In February 2018, a friend of mine challenged me to reduce the legendary Gherkin by as many keys as possible, without needing to use hold, double-tap, or non-standard keyboard functions other than QMK's layers. After a few mockups, I came up with what would eventually be named Alpha. 28 keys, in two rows of 10 and one row of 8, offset by 0.5u with a 2u spacebar to balance things out. After mocking it up in Fusion, I launched an interest check, and unknowingly set off on an amazing journey.

Don't forget to send me a pic of your build at @PyroL#7672 on Discord or /u/pyrocrastinator! I'd love to see what you guys do with these!

Photo by /u/Polyzhu

Build Guide

Parts

1x Alpha PCB
28x 1N4148 or equivalent diodes
1x Pro Micro (NOTE: USB-C ports are experiencing some clearance issues since it's taller than Micro-B)
1x Case or plate set
5x 10mm M3 standoffs
10x 5mm M3 screws
28x MX or Alps style switches of your choice
1x Micro USB cable

History

Creation

Changelog

v1.1 3/2/19 Added SKQG reset button pads (no need to manually short reset!) and fixed RGB pin order to match common SK6812/WS2812 pinout, and added silkscreen labels to RGB pins.
v1.2 4/27/19 Diodes now are combo through-hole and SMD compatible! Breakout pins for artisan column ("tmo28") added on both sides. Routing cleaned up etc.
v2.0 7/21/19 Choc footprints added! Routing somewhat simplified, but not necessarily beautified (pin assignments unchanged)