deskthority

I am currently typing on a squishy non mechanical keyboard. Its quite horrid, and I want to upgrade to mechanical, but I am completely attached to the ALT key on this thing.

It is one of those keyboards where the bottom row goes:
Ctrl, Fn, Win, Alt, Space, etc.

I do a lot of gaming, and I find the placement of the Alt key to be very useful. With my hand in WASD placement, I am easily able to operate either the Alt key or the Space bar with my left thumb.

I have looked forever trying to find a mechanical keyboard with similar key placement. The only one I have ever seen is this one:


I think is a Das Keyboard 3 Model S Professional.




Unfortunately, they have moved on to the next generaton of keyboards, and the Alt placement is no longer the same - the closest I can find is this:

http://www.amazon.com/Das-Keyboard-Prof ... s+keyboard


As you can see from the picture, they shrunk the Fn and Win keys, so the Alt key is no longer as far to the right as I would prefer.



Do any of you know of any full sized, quality mechanical keyboards that have the alt key shifted far to the right like the keyboard in the first picture has?
Is there any customizable keyboard that could give me my beloved Alt key placement back?

Thanks

JIS layout keyboards generally have a spacebar that terminates near the V key, but the spacebar itself is also tiny, like so:



Though I'm not familiar with mechanical keyboards with this layout, especially not ones available in North America. Topre probably definitely still makes them, but they'll still be way overpriced, and it's anyone's guess if you can get them outside of Japan. You might be able to find something on eBay.

Phantom with 7bit layout?

I ended up getting the current version of the Das Keyboard Professional, which was the 2nd pic.

I think it should be good enough, and I found it for a reasonable price - $120 + tax and free shipping

Doubt I'll be able to find a replacement spacebar, but other than that it should be pretty sweet...

http://matias.ca/ergopro/pc/