 Today I want to share with you a really interesting keyboard that hasn't been on the market for very long, but I was sent one to test out and I've been pretty impressed with it. This keyboard is called the ADM 42. It's this really interesting Batman kind of logo, right? It's a really interesting shape to a keyboard and it's actually quite a small form factor. It's more like a 40% keyboard. There's not a lot of keys on this thing, although it does have some extra thumb keys for you. So it's really designed for better efficiency as far as typing because you get better thumb usage because your thumbs actually have more to do on a keyboard like this with the thumb row down there. One interesting thing about the ADM 42 is the fact that it uses low profile keys. You can get it with standard key switches or you can get these low profile Gateron switches and I've been playing around with this thing for a couple of weeks and I've got to say I'm pretty impressed. I did want to share with you guys some of the specs on this really interesting keyboard. The case for the ADM 42 is black aluminum and it's black anodized aluminum. It's actually quite lightweight. The total weight for this thing is only eight ounces. Again, it's a small form factor keyboard, more like a 40% keyboard. If I get out one of my ZSA keyboards, such as the Plank here, if I compare the Plank, which is a 40% keyboard to the ADM 42, you can see they're very similar in size. Of course, the Plank is square where the ADM 42 obviously has some jagged edges because it shaped like a bat. You can see how both of them compare to a Samsung Galaxy cell phones. They're really not much bigger than your standard smartphones. The ADM 42 does come with a tool. This tool has two different ends. This end here, this is used to remove the keycaps if you want to change the caps and then the grabby end with the prongs there you can use to actually change the switches out if you prefer to switch out the Gatoran switches with something else. One thing to be aware of with the ADM 42, at least when it was shipped to me, it was shipped with a USB cord, a USB to USB-C cord to connect the keyboard to your computer. This cord is only about four foot long, so that could be a limitation depending on how far away your tower is that you're connecting to your keyboard, assuming you're using this at a desk. Now, because of the small form factor for this keyboard, probably a lot of people are going to use it in conjunction with connecting it to a laptop. Or for me, I could actually see myself connecting this to my cell phone when I actually need to type something like an actual letter or link the email on a cell phone. You don't want to do that on the standard on-screen keyboard on the cell phone. Why not just connect the ADM 42? As far as the RGB lighting effects, of course, you can toggle the lighting completely off. You can make it a solid color. You can have various effects to where the lights kind of shimmer and change colors. You can have it do lighting effects where some of the keys are lit and then they turn themselves off, and then other keys become lit, and it can put on a real light show. Some of these effects on the ADM 42 are actually kind of impressive. Now, for me, I don't mind having RGB lighting on a keyboard, but I definitely don't want to be at a laser show at a rock concert, so I'd probably do something more minimal. I'd probably just make it a solid color, whether it be blue or green or whatever background color I want and leave it at that. Now, as far as typing on the ADM 42, it's actually quite comfortable. For one thing, I've been used to a lot of split keyboards that have thumb clusters, so it's not as jarring of a switch for me to use something like the ADM 42. Obviously, the layout, the layout of the keys is very different than the keyboards I had been using. But again, that's something that because I'm used to switching between keyboards, I've gotten to the point where it doesn't take me longer than a week or two to kind of get comfortable when I switch to something new. As far as the Gateron switches, these low profile switches, which I had never used before. I'm actually pretty comfortable with these things. I don't know if I would have ordered the low profile switches myself. If I was ordering the keyboard, I probably would have went with the full size switches because I do think they're a little different right now. I think I prefer the full size switches, but the low profile switches are not horrible, right? They're not bad at all, to be honest. And if size is an issue, like for portability, the fact that these low profile keys are so low, you know, there's not much height to this keyboard. Like if this was a keyboard that you were carrying around in a laptop bag or maybe this is the keyboard you use everywhere and you take it from home to school to work back to home, right? And then because the size might be an issue, the low profile switches may make sense in that respect. Or maybe you just like low profile switches. I know it's kind of weird, but there's a lot of people out there because I talked to you guys, some of you guys really like laptop keyboards, certain brands of laptops. You kind of like those really low switches that it doesn't take much to bottom them out. And if you're that kind of person, you'd probably love the ADM 42. For those of you that want to check out some of the documentation on this keyboard, their website is ADM 42.dev. And the documentation on this website is actually pretty dang good. For one thing, we need to talk about the name ADM 42. It's basically an homage to the old ADM 3A terminal. And what makes this kind of interesting is this is the terminal that Bill Joy developed the VI text editor on. So we always wondering why VI and VIM use HJKL for the motion keys. It's because this old school terminal had HJKL and above them, we have the arrow keys, right? We have left, down, up, right on HJKL. They were dual purpose keys, HJKL. They also served a dual function as the arrow keys on this old school terminal. And one thing to note about the ADM 42 is it actually does use the VIM motion keys for arrows. So if you actually want to move around, right, there's no arrow keys on this. Again, it's essentially a 40% keyboard. Your arrow keys are HJKL. You do a shift, a layer switch and HJKL become your arrow keys. And, you know, it takes a little bit of getting used to if you're not used to switching layers for things like the arrow keys or switching layers for numbers because you also don't have numbers, right? But the top row on the keyboard, you know, the QW, the QWERTY keys, right? Those are one, two, three, four, five, six, et cetera. So you just switch layers any time you need to access those non-alphabet keys. And you've got all the documentation you need as far as the layers because there are several layers built in. The base layer looks like this, right? And you've got the rows on the far ends of the keyboard. Those are your Super, Control and Alt keys. So your modifier keys, essentially. And then the thumb clusters, right? This is this is where things get interesting because you have a escape if you just tap it or it shifts to a different layer on this thumb, right? And this thumb is the compose key. Or if you hold it down, it's again, another layer key. And then you have space and shift dual function here. You have backspace and shift dual function here. You've got enter or a layer depending on whether you tap it or hold it. So all of these keys have two functions. And in the center of the keyboard, you have the delete key. Or if you hold it, it also switches to a different layer. You got a lot of different layers. You got the base layer, the special layer, which of course is your numbers and your arrows, as well as some special programming keys, such as your brackets, parentheses and braces. Then you've got the function layer, which is your standard F1 through F12 keys, plus a few other special keys like page up and page down. And then you've got the RGB effects layer, which you guys saw me access that by holding the delete key, that center key down, then I get these where I can play around with the effects, the RGB lighting and the colors and everything. There's also a system layer, which I have not played with. But if you wanted to, you can actually change the keyboard from QWERTY to Colmex or to Colmex or Dvorak, right? It already has the firmware built in. It's already got that ability built into the keyboard, right? You don't have to go grab a special hex file and then flash the firmware, you know, through some command line tool. It's already there, right? You can just do that right here. So if you're a Dvorak user or a Colmex user, you know, that is really nice. You don't really have to jump through any hoops. Now, for me, being just a standard QWERTY user, I really didn't have to play with any of that. Now, let's talk a little bit about price, because obviously the first question out of most people's mouths any time I do one of these hardware kind of videos, especially keyboard related, you guys want to know what is it cost, right? Well, if I go to shop and here are the keyboards, you got the low profile edition and you've got the standard edition. So the standard switches, both of them, you can say are two hundred and seventy seven dollars and sixty two cents. Now, is that price a good price? Is that a reasonable price for this kind of keyboard? I would say yes, because this is could you build your own keyboard? Could you print your own case and you get the right shape and do all of this and solder your own switches and build your own keyboard just like this? Yes, you could. And you would spend twice as much money as that two hundred and seventy seven dollars that you could just pay the eight forty two guys to send you this keyboard. So I know these kinds of specialty keyboards are expensive when you compare them to like a generic ten dollar keyboard that you get from Best Buy or Walmart. But again, these are something quite different. And honestly, the build quality for this thing, this aluminum case and just the switches and the really cool lighting effects and everything, this is well done, right? This is this is not something that's cheaply made. And obviously, you get what you pay for. So I would have no problem personally paying two hundred and seventy seven dollars for this keyboard. So that's just a quick look at the eight and forty two keyboard. I do want to thank the developers of this keyboard for being kind enough to to send me one to check out. I really appreciate that. Now, before I go, I need to thank a few special people. I need to thank the producers of this episode. Gabe James, Matt Paul, Steve West, Arkotic Armor Dragon commander, angry George Lee, Matthew, Nathan, Nate, Erion, Paul, Peace, Archon, Fedora, reality for less, Red Prophet, Roland, so last rituals, Devler, Ward, Gentoo and Ubuntu and Willie. These guys, they're my high steered patrons over on Patreon without these guys. This quick look at the eight and forty two keyboard. It would not have been possible. The show is also brought to you by each and every one of these fine ladies and gentlemen, all these names you're seeing on the screen right now. These are all my supporters over on Patreon. I don't have any corporate sponsors. I'm sponsored by you guys, the community. If you like my work and want to see more videos about Linux, free and open source software and even hardware like the eight and forty two subscribe to DistroTube over on Patreon. All right, guys, peace.