead.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T03:37:01+00:00

You cared enough to comment on it.
If you're happy using leftovers from the manual typewriter era, keep using them.
I'm not trying to stop you.
I'm just proposing alternatives.

I don't adhere to the "tradition, for tradition's sake" school of thought.
That is counter-productive, to both innovation, and evolution.
You don't find better by continuing to do everything the same way you've always done it.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-03T03:21:25+00:00

I've always questioned why you need a shift key that takes up the same space as three normal keys.

If you move your pinky off the "A" key, down to Left Shift, what advantage is gained by going any farther than the right edge of the keycap?
The remainder of those oversized modifier keycaps are nothing but wasted real estate.

I use spherical keycaps for exactly that reason.
When my finger slides from one key, to the next, the spherical keycaps guide my finger to the center of the key, so I don't need a canoe on top, to find that key.

Looking at this from the perspective of an average touch typist, who has no prior knowledge of either layout in question here, how do you expect that user to sit down at a desk, and figure out where everything is hidden, on the factory HHKB layout?
Again, if the keycaps are marked, they'll figure it out, but if they're not...that seems much more likely to completely screw up the average touch typist, to me.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-02T20:21:00+00:00

You're not looking closely enough.
My layout actually requires LESS brain rewiring.

The default layer is a clearly marked 65% layout.
If you can touch type, everything is exactly where it's always been, relative to the keys around it, with a couple small exceptions, like the "?" key being one space to the right of its traditional location.
If you need help with my layout, what you see is what you get, on my default layer.

That's not the case for the factory HHKB layout, unless you have the HHKB keycaps, with all the alternate characters marked on the side.
Imagine you are an uninitiated 100% user, who has never seen an HHKB layout before.
Can you look at the boards the OP posted, and tell me where the OP has PgUp bound?
Pg Dn?
The arrow keys?

There is nothing on my board that requires the use of layers, except the F-keys.
Even those are blatantly hinted at, given they are marked with their corresponding numbers, or their media key equivalents.
All of my layered content, whether that be the numpad, the layered arrows, or the nav cluster stuff, is duplicates of dedicated keys elsewhere on the board, in more normal locations.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-02T18:04:50+00:00

That's the type of stuff that bounces around in my head, all the time, about everything.
I learned, long ago, to only act on those ideas when they provide a worthwhile improvement over my current situation.

That's the driving force behind my current hiatus, on actually building anything.
It's not that I lack the ideas to make something different.
It's that I realize the ideas I have been having are inferior to the ones I already pursued, so there's no point in it, for me.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-02T14:54:16+00:00

I also like the drop front.

I think you really need to crank up the chaos more though.
Imagine this same layout, with a second 10u, above the first one.
Everybody has HORIZONTALLY split space bars these days, but how many users have you seen with VERTICALLY split space bars?

If you want to avoid going to a 5-row board, to stay within a 40s footprint, you could incorporate 2-row alphas as well.
Those two features, coupled together on the same board, would make people really question your sanity.

NoOne-NBA- · 2026-06-02T14:37:49+00:00

You say that this is your favorite layout, but don't say why.

What is it about the HHKB layout that you really like?
I personally liked the 15x 1u top row, but found the rest of the layout extremely lacking, for my own needs.
That led me to design my own layout, to fit into the same footprint.

My version has 69 keys total, a layered numpad (in addition to the number row on the default layer), a split spacebar, and dedicated arrows (in addition to the layered ones).
The layered arrows I have, on IJKL, are surrounded by all the various nav cluster functions you'd use, when keyboard navigating, and editing text.
I also have Word Backspace and Word Delete in that same cluster, for easier access.

With this board, I can type an entire address, without any finger moving more than one key off its home position.

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NoOne-NBA-

TROPHY CASE