"75%" as a term, and usage

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Looking at "official" 75% keyboards, does it seem valid to refer to the Monterey K110/SIIG MiniTouch, and Cherry's basic G84 keyboards (those without a pointing device) as "75%"?

From what I understand, these all closely or exactly fit the 75% design (depending whether a gap between the number row and function key row is permitted: this is present in the MiniTouch but absent in G84 keyboards).

[Nuum]

I think they both can be referred to as 75% keyboards, I don't think the gap between the function key row and the number row is important for the "definition" of 75%. Is there a official definition to be found somewhere?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I am not aware that any of these terms have official definitions — I'm going to recategorise them all as 75% on the wiki. "75%" just seems to be "trendy" name for a very old design principle of having only one column to the right of backspace/enter.

[Muirium]

Exactly. They are just as "75%" as more modern boards. Similar to how the SSK is a TKL, even if no one had ever said the phrase when it was manufactured.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

[wiki]Compact keyboard[/wiki] updated. Got a load of keyboards to reclassify now.

[Hypersphere]

For the ANSI layout, there was this guide to percent form factors:

ANSI-formfactors.png (24.85 KiB) Viewed 4902 times

But I recall that people did not like these classifications. It is like trying to put car sizes into categories such as "full size", "compact", "subcompact", etc.

People get confused. It's like an old episode of the American sitcom, "Frasier", in which the character, Niles, got a loaner car when his Mercedes sedan was in the shop -- he thought it was called a "hunchback". Thus, some cars, like keyboards, defy easy categorization.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

What's interesting is that I also went through the tenkeyless keyboards category on the wiki, and found at least two more keyboards that were in fact 75% keyboards, and they all have exactly the same layout as the K110/MiniTouch, MKB-84/MCK-84, G84-4400 etc: 60% + function key row + dedicated arrows offset into the alphanumeric area (with corresponding smaller right shift) + one column added to the right.

My laptop has smaller keys in the top row, for one extra key. There are variations (e.g. the silly arrow keys on the MiniTouch Plus), but it's a very specific design that's been around for a while now. It's just that we didn't make the connection that these "newfangled" 75% keyboards are the exact same design we've been using for years. "75%" allows us to have a convenient name to describe this particular layout.

There will always be layouts that aren't easily categorised, such as the Mini Tactile Pro and Leopold's equivalent.

60% seemed to be an agreed-upon term, until the Minila, anyway.

80% isn't really needed as we already have TKL for that specific layout.

[Muirium]

Yup. If all layouts were subsets of the standard full sized one that the diagram suggests, this would be a short argument. There is just a handful of permutations of it in the wild.

Wonder who devised that 75% layout first.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

The Cherry ML patent was filed in 1992, but the final action date on the FCC ID for the G84-4100 was 1994.

The K110's FCC ID is from ca. 1991. The Ortek series has an FCC ID of ca. 1990.

Interestingly, the BTC 5100/SIIG MiniTouch Plus doesn't count (I'll fix that tomorrow) — it doesn't have the right-hand column, only the function keys (hence the stupid Apple-style arrow keys), and it's squished further than a 60%. The FCC ID for that one is also ca. 1990.

Those are the well-known implementations of the design — Ortek currently has the lead.

[Findecanor]

What's interesting is that I also went through the tenkeyless keyboards category on the wiki, and found at least two more keyboards that were in fact 75% keyboards ...

Not everyone agrees to the term "tenkeyless keyboard" as being equivalent to "80% keyboard".
The definition of "tenkeyless" is only the lack of the "tenkey" compared to a norm which has it, and the percent moniker is relative to the same norm, so technically 75% keyboards that don't have tenkeys are also tenkeyless even though that term is not that much used to describe 75% keyboards.

I don't think that 75% keyboards need to be under the Tenkeyless category.
I'll add description and links to the Tenkeyless category's description to clear things up for the reader and improve navigation.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ah, so you think 80% is width, not key count. The consensus seemed to be that percentages were key count, but for a 60%, you don't get 60% from any measurement.

Not everyone agrees on everything, but just looking at everything from forum topics to commercial products, tenkleyless/TKL has come to correspond with that depiction of 80%, and it makes sense to leave it like that instead of deliberately making the term more confusing :)

[Daniel Beardsmore]

OK, that's the BTC 5100 pages reverted. For now I'm leaving 75% as being that one specific layout — 60% + 1 row + 1 column. Someone else might consider it to be more flexible, but I'm just going off keyboards actually confirmed as 75%.

[Findecanor]

Ah, so you think 80% is width, not key count. The consensus seemed to be that percentages were key count, but for a 60%, you don't get 60% from any measurement.

A goof of mine, but in the end it is approximately the same. These are monikers, not measurements anyway.

[wcass]

Would you call this a 10% or a 50% keyboard?


How about this one?


To me, size is irrelevant; number of physical keys is most relevant. We all agree that 100% has between 101 and 105 keys and 60% have between 60 and 65. I personally don't understand how someone can add 60 and 21 (number of keys in one row plus one column) and get 75. To me, a true 75% keyboard is a 60% plus one row (15 keys) - or 60% plus 3 columns (15 keys) - or any configuration that consists of 73-78 physical keys.

But that's just me.

[Muirium]

Better in that case just to be precise: a "78 key" rather than 75%. (Or whatever the number is!)

60%'s a great name because we all agree what it means: the alpha block of a standard full size keyboard, and nothing else. The trouble with %s is that they are a one-dimensional description. Everything that isn't a subset of the standard full size cannot be adequately described by such a straight line.

75% makes sense only if we're quite strict about it being the layout group Daniel identified at the top of this thread. Counterintuitively, the number of keys doesn't matter so much as the particular arrangement of them. These names can only ever hope to be shorthand.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

wcass — if you know who invented the terms and what their definition was, be sure to say. As it stands, nobody seems to know where they came from, which is why I made a point of noting that we don't know for certain how they originated or what they mean.

[jacobolus]

It seems to me that "75%" basically just means: most of the keys on a standard keyboard minus the numpad, and with a mostly conventional layout, but with the arrows tucked partially under the main key alpha block, and the rest of the keys scrunched in a bit closer than a “TKL” board.

I would include the Mini Tactile Pro in this category.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I guess so — it's only a couple of keys short, after all. If the wiki pages existed, I'd consider recategorising them ;-P

I have to be careful about working with terms that seemed to come into existence without a definition, but I think Matias qualifies.

[Max]

Hey guys I think that a 75% keyboard is basically just a TKL keyboard but in roughly the same key layout width:height ratio as a 60%/40%.

I propose a set R:C ratio (with some variance) for keyboards to be designated as let's say compact*1 and deserving of a x% classification. The R:C ratio would be determined in how many units*2 across the key*3 row from the first key to the last and the same for vertical keys. So if there is a gap, like in the Monterey K110 between the #-row and F-row, the gap would also be counted.

*1: Or something else?
*2: Letter keys=1u?
*3: I think just the keys because there are some keyboards with bigger cases that are referred to as x%

So in example:

rc ratio comparison indepth-crop.jpg (937.75 KiB) Viewed 4488 times

R:C from the top:

Matias Tactile Mini Pro
3:2.36742

KBT RACE*
3:125

Vortex Poker II
3:1

JD40
3.1

*Noppoo choc mini has same dimensions.
Any thoughts?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

How about the [wiki]Monterey K110[/wiki] with its non-standard function keys, or the [wiki]Ortek compact series[/wiki]?

I presume you'd need to round the ratios to accommodate variations.

It depends how inclusive you want to be — i.e. whether you consider the G84 series, Race, Mini Quiet/Tactile Pro, K110 and the Orteks to be validly classified together. The G84 series is more interesting because they have a 75% layout but a reduced key pitch of ~18 mm.

[Max]

The gap between the F-row on those keys is interesting, and I think the proper way to handle that would to include the measurement of the gap. The Monterey K110 F-keys look like 0.5u height with 0.25u gap. The Ortek keyboard's F-row looks like 1u height and a gap of 0.25u. The K110 would be 16:5.75, and the Ortek would be 16:6.25.

Well what I think would be ideal for the x% keyboards, would be if they were treated like computer monitors I.e., aspect ratio(R:C ratio), and screen size (key layout size, measured diagonally like a monitor).

I get what you're saying about how inclusive the term should be; rounding the ratios would definitely be necessary. If we could decide what is the biggest 75% keyboard as far as size, and then which ones are the tallest/shortest, Then I think the term 75% could be very well defined. Mainly due to 60% being very well defined as is, so for example in the end in my view the Filco Minila would be a 60% keyboard since it matches the R:C ratio and the size, on the other hand the Leopold 660C should fit into the 75% category.

As a note I think the Ortek probably is the tallest "75%", and if the Leopold 660C were to be included as a 75% it should be classified as the widest "75%" (in respect to the ratio).