Those who dip into the completely unnecessary but brutally delightful world of mechanical keyboards get used to a lot of arcane terminology. There’s TKL, which stands for tenkeyless—and doesn’t really explain anything.
And you have to pick your Cherries, unless you use their newer, often Chinese derivatives. Or maybe you go with a buckling spring. But there’s another type of mechanical keyboard switch talked about at the periphery of the market: the Topre switch.
Hard to obtain and utilized only by a few brands, it’s talked about more than it’s used.
like typing on clay
Those who’ve used one profess that the experience of typing on it is unlike typing on any other keyboard.
Whereas the various kinds of Cherry MX keys, the type dominant when enthusiasts powered the resurgence of mechanical keyboards in the 2000s, are punchy and direct, and buckling springs are firm and forceful, the Topre key is said to be soft and, almost paradoxically, mushy and springy at different points during the key’s motion of travel.
The cutaway image above explains how the Topre switch operates. The rubber dome compressing during the key’s downward travel gives it that typing-on-clay feeling, and the spring gives it the snappiness that propels the key back upward after the key stroke has been registered.
Realforce, the keyboard brand owned by the company that produces Topre keys, was for a long time the only keyboard brand that used Topre keys. They’re since allowed Happy Hacking Keyboard, a major name in mechanical keyboards, to produce Topre keyboards.
Leopold was using them on some models for a while, too, although they appear to have stopped.
MechanicalKeyboards.com has been in the game for a while now. I’ve bought from them, and while they’re not a household name outside of mechanical keyboard circles, they’re solid.
That’s the primary source for Realforce keyboards in the US. They have an Amazon storefront, as well.
Realforce keyboards have, for a long while, seemed to arrive in the US in batches. It’s not uncommon to wait a while for stock to replenish. And they’re not made in large numbers, either.
If you score yourself a Topre, prepare to catch a lot of oohs and ahhs from folks who see it. Well, computer enthusiasts, at least. We’re talking about a niche within a niche here, after all.
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