You will encounter this man at work.
They will ask for your help with something on their workstation, and it would be faster for you to drive with them watching over your shoulder, but this cryptic thing is their keyboard.
Instead, you will be forced to sit behind them like Patrick Swayze guiding Demi Moore at a throwing wheel. You will eventually take your shirt off, launch Unchained Melody in Spotify, then slowly guide them through a system setting panel.
You will notice how soft their hands feel. The hyper-ergonomic keyboard has allowed their fingers to move with minimal effort, allowing the skin to remain supple, smooth - almost unused.
You will ask yourself, “Is he right?” How could a keyboard be so aggressive and wrong, and yet, support something so gentile.
You try to deny the feeling. Your friends and family will mock you like your uncle Dvorak. Maybe you start with a trackball and see if being naughty feels right.
I just keep the company keyboard on a drawer for the IT guy. I never thought all that I could be missing hahahaha
I used to know a person who used this line to describe one thing about themselves: “I use Dvorak layout…”
That’s ok, insanity comes in many forms.
When I was a kid, I got my hands on a PS/2 Y-adapter and so typed on two keyboards - left hand on one on my desk, right hand on one on a keyboard tray. I don’t know what my typing speed and accuracy were then, but a few years back an entire office of people tried to beat me in a typing test and couldn’t. Since then I’ve taken a typing test on a laptop while sitting in a hotel bed and gotten a score of 158 with, IIRC, 98.2% accuracy. (This was my best score but even since then all of my typing evaluations have gone well.)
I also use a trackball as exclusively as my environment allows, including while gaming (other than Minecraft). I’m not remotely a pro, but among my peers I tend to score highly in, for example, FPS’.
I’m not trying to brag; there are many better than I in both categories. The reason I bring these up is to demonstrate that something being the convention doesn’t automatically make it better and something being unfit for your preferences doesn’t make it inferior.
edit: AFAIK, I only have one left hand.
Can you recommend a cheap split keyboard? I’m not sinking 300$ to discover I hate it
Where’s the rest of the keys? Also these things give off Nintendo Power Glove vibes.
It uses layers, the same way a phone keyboard has a separate layer for numbers and symbols. Holding down one of the three thumb keys on either side activates a new layer. Since you can use your thumb and fingers at the same time, there’s no lose in typing speed. Indeed, the layout puts numbers and symbols closer to the home row on a layer than using a physical number number.
For all symbols, you would have needed a shift-modifier to access those before. With this design, the symbols are closer but use a layer switch key instead of a shift key to access them.
Everyone who uses a phone keyboard has learned a new compact keyboard layout. It’s not so hard.
Split keyboard + a tiling window manager made my life better
What WM if I may ask.
Sway
I’ve used plenty of ergo keyboards and fancy layouts, but as soon as I try to use a regular keyboard I have to re-learn how to type and it really halts any productivity.
This sort of thing may be nice if you only ever use one computer or you’re willing to pack around your keyboard.
Even still, I never liked ergo boards enough to think it’s worth the effort, especially considering being useless on other keyboards once I’m used to ergo.
Now I just stick to a 75% or TKL. Keeps me versatile.
TKL FTW BTW!
I just got my keyboard in and I explicitly got one that I can easily take places so it won’t be an issue.
Here’s what I want: tiny, one handed bluetooth chord keyboard.
For typing on my phone. Can someone make one?
you can make a ferris sweep. you would just choose which side you’d want and setup your layout with QMK. If you want Bluetooth, just use the nice! Nano controller. A coworker built one. It’s tiny, about the size of your hand. He would also carry it around in his pockets and connect through USB to his phone for emails.
The only problem is he customized the hell out of the layout. I think he used Colemak. His layers kinda looked like this:
He said he had trouble using regular keyboards after getting used to it. He always had to carry it around with him.
Yeah, that’s a lot of work with tools I have no idea with. Definitely a fun project but I don’t have the time.
Aren’t there hundreds? Like this one? Or maybe I don’t know what you mean by “chord” keyboard, or you want more tiny?
A chord keyboard uses combinations of keys, like chords on a piano. You have fewer keys so you can type with one hand. I’m not 100% serious about it, learning curve would be horrendous. But it would be interesting to try. I used blackberry for a long time and I hate screen keyboards.
And yes, looks like I found one while looking for examples :) It’s $175 on ebay, bit expensive.
I think one of my favorite keyboards ever was a Microsoft “Natural” keyboard. I think they were available in the mid ’90s or so. Not quite a real split keyboard, but the ergonomics were great. I think I gave it away…it was great for typing, but I wanted a simpler keyboard for gaming.
I use a knock off ergonomic keyboard from adesso. 60% of the time, it works every time.
You can still get them on Amazon for like $40 if you ever decide you want to relive the split key glory days.
As long as it’s got mech switches and can run a qwerty layout I’m happy
There’s a dude developing out a neat split keyboard that’s ergo but you are typing in like chunks of words or something.
Looks like your fast af once used to it.
Each finger goes up down left right i believe. Can’t remember the name!
It’s quite refined looking.
Hear me out, take the optic sensor from a mouse and put it on the bottom of one of those boards. Then you wouldn’t have to move your hand to use a mouse.
I was the lucky owner of a rare FingerWorks Touchstream keyboard for many years. If you don’t know it, it’s the precursor to the keyboards used in Star Trek Enterprise.
It’s a keyless keyboard. Two large flat mousepads with a keyboard layout printed on top, and you type by pure touch. There’s no mouse; the surface just cleverly detects when you are doing mouse gestures. Or a lot of other gestures.
Trekkie joke aside, it’s actually the magic tech that made the iPhone possible. Of course Apple didn’t invent anything, they bought existing future tech.
I miss that keyboard. They still sell on ebay, for 1400$!
That sounds awful though. There’s a reason why touch pads are so unpopular in cars, there’s no tactile feedback to the buttons. Part of learning to type is getting a feel for the keys.
Both of mine died lately and I want to get them working again, but qmk is a nightmare I don’t want to have to touch again.
