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Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

blog.scottlogic.com

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Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My solution was a Theragun, trackball mouse and a Truly Ergonomic keyboard.

Is Theragun noticeably better than, say a plastic roller?

Yes. It's so much faster and easier to target. I've foam rolled for years and have every gizmo massage tool out there.

I'd say foam rolling, active pressure release, deep tissue massage, dry needling, trigger point release, acupuncture, acupuncture with tens are all very similar. But percussive therapy with a theragun is easier and something you can do on yourself in ten minutes.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#182
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep getting advertised Theraguns and similar things almost non-stop on Instagram. Are they worth the expense? And how/where are you using it to improve carpal tunnel?

I get some wild forearm pain if I work too long on a laptop (coffee shop, on couch with dog) , or if I hold my phone too long (Pokémon Go, there are literally dozens of us.) In particular, it really seems to be in my brachioradialis muscles. I tried out one of those generic massage guns at a friend’s place. I had scoffed at the infinite variations I saw advertised on Instagram, but I tried it on those small muscles a…

I think you would get a lot of benefit out of learning more about trigger points not only in your arms but all over your upper body that can help with carpal tunnel.

The Theragun can do my quads well if I hit the trigger zones. I used to be a national ranked mogul skier so these aren't ordinary quads lol.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used one? I have always wondered how people find the side to side finger motions to be, in terms of strain and ergonomics. It feels like an unnatural movement. To be clear I've never used one myself.

It's not a DataHand, but here's someone typing on a modern DIY version of one [1]. The side motions don't look too unnatural to me. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMhOIgrdeE0

Yeah, most of the heavily used keys are mapped to north, south and down. There are a few letters mapped to side keys, but they're mostly on the first two fingers. The first finger can do either side direction fairly easily, while the middle finger can do the inward (toward the thumb) direction a bit more easily than the outer direction.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#184

I laugh when I read this because the DataHand was so much better but inefficiently manufactured and badly-priced. Five motions per finger well, macros, and mouse control 20-something years ago.

It was definitely ahead of it's time and it's a shame there's no commercially available product like it today. The Azeron gaming keypad [1] has a similar design but it's mainly intended for gaming so you'd have to get two of them and do some remapping to use it as a proper keyboard. I think the lalboard [2] and the other DIY efforts in this thread [3] are probably the closest thing to a modern DataHand right now. Her…

[4] That's me! :) It is quite comfortable to type on. And it's actually great for mouse+kb gaming too. I have 20 keys right at my fingertips, and I typically map all 3 modifiers to the thumb. Although I do recommend more of a straight across asdf (backwards/left/right/forward) movement scheme (or aoeu for those of us of the dvorak persuasion).

The 120WPM was a bit of a cherry-picked example. 95-100WPM is more of a typical average speed for me.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#185

I laugh when I read this because the DataHand was so much better but inefficiently manufactured and badly-priced. Five motions per finger well, macros, and mouse control 20-something years ago.

Have you used one? I have always wondered how people find the side to side finger motions to be, in terms of strain and ergonomics. It feels like an unnatural movement. To be clear I've never used one myself.

I used to own one and have probably written about it before; the side to side is not very natural, but no big problem because the fingertip is down in a well with buttons wrapped close around it, so it’s a small movement, and the way the key mechanism works is backwards to normal - instead of pushing all the way until a contact clicks, the keys are magnetically latched at rest and you push them away from that state, meaning it registers at the start of moving not the end so again small movements and you don’t push hard into a resistive surface with the side of your finger to make sure it registers, you flick a gently sprung thing. Look at the keyboard layout too, shown at the top[1] and the pinkies don’t have sideways movement for writing English letters, and the other fingers only go one way, the easier way, for letters.

I didn’t get used to it to use it exclusively; it’s too tuned for prose, extracting your hand carefully to use a mouse, not having an easy way to type anything one handed while holding a mouse or phone (e.g. hold a device type the serial number), awkward arrow keys and less convenient numbers, see “NAS” (Number And Symbol) mode on the diagram entered by right-thumb-down.

It’s been long enough now that I’d like to play with one again, for a bit of novelty.

[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/DataHand...

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#186

I'm keeping a gallery (just for a quick overview) of ergonomic keyboards. It might be useful for others interested in this thread. There's a lot of options, from something you can order from a large retailer, to a kit to solder yourself, to just plans to download. https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/

You mention "Ergodox" instead of "Ergodox EZ". Ergodox is an open-source design that anyone can make. Ergodox EZ is an implementation of the design by one particular company.

I decided not to mention each Ergodox design -- as far as I know, Ergodox / Ergodox EZ is pretty much the same thing. I don't also list, for example, Falba.Tech's wooden versions of several of the keyboards.

I should probably remove the ErgoDone and Ergodox Infinity for consistency.

Re: Down the ergonomic keyboard rabbit hole

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you used one? I have always wondered how people find the side to side finger motions to be, in terms of strain and ergonomics. It feels like an unnatural movement. To be clear I've never used one myself.

I used to own one and have probably written about it before; the side to side is not very natural, but no big problem because the fingertip is down in a well with buttons wrapped close around it, so it’s a small movement, and the way the key mechanism works is backwards to normal - instead of pushing all the way until a contact clicks, the keys are magnetically latched at rest and you push them away from that state,…

I actually prefer number entry on the datahand. They're such a reach from home position on a normal keyboard, but they're just as easy to hit as anything else, with a datahand-like.
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