My Goldilocks keyboard, is 30 to 32 keys just right?

A month ago I wrote about my Bivvy16D and Bivouac34 keyboard designs, and since then have built both and been using them - taped to a cardboad frame to make sure I'm comfortable with the angles before making a case. My new Goldilocks32 design aims to take the best of both - the 30 to 32-key layout, better roll-over, and a navigation button from the Bivvy16D, and the gold-fingers and ribbon cable from the Bivouac34. And I'm trying tighter 16mm y-spacing too, only a subtle change but welcome all the same.

 

Goldilocks32 PCB rendered in purple-and-white

Naginata Style (薙刀式) Update

Back in August 2025, I wrote up an explanation of the kana-based Naginata Style keyboard layout for typing Japanese. Lately I have started doing touch typing practise with this, and have just updated to Naginata Style v17 from Jan 2026. Time for a brief review, including how I've tweaked it for slightly smaller keyboards.

Two tiny 10x10cm PCBs for keyboards

Did you know that the price of fabricating a PCB jumps at the magic threshold of a ten centimetres square? That seems to be especially true in the USA where hobbyists only use local firms for tiny prototypes, and otherwise import from China etc. You can currently get a set of five PCBs shipped from JLCPLC for only USD $5. As long as you're happy with tiny keyboards, that's incredibly cheap!

Bivvy16D (in red) and Bivouac34 (in green) PCBs

So, I ordered two designs in January - the Bivvy16D is a split keyboard with 15 or 16 keys and a 5-way navigation button on each half (so 30 to 32 normal keys in total), while the Bivouac34 is a monobody keyboard with a left and right PCB joined with a ribbon cable using "gold finger" edge connectors (with 32 to 34 keys in total). I want to make a tented keyboard with this.

Small girth 8 graphs for keyboard wiring

This post is a less interesting follow up to my recent catalogue of girth 6 graphs for keyboard wiring, which give 4-key roll over (4KRO). As explained in my first keyboard and Graph Theory blog post, the idea here is applying these graphs to the design of diode-free computer keyboards where the bipartite matrix becomes a sparse scanning matrix. Using a graph with girth 8 gives 6-key rollover (6KRO), high enough not to be a practical limitation, unless perhaps for stenography? Sadly from a mathematical point of view these are mostly subgraphs of the Tutte Coxetter Graph (aka the Tutte 8 Cage), the unique smallest trivalent graph of girth 8.

5-way switch in a diode-free Graph Theory keyboard

My first post about keyboards introduced the idea of Graph Theory applied to keyboard wiring. I have since used the girth 8 Tutte-Coxeter Graph to build a 6KRO keyboard (the Gamma Omega TC36K), and several girth 6 graphs to build 4KRO keyboards (see table of girth 6 graphs for keyboards in this recent post). But what about other kinds of switches like 3-way jog dials (up/down/push) or 5-way directional buttons (up/down/left/right/push)?