The Balanced keyboard design Although I independently came up with the idea of the Balanced keyboard in 2003, it turns out that the design had actually already existed for over 100 years. Here are some links: Alfred Gould and Cyrus Marsh's US patent, 1859 US patent 24,021, entitled "ARRANGEMENT OF KEYBOARD FOR PIANOS, &c" and dated May 17, 1859, names Alfred Gould and Cyrus Marsh as the US-recognised inventors of the Balanced keyboard-style layout. The patent can be found on Google Patents here. Herbert Hencke's website on keyboard history This website names Karl Bernhard Schumanns as another early designer of the Balanced keyboard layout, mentioned in a 1907 book (see the graphic about two-thirds of the way down): - Website in original German - Website in English (via Google Translate) Grace Frix's US patent, 1995 Grace Frix patented some design variations of the Balanced keyboard layout in her 1995 US patent 5,404,788. The patent can be found on Google Patents here. Jose Sotorrio's Bilinear Chromatic keyboard website Jose Sotorrio discusses the "Bilinear Chromatic" keyboard (his name for the Balanced keyboard layout), along with his Bilinear Music Notation system, at www.myspace.com/sotorriokeyboard. The Symmetrical keyboard Closely related to the Balanced keyboard is the "symmetrical keyboard", in which Graham Breed modifies a DX21 keyboard (see http://x31eq.com/instrum.htm) in a similar manner as described in the Build one section of this website, but for microtonal music (i.e. with more than 12 notes per octave) rather than as a generalised replacement for a standard keyboard. The Janko keyboard The Janko keyboard seems to be one of the most well-known alternative keyboard designs, based on a large array of keys / buttons. See http://www.pianoworld.com/fun/janko.htm for a good introduction to the Janko keyboard, or type "janko keyboard" into the Google search engine for lots of references. A Japanese company have a commercial version now available, called the "WholeTone" - see the following link: http://www.chromatic-keyboard.com "Intuitive Instruments for Improvisers" website Alternative keyboard designs, with commercially available adaptors to adapt standard keyboards. The website also has a range of other interesting ideas. See http://improvise.free.fr/ The general keyboard and Notebender John S. Allen's website at http://www.bikexprt.com/music/introduc.htm examines the fundamentals of musical keyboards, and proposes new designs. The Uniform keyboard The Uniform keyboard is an alternative accordion keyboard, based on 3 key rows. See the websites at http://www.accordionpage.com/ua_aticle.html and http://www.accordionpage.com/uniform.html. The standard keyboard The excellent website at http://www.telacommunications.com/nutshell/ is a good reference on the myriad of musical structure elements on the standard keyboard. A brief history of the layout of the standard keyboard is at http://www.pianoworld.com/keyboard_history.htm. A history of the piano itself is at http://www.uk-piano.org/history/history.html