Acer 6311 Clicky kebard teardown and cleaning up

Cleaning a dirty clicky keyboard is a lot of work.  It pays to take lots of photos of the keyboard before tearing it down, so you can remember where the keys go.

The best way to remove the keys is to lever them from opposite sides at the same time.  Start with the letters and numbers, leave the bigger keys till last.

Notice that the bigger keys have metal retainers that have to be carefully removed from the plastic.  The space bar also has a weak spring.

Also, be careful with scrubbing the keys in solvents or harsh detergents, the keyboard labels may wash off.

Putting it back together is twice as fun, hook the keyboard up and run a program like notepad to see if the right key is in the right spot.

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How to make a DIY Dvorak keyboard

Ever since learning that the QWERTY layout was invented by some clown to stop mega fast typing, I have been angered by said layout.

The Dvorak layout was invented to lessen typing fatigue as it is optimised for the English language.  

I decided to hack a USB QWERTY keyboard and make it Dvorak, it's easy!

First get a USB keyboard, you may want to try a used cheap one to practice on.

Then using a screwdriver, lever out all the letter keys, and some of the symbol keys as shown in the picture.

Next, plug in the naked keyboard and change the keyboard layout in your operating system to Dvorak.  For Ubuntu it is in system>preferences>keyboard.

I used a pencil to press each key switch to verify which letter went where.  This was easier than transposing the layout from a picture.

All done and ready to go.

Typing the first sentence too like 10 minutes, it felt so different.

Typing in the Dvorak layout is a bit different, all the keys for most words feel closer together, i.e the fingers don't have to travel as far to write most words.  This means more efficient typing in the long run.

 
I may try the One Handed Dvorak layout next, optimised for eating a sandwich while typing.