I have been looking for a keyboard, but fails to find one.
- ergonomics
- wireless (bluetooth or a tiny USB dongle is OK)
- mechanical keys
- mac cmd-key
- below $200 USD
I am not sure why it is so difficult to find one like that :-(
Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
31–40 of 157 posts
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#32I like the idea of a split keyboard, but I've never been able to go down that road because I sometimes hit keys with the "wrong" finger - most notably, I need to be able to hit B with my right hand because it's down-left in roguelikes (i.e. Nethack). What I'd love to see is a "106% keyboard", where a couple columns are duplicated on both the left/right side. Does anybody make such a keyboard?
What you need, and I’m pretty sure this is a serious suggestion, is a pair of identical 60% keyboards. It might just work wonderfully.
problem is you'd then need to place them quite far apart from each other (while many of the "fixed" split keyboard have each half only slightly tilted) but... From an USB point of view I think this just works?
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#33I like the idea of a split keyboard, but I've never been able to go down that road because I sometimes hit keys with the "wrong" finger - most notably, I need to be able to hit B with my right hand because it's down-left in roguelikes (i.e. Nethack). What I'd love to see is a "106% keyboard", where a couple columns are duplicated on both the left/right side. Does anybody make such a keyboard?
On my keyboard, B is exactly equidistant between F and J so I couldn't even tell you which finger is correct for it. I wonder how it was decided which side it should go on in a split keyboard?
> On my keyboard, B is exactly equidistant between F and J so I couldn't even tell you which finger is correct for it.
It's not about distance but about logic. If the right index finger does y,h,n and u,j,m then the left index finger does r,f,v and t,g,b. Otherwise your left index only does five letters while your right index does 7.
Depending on how "badly" a staggered keyboard is staggered, some keys can be closer to one hand or another, but it doesn't change what the correct way to touch-type is.
If in doubt, look at where the keys are placed on ergonomic split ortholinear keyboard: the people designing these things tend to know what they're doing.
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#34I have been looking for a keyboard, but fails to find one. - ergonomics - wireless (bluetooth or a tiny USB dongle is OK) - mechanical keys - mac cmd-key - below $200 USD I am not sure why it is so difficult to find one like that :-(
If you give up the wireless portion of that, you have a ton of options. I have an ortho keyboard, wired, and don't mind the wire at all... for travel it's easy enough (my Preonic keyboard from Massdrop came with a case) and the standard USB-C cable is easily detachable and stows nicely. Plus, it doesn't require a battery.
I have a wireless mouse (G Pro Wireless) that is good enough but charging it is pretty annoying.
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#35I like the idea of a split keyboard, but I've never been able to go down that road because I sometimes hit keys with the "wrong" finger - most notably, I need to be able to hit B with my right hand because it's down-left in roguelikes (i.e. Nethack). What I'd love to see is a "106% keyboard", where a couple columns are duplicated on both the left/right side. Does anybody make such a keyboard?
.. or you could just switch and fix your bad behaviors.
I would say that as a daily Advantage user for right about 20 years, it's not a keyboard to play games with and it's not a keyboard to use for a very heavy kb+mouse software situation (like cad or photoshop). In those situations you often keep your dominant hand on your mouse at all times and your non-dominant glued to the keyboard. For those situations I have a fairly standard 65% board on my desk. But for coding, emails, etc. That all happens on the advantage.
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#36I really enjoyed the aesthetics on some of these. Thanks for sharing -- this seriously puts my $19 Amazon Logitech keyboard to shame.
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#37I'm surprised the original[1] MS Natural Keyboard is not listed in the mass-market page. Maybe it's because it's not made anymore. I still have mine, it's years old, but it still works and I still love it, it seems to be the perfect angle for my hands.
Even though it is absolutely enormous.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_ergonomic_keyboards#...
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer to that is to make your own and hand-solder wire to the switches.
The thought has occurred to me - and I wouldn't mind a thumb-trackball on the right hand, either. Design in the physical world is well outside my wheelhouse though - is a keyboard an approachable project for somebody who hasn't done woodworking/machining before, or would I be better served working on smaller projects first?
I 3D printed my keyboard. Sometimes I talk about it on HN and have prepared a fairly detailed email about it because people have follow-up questions that require diagrams. I'm too lazy to put it on my blog, but if you want the details just email me and I can probably point you in the right direction.
Building a keyboard is tedious, but not particularly difficult.
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#39How on earth do people actually type on some of these?
I have a keyboardio model 01(this: https://shop.keyboard.io/collections/model-01-keycaps/produc...)
And even this feels like I'm having to function dive into weird chords of keys to get some of the functionality that I want (arrow keys, mostly).
Are people just not actually writing code with these ultra minimalist things?
Re: Show HN: Split Keyboards Gallery
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer to that is to make your own and hand-solder wire to the switches.
The thought has occurred to me - and I wouldn't mind a thumb-trackball on the right hand, either. Design in the physical world is well outside my wheelhouse though - is a keyboard an approachable project for somebody who hasn't done woodworking/machining before, or would I be better served working on smaller projects first?
Personally, I can hardly think of a better first project. The electronics are dead-simple and the hardware is so much up to personal preference that you can just tinker until you are happy.
(I built my first keyboard about 7 years ago as my first foray into 3D modeling and printing. It went well enough that I used it as my main driver until I got a Keyboardio Model 1 years later.)