(Image from Mechanical Keyboards Holland)

I know I haven't blogged in a long time, yet I probably have enough things to talk about that
others might find interesting. Like Rofi search updates, notes.sh rewrite in C++, etc.
I will try to catch-up in the coming months. But for now my latest GmG.

After many years of typing on crappy keyboards and wearing them out in no-time at all, I decided to get a real keyboard again. I used to be a big fan of the old IBM Model-M keyboards and still mourn the day my stash got lost (they where nice ones with detachable cables and all). So I got a mechanical keyboard, the Ducky DK2108 with Blue Switches and the only thing I can say is: I should have done this years ago! The feel is lovely, the sound is heavenly and the overall typing experience is paradise.

However paradise never lasts, I noticed that when typing command lines I often noticed I wound up with this: some command |\ grep <keyword>.

This happens when I press shift \ and release the shift earlier then the \ key (for my feeling I release them at exactly the same time). After some fiddling around, I noticed that it only happens with N-Key Rollover enabled. After firing up xev and taking a closer look this is what I saw:

• KeyPress: Shift

• KeyPress:

  (keycode 51)

• KeyRelease

  (keycode 51)

• KeyRelease Shift
• KeyPress: \ (keycode 51)
• KeyRelease \ (keycode 51)

While I get without NKRO or old keyboard and would expect the following:

• KeyPress: Shift

• KeyPress:

  (keycode 51)

• KeyRelease Shift
• KeyRelease \ (keycode 51)

First thinking my keyboard might be buggy, or there being a problem with NKRO anyway, I decided to try it on a windows box. Here it works as expected………

The whole problem is mostly academic, I really do not need N-Key Rollover, I do not play games, so it is very doubtful I will press more then 6 keys at the time. If (and that is a big if) I would play a game where I have to press more then 6 keys, I can enable NKRO without issues given it only goes wrong with the \. I would be very pleased if I could fix the issue, so if anybody has a clue on how to do this? Please let me know.

While typing this I got an E-mail from MKH with a firmware update (but no guarantees that it fixes it). So far the service of the shop has been very good, they where quick with sending the keyboard, it was well packaged (the original box in a 2nd box with wrapping) and there support response time is impressing (even in the weekend).