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Mechanical Keyboard Guide

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Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#41

Post by kellishaver »

listic wrote: post #21
kellishaver wrote: post #7

I have an old IBM Model M with the buckling spring switches and it's the greatest thing in the world to type on. It's loud, but it feels so good. My typing accuracy and speed have both improved greatly since I switched to it. I dug it out of the back of a storage building a couple of summers ago. The sticker on the bottom says it was made in 1986. It works flawlessly, and with the help of an old tooth brush and a Mr.…

Why does typing accuracy improve? Is it because the keys have less wobble? I figured that generic keyboards on the market differ greatly in wobble.

Less wobble and it requires more force, so fewer accidental key presses. There's just so much more tactile feedback that it's easier to just "know" where your fingers are at all times.

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#42

Post by kellishaver »

aptsurdist wrote: post #39
artlogic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about sliding up from home row to the keys above (e.g. J to U)? If so I believe I'm lifting my fingers up slightly (maybe 1mm) when moving between keys. I'm not actually sure if that is good or bad for my typing health, but it does keep me from getting caught in the gaps on an angled keyboard.

exactly - I think that lifting your fingers is the 'normal' way to type on a traditional keyboard with raised keys. But, I love that when I type on my low-profile keyboard I feel like my fingers are always in contact with the keyboard and just kind of slide over the tops of the keys to hit their target. On the occasion when I have to use a raised key keyboard, I have to re-remember how to lift my fingers to type. It…

I have a macbook, and a PC with a model M keyboard, so I'm familiar with both types and use both regularly. I hadn't noticed before reading this, but I do tend to type similarly to you do on the low-profile macbook keyboard. It's more "sliding" than lifting. I think the low profile necessitates it, because otherwise it's just a lot of wasted movement through thin air and leads to less accuracy.

This may also explain why I was extremely inaccurate when I first started typing on the macbook (until I learned to adjust and type as you do), and why I still find it to be not as comfortable to use as the model M. It is the best laptop keyboard I've ever used, but I don't find that style of typing to be as comfortable or natural.

I guess it's just personal preference, though. I learned on a model M back in high school.

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#43

Post by jrockway »

Keyframe wrote: post #27
dxq wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arrow keys are accessible with the function key. It seems awkward at first, but after a day of use it becomes very natural. If it's what you really want, the HHKB Lite 2 is actually sold in the US and is quite a bit cheaper (though the switches aren't as nice).

Can you reprogram where arrow keys are? I have my arrow keys in emacs as Alt and then IJKL (like WASD), so it would be nice if Fn IJKL worked the same in OS.

No, you can't reprogram them.

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#44

Post by jrockway »

gnosis wrote: post #29

The problem with a lot of these fancy and expensive keyboards is that they have far too few keys. For instance, the Realforce 87U ($255) has only 87 keys. My current $24 keyboard has 136 keys. And I still wish I had more keys! Using a keyboard with a mere 87 keys would be torture, no matter how pleasant the tactile feedback was.

Learn to press two keys at once. Now you have 3741 keys.

(And yes, all these expensive keyboards have n-key rollover, meaning that you can press as many keys as you want and they will report exactly what you're pressing. Cheap keyboards have a matrix that results in "phantom" keypresses if you chord anything other than shift or control and a letter.)

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#45

Post by jrockway »

vimalg2 wrote: post #30

TVS Electronics India makes a cheap, decent 'Cherry Blue'-based mechanical called the 'TVS Gold' for around $30 (converted from INR). I have one. I'm thinking of buying one for the day gig as well. Pics: http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7268&do=co...

Interesting, as Cherry Blue keyswitches are about $1 each in bulk. If you have 103 keys, that puts a lower limit of $103 on the keyboard.

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#46

Post by listic »

thristian wrote: post #24
listic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I can get by without right-hand number pad (that's for accountants). But how do you substitute for grey +-*/ keys?

There's mathematical operator keys in the main part of the keyboard too. :) When I had those keys on the keypad, I never really used them because they were further away from the home row than their counterparts on the main keyboard. With the left-hand hitting Shift (if necessary), it's not difficult to hit them with the right hand.

Those keys are good not only for typing in mathematical operators, but also for shortcuts. They must emit different keycodes from the ones one the main keyboard, and you don't need shift. I don't know how to do Shift+ or Control+ without them.

Maybe I should finally switch to Linux. There, you don't even need F keys in the terminal ;-)

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#47

Post by loup-vaillant »

Keyframe wrote: post #26
loup-vaillant wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using one right now. It's not "mechanical", it's scissor-switch. It's a bit better than plain rubber dome, but you still have to bottom out. The layout on the other hand, is really cool. I can now touch type without twisting my fingers in weird ways. It's more comfortable (even more than a Natural keyboard, actually), and a bit faster than ordinary slanted keyboards. The displacement of some of the keys isn't a b…

I was interested in it's layout. Do you use QWERTY or other layout like Colemak and Dvorak with it?

The layout of the keyboard doesn't really matter. The Typematrix can send the regular key-codes like any ordinary ANSI keyboard, or it can mix them up so that it acts as a Dvorak keyboard even if the OS is set up on Qwerty. But really, the layout should be set by the OS, not by the keyboard.

Personally, I use Bépo: http://bepo.fr It's a Dvorak-like layout optimized for French. It works well for English, though (far better than Qwerty, anyway). If your native language isn't English and uses Latin letters, you may want to look for a layout optimized for it.

Re: Mechanical Keyboard Guide

#48

Post by Keyframe »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #47
Keyframe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was interested in it's layout. Do you use QWERTY or other layout like Colemak and Dvorak with it?

The layout of the keyboard doesn't really matter. The Typematrix can send the regular key-codes like any ordinary ANSI keyboard, or it can mix them up so that it acts as a Dvorak keyboard even if the OS is set up on Qwerty. But really, the layout should be set by the OS, not by the keyboard. Personally, I use Bépo: http://bepo.fr It's a Dvorak-like layout optimized for French. It works well for English, though (far b…

Sorry, I mean staggered vs aligned layout - not actual character layout.
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