This may have been reported here before and is mostly relevant to Germans, but anyhow:

In breathtaking news, the German Standardization Institute is issuing a new version of DIN 2137. DIN 2137 defines how German keyboards should look like, i.e., how the keys should be labeled.

Interestingly, it defines new layers T2 and T3, activated via various combinations of the right ALT key (Alt Gr) with Shift. The T2 layer is designed to encompass all letters of Latin scripts and the language of Vietnam, T3 adds Hebrew, Sanscrit, and Arabic, according to http://www.pentzlin.com/ErweiterungDeutscheTastatur2.pdf. All this in the name of international understanding and cultural respect.

This mostly seems the work of Karl Pentzlin http://www.europatastatur.de/, but builds upon earlier Finnish and Canadian layouts.

The upshot for deskthority are four-color, densely printed key caps:


Perhaps Cherry will actually manufacture such keyboards.

Wow. That is pretty cool. Should have added a layer with arrow keys and such, though.

konz wrote:All this in the name of international understanding and cultural respect.

Jeah thats really the most appropriate reason to change a DIN standardization for keyboard
labels. Pure stupidity

I can somehow see that some people in Germany could use Vietnamese and Arabic letters but Hebrew, Sanscrit ?? Srsly. Even Russian letters would be a bit more useful but still : I don't need letters on my keys that I and the majority will never use!

"International understanding" LOL!


They should standardise all European layouts (row 1 for a start) and swap Z and Y into their proper places!

Spharx wrote:...
I can somehow see that some people in Germany could use Vietnamese and Arabic letters but Hebrew, Sanscrit ?? Srsly. Even Russian letters would be a bit more useful but still : I don't need letters on my keys that I and the majority will never use!

I demand Latin, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, ancient Egyptian, Klingon, APL, and 7bit-ASCII control characters on one and the same keycaps!


Who does the SVG graphics for Round 4?

All your old Cherry key caps are now worthless.

Like you are ever going to see keycaps with those...