[codethief]

I've never expressed this wish anywhere before and I'm pretty sure it will never happen[0] but, anyway, here it goes: Can laptop manufacturers please standardize their laptop<>keyboard hardware interface, so that we can finally have custom laptop keyboards? (Think ErgoDox for ThinkPads.) Actually, I'd already be happy if only Lenovo did that with their ThinkPads…

[0] Especially not given the current trend for laptops to become thinner and thinner.

[godot]

Good idea but agreed that it would never happen given the trends.

What I'm really disappointed by is laptop manufactures pretty much only go two routes now on laptop keyboard layouts: 1. The one with numpad on wider laptops like this one, 2. The compact one with smaller arrow keys and no nav keys (Home/End/Pgup/Pgdown) in a reasonable place. (typically hidden behind Fn+arrows)

I used to have this old laptop, Dell Latitude E6410, that had pretty much the perfect laptop keyboard for me to write code with. It looks like this [1]. I use Home/End keys extensively while coding and it's part of muscle memory to reach for them directly vertically above arrow keys. This is the only laptop with a keyboard layout like this that I know of. (the full size arrow keys also help)

1: https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*pDN_eHnop3QdkRbjkxRSFQ.jp...

[twicetwice]

I also use Home/End a lot while writing code, and interestingly (at least to me!) I've become totally accustomed to using the Fn+arrows. It's like having to hit Shift to type curly braces and other common symbols—it became completely automatic and subconscious after a while.

[TomMarius]

HP nw8240 had a similar layout, nw9440 had the full size

[quicklime]

Now that laptop tech is well established and single board computers (like the raspberry pi) are common, I wonder if there time is right for someone to create a laptop standard similar to what ATX was for desktops.

It would be great to have a standard chassis that could hold an upgradeable pi-like board and a custom keyboard.

[jaykru]

https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform MNT Reform is a step in that direction (+ open hardware!) The CPU and RAM are on an easily replaced SO-DIMM, so you could have a variety of system configurations use the same laptop-peripheral-complex.

[yellowapple]

My hope is that something to that effect comes about with the growing use of SO-DIMM-like form factors for SBCs (e.g. RPi Compute Module, SOPINE, etc.). Unfortunately nobody seems to be cooperating on a standard pinout yet, but if we can get to the point where they're interchangeable that'd be a boon for all sorts of things (be it popping a module or two into a laptop or popping dozens of 'em into a server).

[rowanG077]

This is the reason I use the surface pro. I carry around 60% keyboard with so I have a great keyboard experience whereever I go.