AM Compact Touch Keyboard Has A Back To The Future-Inspired Look Fans Will Love

New mechanical keyboards are coming out almost daily, but most don't come with retrofuturistic designs that tug on the nostalgic emotions of 80s movie fans. That unique keyboard is the AM Compact Touch from Angry Miao, a collective of keyboard enthusiasts who make every new device just a little out of the ordinary.

It's a modified 65% keyboard with a symmetrical HHKB-style layout, with a front-mounted touchpad that replaces the arrow cluster. That's a unique twist on mechanical keyboards and the first time we've noticed a capacitative panel used this way.

Angry Miao created seven different color palettes inspired by retro 8-bit consoles, beloved Japanese characters, electric vehicles, and characters from other media that inspired the team. One of the seven designs of the AM Compact Touch was inspired by the DMC-12 DeLorean time machine used in the "Back to the Future" series of movies, bringing retro charm to a future-forward keyboard.

The black leading edge on the predominantly silver AM Compact Touch echoes the DeLorean's design. It's perhaps unsurprising that the time-traveling vehicle from "Back to the Future" inspired Angry Miao, as many of its keyboards have a retrofuturistic feel.

It's also not the first time that the boutique technology collective has used the DeLorean-inspired keycaps that come with the Back to the Future colorway of the AM Compact Touch keyboard. Those were created in partnership with BUGERWORK for another cyberpunk mechanical keyboard, the Cyberboard. That larger keyboard has a large RGB pixel display on the back edge, and one of the lighting effects is a reproduction of the DeLorean's taillights from the movie.

Angry Miao

The black and silver inspiration didn't only come from one source. The 80s were full of companies creating futuristic hardware that now pulls on our sense of nostalgia. Nintendo's Super Famicom, or the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) as it was better known in the U.S., had a rounded, gray, and black color scheme everywhere but the U.S., where it had a squared-off gray and purple design.