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Typing and Keyboards

lzon.ca

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Re: Typing and Keyboards

#41

Post by istillcantcode »

Tangentially related to the lack of computer literacy in younger generations, but there are a lot of speed demons on their phones these days. I have high confidence that there are more people in the US that can type faster than 50WPM with the default Android or iOS keyboard than a physical keyboard. At this point I would bet on a cheap phone shaped USB touchscreen to use as a keyboard with a PC. It would be a cool Kickstarter project if its not already before getting cloned by 6-7 companies if successful.

Also looking into using my phone as a keyboard as a write this comment too. I don't know why I have not looked into it sooner, but it seems like a no-brainer now that I am writing this out.

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#42

Post by vunderba »

opan wrote: post #15
stavros wrote: post #5

Does anyone here use a numpad? What for? I made my own macropad[1] but I struggle to find a use, the only thing I use it for is CAD shortcut keys. Any ideas are welcome! [1] https://immich.home.stavros.io/share/GE_noaUx1_cayK9WDVvzutr...

I don't use a numpad, but a friend of mine swears by them for playing roguelikes. It makes it much easier to move diagonally in a single turn. If you play any games with keyboard and mouse, you could bind some letters/numbers from the right half of the keyboard and then place the macropad on the left so you don't have to take your hand off the mouse to hit anything. For another idea, you could bind pgup/pgdn or scrol…

Roguelikes are a great use case. I used to play Castle of the Winds all the time with a number pad, Shift+7913 fast movement FTW.

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#44

Post by lpghatguy »

I bought the same keyboard when I was a teenager as my first "real" keyboard!

These days I have a ZSA Moonlander. I adore it! I love how easy it is to program it without any software installed and it's been phenomenal to customize it to fit me perfectly.

I just changed all the switches out (in order to be quieter than my stock Cherry MX Brown switches) and replaced them with a set of Gazzew U4 switches. I'm _shocked_ at how far mechanical switches have come along since the days of Cherry dominance. They're super quiet and still have an awesome tactile feel!

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#45

Post by harel »

Mavis Beacon thought me to touch type on my Amiga as a kid, and I'm grateful to her. In recent years I've been using a Logitech membrane keyboard. It's great for a membrane but mostly it's quiet. I work at night and that's a hard requirement. I'm looking for a mechanical as quiet as the Logitech and it's a struggle. Feels like there is a gap in the market for (really) quiet mechanicals.

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#46

Post by ivraatiems »

bandofthehawk wrote: post #30
ivraatiems wrote: post #12

I type 120 wpm using a bizarre method I acquired through trial and error as a kid. It uses mostly my thumbs and index fingers and has been described by observers as "disconcerting". But it works great for me, and about perfectly matches the speed of my thoughts. My typing teachers hated it. It's touch typing in the sense that I don't need to look at the keys, but it is definitely Not Right. It does mean that I can't…

120 wpm using mostly thumb and index fingers sounds insane to me. I type using standard touch typing and can only get to about 60 wpm. I've always been a bit of a slow typist. Can I ask how you measured the 120 wpm?

Just the standard online typing tests you can find by googling. In fairness, 120wpm is a maximum. I'm often slower than that. But always over 100.

Edit: For those who are curious, I took this test: https://www.typing.com/student/typing-test/1-minute and got 116 wpm at 99% accuracy.

At https://www.typingtest.com/benchmark.php over two minutes, 117 wpm at 97% accuracy.

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#47

Post by sanjiwatsuki »

I used to be a big keyboard enthusiast until I did a bunch of typing tests with many inexpensive keyboards. To my surprise, the data showed a statistically significant increase in my typing speed on several budget membrane keyboards.This disturbed me enough to fully convert back to membrane after all of these years.

For an idea of the scale, I typed about 140WPM on the HHKB and about 150WPM on the budget membranes.

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#48

Post by larrry »

raincole wrote: post #34

How do people (especially programmers) actually type )_+={}\'" I know the touch typing says they're all typed by pinky, but after so many years it still doesn't feel right for me. Why is the weakest finger in charge of so many keys?

I have an Ergodox EZ setup with a layer switch under my left thumb to a code-symbols layer on my right hand, formatted kinda like numpad but for brackets and boolean math. It’s been a good way for me to eliminate a lot of pinky use

Re: Typing and Keyboards

#50

Post by thatguy00 »

raincole wrote: post #34

How do people (especially programmers) actually type )_+={}\'" I know the touch typing says they're all typed by pinky, but after so many years it still doesn't feel right for me. Why is the weakest finger in charge of so many keys?

I mapped them to the row above the home row, in order of bendy complication. So it's {[]} for the right. I just hold them down for the punctuation instead of letters. So much easier, imo.
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