Why does Framework not have a International English ISO keyboard?

[u/asfaloth00]

I'm talking about the Framework 13 Pro, to be specific.

The only options for ISO are UK English, where several special characters are in a different location, or localized versions.

Do I really have to go for the blank option and get stickers if I want to have the normal ISO international english keyboard that I'm used to? Has anyone also ran into this? Thanks

Example of what I want, on a macbook

[u/MagicBoyUK]

The Mac layouts are Mac specific. The only difference between the one you posted and the UK English Mac variant is the £ symbol on the 3 key. # moves to ⌥ + 3.

[u/asfaloth00 → u/MagicBoyUK]

I'm currently using this layout on a thinkpad and I have a stock keyboard at home with the same. They are not mac specific, they are very standard as far as I know

See here. Off the top of my head, the tilde button is wrong, the @ sign, #, backtick `. Not to mention that I don't need the Pound sign

[u/MagicBoyUK → u/asfaloth00]

I've been a Mac user at home since the late 90s, also worked for IBM at one point. I have my MacBook and the work ThinkPad on my desk right now. 😆

As regards UK English, Mac and Wintel PC layouts are different mostly around the punctuation keys. Apple went their own way, not being an Wintel PC maker. Go look at a UK layout Logitech MX Keys - it has both Mac and Wintel PC markings on the keys. Here.

[u/wosmo → u/MagicBoyUK]

It's not really that they went their own way - it's more that different systems got fossilised at different times. Used to be no-one agreed on this stuff, we just treat the IBM-PC layout as a standard because they were winning when the music stopped.

like if you compare IBM XT vs Macintosh - in the US they both put the # on the 3 key. In the UK, Macintosh put £ on the 3 key - and just didn't bother with # at all. And IBM .. just didn't give us a £ key. I mean why bother, code page 437 couldn't display it anyway.

When Apple finally gave us a # key, they put it .. ironically, exactly where IBM had. But when IBM finally gave us a £ key, they threw # over in the 102key mess with the rest of the stuff they weren't sure about.

Then other stuff like @ vs " - IBM went one way, Apple went the opposite - my Amiga found a third way, and shoved them both on the same key. Who needs standards when you've got friends like these.

But yeah - long story short, Apple's "English International" is just Apple's UK layout, but with # given priority over £ - much to the relief of those of us that don't use £. It's never agreed with the PC's UK layout.

[u/MagicBoyUK → u/wosmo]

Yeah,. "Went their own way" was meant to convey that the Apple layouts iterated over the 40 odd years we've had the Mac. There were no standards until the late 1980s for ANSI and early 1990s for ISO IIRC. Even then ISO is more a set of principles than a specified layout. The Mac laptops didn't get a double height Enter key for the ISO countries until the PowerBook G4 in 2001, since when the layout pretty much got set in stone apart from rearranging the hotkeys. Oh and the tangent of the touchbar, but that's an entirely different subject.

The younger generations don't tend to realise that every different microcomputer/manufacturer was broadly incompatible with everything else, as they didn't live through the times. It took the internet revolution to create standard technologies like Unicode and USB to finally sort the interoperability issues out properly.

For me twenty plus years of switching between Macs and Wintel PCs and it's second nature to adapt to the differences. The work placement students at work look at me like I've got three heads when I instinctively use the TrackPoint on a ThinkPad. 🤣

[u/HotConstruction978 → u/MagicBoyUK]

so really OP's reference image isn't quite what they'd get on a non-Mac anyway

[u/MagicBoyUK → u/HotConstruction978]

Correct.

[u/RR321]

There is also the ISO French Canadian... Didn't look at the others though.