Maybe my title wasn't the best, but I'm wondering if such a thing exists as this: a keyboard which uses shallow scissor-based keys, as on the current Apple keyboards, but with clicky, tactile metallic switch keys such as the Cherry MX Blues, with a shallow concave surface (pardon my lack of knowledge regarding the exact term for that concave thing).

I'm very much new to this, Mr N00B here

Flat keys with the feel and click of the Blues? I don't think so, the scissor-switch is too limited.

There's no good flat mechanical design. Perhaps if someone combined a plate spring with a scissor-switch instead of a spring. Isn't going to happen.

So you want 1 mm before actuation/click and then linear to the bottom? Why? Scissor switches and Cherry switches both have about 2 mm of travel to actuation, only that with Cherry switches you have travel after actuation while with scissor switches you have none.

Or is it mostly the click sound that you are after? That can be done in software.
There are mechanical low-profile keyboards inside some vintage calculators, with very low travel, that sound "click" when you press a key, but they are not very comfortable to use.

The lowest profile, full-travel, clicky switch is the NMB "Space Invader".
I prefer Cherry MX Clear, myself. It feels almost like a rubber dome to the actuation point, but pressing below that the resistance increases sharply cushioning my key stroke. I think that perhaps it would be possible to build a switch that feels much like a Cherry MX Clear from a rubber dome and a shorter spring in parallel and that such a design could have lower profile than Cherry MX.

I think that scissors are nice mostly in that the keys are quite stable, but there is very little room for any mechanics inside the switch. Most scissor switches have very small rubber domes. There are a few designs for scissor switch keys on top of a screen - as part of Art Lebedev's Optimus Popularis and Razer's Star Wars The Old Republic keyboard -- a design inspired by these could perhaps add some more space.

Findecanor wrote:So you want 1 mm before actuation/click and then linear to the bottom? Why? Scissor switches and Cherry switches both have about 2 mm of travel to actuation, only that with Cherry switches you have travel after actuation while with scissor switches you have none.

Or is it mostly the click sound that you are after? That can be done in software.
There are mechanical low-profile keyboards inside some vintage calculators, with very low travel, that sound "click" when you press a key, but they are not very comfortable to use.

The lowest profile, full-travel, clicky switch is the NMB "Space Invader".
I prefer Cherry MX Clear, myself. It feels almost like a rubber dome to the actuation point, but pressing below that the resistance increases sharply cushioning my key stroke. I think that perhaps it would be possible to build a switch that feels much like a Cherry MX Clear from a rubber dome and a shorter spring in parallel and that such a design could have lower profile than Cherry MX.

I think that scissors are nice mostly in that the keys are quite stable, but there is very little room for any mechanics inside the switch. Most scissor switches have very small rubber domes. There are a few designs for scissor switch keys on top of a screen - as part of Art Lebedev's Optimus Popularis and Razer's Star Wars The Old Republic keyboard -- a design inspired by these could perhaps add some more space.

Gosh, that Star Wars KB is a ghastly mess! Is that a toy? $249?! They'd have to pay ME to take it off their hands.