Editing KBC Poker II (section)

==Description==
The height of the keyboard, as with many compact keyboards, is fixed by way of the case. Four patterned rubber strips on the base of the keyboard help to keep it steady on the desk.

The keyboard features a mounting plate for the Cherry MX switches, giving it a good weight and a very solid feel. There is zero flex while typing, yet there is also no reverberation from the plate. All excess keystroke noise is damped, leaving only a precise clack sound in non-click switches. The Cherry [[stabiliser]]s help with the sound reduction, and space bar is particularly quiet. Cherry stabilisers are also ideal for [[keycap]] replacement, as there is no need to deal with the extremely fiddly inserts and bare stabiliser wires of typical stabiliser assemblies. Tactile and linear models are well suited for office environments where mechanical keyboard noise is tolerated but where metal plate reverberation and loud stabilisation is undesirable.

The detachable cable uses a standard mini-USB connector.

The keyboard is programmable, and supports both keyboard macros and dual layouts (one factory-defined, and one custom), with the latter selected using a toggle keystroke and having a dedicated indicator light. There are also four DIP switches exposed by the base, which permit for key swapping and to write-protect the programming state.

The keyboard lacks space for indicator LEDs outside of keycaps. Windowed keycaps would be an option, but this was not selected; light bleed from under keycaps is used instead, with LEDs run up from the PCB through holes in the mounting plate. On the backlit models, the Windows key is not backlit, and the colour LED in the switch is replaced with a white LED that is used as an indicator for the toggle-shift mode (where shift state is toggled by each press of shift). Also with the backlit models, the caps lock indicator light shines out through the keycap legend. Two LEDs at each end of the space bar indicate Pn mode and programming mode respectively. Scroll lock exists as a default binding, but there is no LED for this state, and several modes also lack indicator LEDs, which can lead to confusion.

The keyboard features [[diode]]s, and originally supported [[Rollover, blocking and ghosting|6-key rollover]] over USB. Newer firmware added support for NKRO over USB.<ref>geekhack — [http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50245.0 POKER II firmware upgrade  ]</ref>

Backlit Poker II models have seven levels of backlight brightness, plus the ability to disable the backlight. Backlight status is remembered across power cycles. The LED modulation used for the backlighting runs at a fairly reasonable frequency, with nearly imperceptible flicker. The [[Windows key]] backlight LED has a special purpose and is normally left off, suggesting either that the Windows key is intentionally disabled when it isn't, or that the LED has failed.

===Dual layout support===
The keyboard has four hardware [[layer]]s:

*Normal (non-programmable)
*Fn (with Fn key held; non-programmable)
*Pn (with the Pn key held; programmable)
*Pn+Fn (with both Fn and Pn held; programmable)

The two Pn layers can be accessed by holding Pn, and they can also be activated by using Fn+RShift to engage Pn mode. In this mode, the Pn layers becomes the default, and the Pn key reverts to the non-Pn layers. By default, the Pn layers are configured identically to the non-Pn layers, so engaging Pn mode appears to have no effect until one or more keys are given non-default assignments. This permits a wholly custom layout to be easily configured, without losing access to the default layout. Also, in this mode, Fn selects the programmable Fn+Pn layer, allowing the Fn key to be used for both default and custom bindings, instead of Fn and Pn respectively, with the caveat that Fn+RShift must be pressed each time the keyboard is powered up, and that a "stray" LED will always be lit on the keyboard: Pn mode is indicated by the left LED under the space bar illuminating.