The keyboards we requested artwork feedback on are all ones that we're working with our keyboard supplier on, but we don't have specific availability timelines that we can share. We certainly make sure to have the main keyboards for a country available before we launch there, but we've also in many instances launched a keyboard language far ahead of time.

> (am not even Japanese, just have bad habit of using thumb clusters a lot, and this is the only layout with small space bar)

Same, the 106/109 keys JP layout is wonderful!

I use the Ro key as a quick desktop toggle (right next to PageUp on my Thinkpad keyboard) and the Yen key as a full-word erase (like Ctrl-W on bash)

The extra left and right thumbs are also extrely helpful to have Home and End in an easy-to reach position.

these are interesting hacks, glad you let people know about this possibility.

It is a very nice keyboard layout. I'm very happy I discovered it (even if it was by mistake!)

Another example I can think about: remap the Ro key to toggle between international layout while it's pressed, so you can switch between layouts with a key right next to the shift key.

For example, on a US/RU settting, press Ro while pressing the 6 keys to the right of Tab in a sequence and you would get ЙЦУКЕН, don't press Ro and do the same: you would get QWERTY. Mixing and matching in both upper and lowercase would be very easy.

Could you make the key under the C act as a Cmd/Ctrl key like a Mac?

There are probably many ways of doing it at software level, I would suggest either of these two cross-platform tools:

[1] https://github.com/kmonad/kmonad

[2] https://github.com/jtroo/kanata

With the extra keys, you can have 4 modifiers on each side of the space bar: Control, Win (Super), Alt and Cmd - total 8 modifiers, ideal for your thumbs!

This still leaves you with the Yen and the Ro key to map for other things!