Henry Webber approached the world with a scientific, methodical curiosity. Born in 1946, his life was defined by an active drive to build and optimize. Long before keyboards, Henry was designing and constructing a six-sided log cabin from the ground up and running "Webbertime," a highly successful personal time management seminar he created in the late 1970s. Though his organizational systems were eventually mirrored by larger corporations, it established Henry's lifelong habit of analyzing systems and making them work better for people.

The Search for a Better Way

In the mid-90s, Henry met and married Mary, a Registered Nurse whose clinical insight into repetitive stress would become a cornerstone of their future work. While trying to learn touch-typing to re-enter the workforce, Henry hit a logical wall. He recognized the efficiency of the Dvorak layout, but realized the physical keyboard itself was fundamentally flawed. The staggered keys were a relic of mechanical typewriters — designed specifically to keep metal levers from jamming, not to fit human hands.

The Initial Vision

From their single room-with-a-bath, Henry and Mary started their first "garage" business. They created the DvortyBoard by cracking open standard keyboards, adding a custom-programmed chip, and installing a hardware switch to toggle between Qwerty and Dvorak. They hand-assembled and sold 200 units. But Henry knew stickers and chips weren't enough; the physical architecture of the keyboard had to change.

TypeMatrix: The First Days

Breaking the Mold

By 1998, Henry observed that data entry was consistently faster and more accurate on the numeric pad — which used a strict matrix (ortholinear) pattern. He spent a year sawing standard keyboards apart and gluing the rows into straight columns to build his first true prototype.

The Leap to Manufacturing

In November 1999, Henry and Mary walked the floor at the Comdex electronics show in Las Vegas, searching for a manufacturer willing to buck a century of standard design. They found a partner, packed their bags, and flew to China by New Year's Eve.

Convincing the Factory

Convincing the factory was an uphill battle. Engineers accustomed to churning out millions of standard boards insisted Henry's ultra-thin, matrix design was impossible. Henry simply and patiently replied: "Possible." Finally, the first 200 prototypes of the 2010 model (the "T-1") were produced.

The "Dumb Thumb" Factor & The Breakthrough

When they sent the 2010 out to their original DvortyBoard customers, the feedback was polarizing: half loved it, half hated it. Those who struggled couldn't adapt to using their thumbs for multiple keys — a phenomenon they dubbed the "dumb thumb" factor. Henry knew a 50% rejection rate meant failure.

Three weeks later, he woke up in the middle of the night with the answer. He split the keyboard, separated the hands, and moved the high-use keys to the center for the index fingers. Financed by friends who believed in his vision, the iconic 2020 model — and later the deeply beloved 2030 — was born.

The 800-Pound Gorillas

Throughout the early 2000s, Henry and Mary pitched TypeMatrix to Toshiba, HP, Apple, and Google. Despite Apple executives noting the design's appeal (shortly before releasing their own thin keyboards), the industry giants all gave the same answer: make it a standard first, and then we'll adopt it. TypeMatrix never landed that corporate buyout. Instead, they built a fiercely loyal "cult" following who recognized the superior, pain-relieving ergonomics of the design.

Plateau & Downfalls

The Price of Innovation

The business saw great days, especially as the French Bépo community adopted TypeMatrix, making France their largest market. To support global languages without changing the underlying hardware, TypeMatrix introduced protective, customized silicone skins.

However, scaling a hardware business as an independent duo took its toll. A factory defect in a batch of 2030s caused specific rows to fail. By the time the manufacturing issue was isolated and fixed, mixed inventory meant Henry and Mary were draining their personal funds to fulfill warranty replacements, stunting the company's operating capital. Attempts to build fully programmable versions or integrate the layout into laptops stalled.

Tragedy Strikes

TypeMatrix was Henry, and the trajectory of the company was inextricably tied to his vitality. Henry and Mary lived adventurously, spending 15 years living primarily out of a motorhome, exploring the country with their dog, Calvin, and off-roading.

In 2018, life took a tragic turn. While taking their jet ski out for one last run on a lake, Henry attempted a maneuver that launched the craft airborne. It flipped three times, throwing him 20 feet into the air. He fractured a vertebra and sustained deep tissue injuries. Henry never fully recovered his mobility, and the severe physical trauma accelerated a cognitive decline that eventually led to dementia.

The Perfect Storm

As Henry's health deteriorated, the company faced a fatal operational blow. During a final trip to China in 2019, they discovered the factory had allowed the original 2030 injection molds to degrade into an unusable state. Production was dead. Between the prohibitive costs of re-tooling, geopolitical supply chain disruptions, and Henry's tragic health journey, the company could no longer sustain itself.

In July 2023, Henry passed away. To honor his legacy and halt ongoing losses, the TypeMatrix store was put on hold so the team could regroup and find a new way forward.

What's Coming Up

While Henry's physical journey has ended, the vision for a better typing experience continues. The product roadmap has been restructured with a focus on modern hardware standards:

Embracing Mechanical: Transitioning to modern mechanical switches for superior durability, tactility, and repairability.
Fully Programmable: The new firmware architecture will be completely customizable from the ground up.
Focused Rollout: Prioritizing a highly stable, wired-first version for the initial relaunch. Wireless capabilities are mapped for future iterations.
The Laptop Dream: Integrating the TypeMatrix layout directly into a notebook is delayed to focus on the standalone unit, but the concept remains firmly in the pipeline.

A Word from Florian

I have been a TypeMatrix user for a long time. When I was struggling with severe hand pain from the trigger finger (musculo-skeletal troubles of the hand), this keyboard was the tool that fixed it and allowed me to keep working. Now, it is time to give back to the project that gave me so much.

Keyboards and hardware are in my DNA, a passion that was only made stronger during my years working several years at Logitech, developing various keyboard products for startups, and owning/operating factories. Rebuilding this architecture from the ground up and relaunching operations of this scale will take significant energy and effort, but we have the technical roadmap to make it happen.

Most importantly, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to all our loyal customers. You kept Henry's vision alive for over two decades, and we are nothing without you. We look forward to putting the next generation of TypeMatrix under your fingertips.

Thanks for your patronage, and your patience, and stay tuned for more!

About Us

Henry Webber, TypeMatrix's Father

A Mind for Problem-Solving