Does anyone ever use Caps Lock? It seems like such a waste of space.
It is the most often pressed key when coding in Oberon.
The Joys of Unix Keyboards
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Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#92Somewhat related - I _love_ the fact that MacOS still maps Ctrl-H to backspace. I recently started instinctively using it as a backspace when typing (finally, thanks to a combination of laziness and vim). I'm finding it extremely comfortable (alongside xcape). Highly recommend trying it, especially if you're a Mac user.
MacOS and every other Unix.Ctrl-N,Ctrl-P, Ctrl-I... these don't just work in emacs.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#93Does anyone ever use Caps Lock? It seems like such a waste of space.
Of course! I press it before starting to type a sentence that needs a lot of lowercase letters (like this one), before toggling it back to normal at the end. (On my keyboard, the key caps are all printed with uppercase letters.)
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#94The old NeXT keyboards had a key under the space bar. It was, I believe, a Command key when used on the Mac, but I have not used one in ages... Seems that I use just one thumb out of two when typing (now my left after thumb tendonitis a decade ago) and only for space, so a good newly designed keyboard would give thumbs more to do. I believe several models of ergonomic keyboards do exactly this.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#95Every keyboard I've ever used I've remapped the caps lock to control, whether in hardware (like on my pok3r) or in software (on my work computer). I have a hard time ever using a keyboard without this remapping done.
I've gone down this route several times. I've moved Esc, Ctrl and Win (or whatever you call it, Meta?) to the CapsLock position. But for some reason my left pinky just doesn't like that spot. It's a slightly awkward angle, and I use Esc/Ctrl/Win so much that having any of them in that spot tires out my pinky.
One row up or down is fine. But home row far left is hell. Maybe it's simply because my hand grew into it over several decades. Instead, I use CapsLock to lock my screen.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#96I don't understand the commenter saying they don't want to spend $200 on a keyboard.
That's a $200 investment on something you'll likely spend more time with than your bed, your car, and your sofa. Over 10 years that's maybe 0.9 cents per hour of use.
It's worth having your perfect keyboard. I have a custom print 88 key wasdkeyboards.com one.
Yes, your work should buy you your perfect keyboard, but if they don't then don't suffer, buy it yourself.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#97I don't understand the commenter saying they don't want to spend $200 on a keyboard. That's a $200 investment on something you'll likely spend more time with than your bed, your car, and your sofa. Over 10 years that's maybe 0.9 cents per hour of use. It's worth having your perfect keyboard. I have a custom print 88 key wasdkeyboards.com one. Yes, your work should buy you your perfect keyboard, but if they don't then…
Also, you can also just start with remapping Caps Lock to Ctrl.
It's free, not that complicated and is definitely an upgrade for people using a lot of keyboard shortcuts.
Although for $200 I recommend first considering what keys you'd prefer at what location and how you'd change the layout if you could choose freely, a lot of keyboards and kits are fully programmable and come with wildly different designs. For example, multiple thumb keys are pretty much the most comfortable modifier keys you'll ever use.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#98I don't understand the commenter saying they don't want to spend $200 on a keyboard. That's a $200 investment on something you'll likely spend more time with than your bed, your car, and your sofa. Over 10 years that's maybe 0.9 cents per hour of use. It's worth having your perfect keyboard. I have a custom print 88 key wasdkeyboards.com one. Yes, your work should buy you your perfect keyboard, but if they don't then…
On the other hand, adapting yourself to the junky $10 keyboard that comes with every computer means you've got your perfect keyboard everywhere. I can go work anywhere, and they've got one of my perfect keyboards somewhere in a box in a storage closet because it came with a desktop they bought for something, and nobody wanted it.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#99There are several Sun to USB adapters if you really want to use an old Sun keyboard on a PC or Mac. There even used to be inline devices that filtered the L1-A /STOP signal. Because if you hit that key on a Sun server console, it paused the whole server.
You can get a Sun type 6 keyboard with native USB, no adapter required. [1] I went through a few over the years before giving up on "new old stock" because they had a tendency to fail. As I recall we have IBM to thank for the Ctrl/capslock swap. The IBM PC keyboard featured that change and was a carry over from the selectric typewriter and possibly other IBM terminal keyboards. It was very annoying for those of us wi…
If you love Sun keyboards AND want a compact keyboard, try and find a Sun Voyager keyboard. It's a Sun keyboard, but without the (pointless) numeric keypad on the right. When I worked at Sun I managed to source a couple and still have one in my "I might need that again" bin of parts.
I didn't find any on ebay, but I did find a whole Sun Voyager system https://www.ebay.com/itm/WORKING-Rare-SUN-Voyager-SPARCstati... $700 just to get a keyboard is kinda pricy.
Like the author of the article, I like the Happy Hacker keyboard. It's compact, well built, the control key is in the correct place, has well placed arrow keys, and isn't overly expensive. I have (I hope) a lifetime supply of them. So long as I can get ps2 adaptors for whatever comes after USB.
Re: The Joys of Unix Keyboards
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get a Sun type 6 keyboard with native USB, no adapter required. [1] I went through a few over the years before giving up on "new old stock" because they had a tendency to fail. As I recall we have IBM to thank for the Ctrl/capslock swap. The IBM PC keyboard featured that change and was a carry over from the selectric typewriter and possibly other IBM terminal keyboards. It was very annoying for those of us wi…
If you love Sun keyboards AND want a compact keyboard, try and find a Sun Voyager keyboard. It's a Sun keyboard, but without the (pointless) numeric keypad on the right. When I worked at Sun I managed to source a couple and still have one in my "I might need that again" bin of parts. I didn't find any on ebay, but I did find a whole Sun Voyager system https://www.ebay.com/itm/WORKING-Rare-SUN-Voyager-SPARCstati... $7…
Thanks for the heads up! I'll keep an eye out to see if any come up cheap. As I mentioned I did try to keep using Type 6s but they would usually fail after a year of use or so. I punted and bought a buckling spring keyboard although it's been sitting in a closet because I didn't want to be that guy and be the only one with a clacky clacky keyboard. Now that several of my employees brought in mechanical keyboards of their own volition I feel like I have license to do the same.
The type 6s are soft without feeling like you're typing on a marshmallow. Would love another if I could actually keep one alive.