Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard • Hacker News Board

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#171

Post by ComputerGuru » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

ghostpepper wrote: post #170

ComputerGuru wrote: post #169

Reminder that if you have any sort of finger or wrist pain, arthritis, RSI, etc the simplest fix you can make is to switch to a better keyboard layout like Dvorak. QWERTY was made to be unergonomic by design and with full intent of making your fingers travel further to type out common words to avoid adjacent keys from sticking if struck in close temporal proximity due to manufacturing limitations of the time. I switc…

I was under the impression that the story about QWERTY being designed to slow typists down has been shown to be a myth eg. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-l...

I had never come across that before - and I’m one of those guilty of spreading this origin story far and wide. Thanks for linking it - I think I have more reading to do!

I suppose QWERTY could very well be incidentally terrible rather than intentionally so (the keyboard travel in comparison to other layouts is genuinely worse).

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#172

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:22 PM UTC

yyt88 wrote: post #99

Symbiote wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience at age 30-ish might not be the same at 40-ish. I don't know myself, as I've not reached 40, but I'll take the advice of those that have and use the appropriate tool in the recommended way.

I'm mid-50, thanks for asking. I've had a military carreer before doing more desk type of work. This was about keyboards, but sure, we can talk about screen real etate too. It can be great, but it can introduce more distractions too. Having a single laptop screen in front of you makes you focus on what matters most. Those chat and mail windows can stay hidden until I need them and opt to get distracted. Others may se…

[deleted]

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#173

Post by nottorp » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

> For over 10 years or so, I primarily used Apple keyboards

Oh, there's your reason right there. As an Apple user, I'd never try and do my programming on their keyboards.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#174

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:28 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #173

> For over 10 years or so, I primarily used Apple keyboards Oh, there's your reason right there. As an Apple user, I'd never try and do my programming on their keyboards.

[deleted]

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#175

Post by fanf2 » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:31 PM UTC

fanf2 wrote: post #91

galkk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any specific recommendations for switches/key caps? Can I buy some to put into my zsa moon lander?

Low profile switches are not compatible with MX keyboards, because all the dimensions are different. There are “mid profile” switches made by GMTX and perhaps others, which can be swapped into an MX board. (The Kailh mid-profile switches are not MX compatible.) You might have to be careful about keycap compatibility, to avoid longer caps that might bottom out on the switch plate.

Er that should be GTMX

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#176

Post by uguuo_o » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 3:56 PM UTC

This looked so good until I saw it requires switches to be soldered (by them or you). Hot-swappable switches is a must for me, specially at this price point. I guess my ergodox will have to last a bit longer until a proper replacement is found.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#177

Post by swader999 » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 4:00 PM UTC

Splitting the arrow keys across each hand is a form of mental abuse I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#178

Post by rakenodiax » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 4:20 PM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #177

Splitting the arrow keys across each hand is a form of mental abuse I wouldn't wish on anyone.

This is why layering is so nice. I have the arrow keys mapped to their vim locations and it’s been a game-changer

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#179

Post by noveltyaccount » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

d5ve wrote: post #90

I use a Glove80 keyboard, and even after 4 months I'm not back to my normal typing speed! This has cost me a fair bit of productivity, and was stressful at times. Almost feeling like I'd suffered a bit of brain damage, where I could picture what I wanted to do, but be unable to type it out. Having the modifier keys in the thumb cluster feels a lot less awkward than using my left-hand little finger at odd angles. And…

I tried a columnar layout for a while (ergo dox kit if I recall) and gave up because when I was in meetings on my laptop keyboard I made so many typos. The worst was hitting Enter on my laptop when I was aiming for apostrophe. So many unintentionally sent IMs.

Re: Glove80 Ergonomic Keyboard

#180

Post by tiltowait » Mon, Sep 04, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #169

Reminder that if you have any sort of finger or wrist pain, arthritis, RSI, etc the simplest fix you can make is to switch to a better keyboard layout like Dvorak. QWERTY was made to be unergonomic by design and with full intent of making your fingers travel further to type out common words to avoid adjacent keys from sticking if struck in close temporal proximity due to manufacturing limitations of the time. I switc…

Just to add a bit of data to the ergonomics claims (of which I find many people are skeptical):

https://workmanlayout.org/#tests-using-popular-books

Now, this is a site extolling the virtues of yet another layout, so feel free to take it with a grain of salt, but the methodology seems sound to me. (Though I used Workman in the past, I've since moved to Colemak due to a combination of it being built-in to Apple OSs and my dislike of the "ly" digram being on the same finger in Workman, plus some other factors.)

Even though Dvorak is the "least efficient" of the three QWERTY alternatives measured, it's still over a 40% reduction in finger travel distance compared to QWERTY. "Distance traveled" is obviously not the sole factor in ergonomics, but it's equally obviously a big one.