Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My favorite keyboards

fabiensanglard.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 151 posts

Re: My favorite keyboards

#21

Post by arnvald »

throwawaySimon wrote: post #16

I find it strange that people who start caring about ergonomics settle for Ergodox, Moonlander and other halfway there solutions when Kinesis, Glove80, Maltron who have put in real ergonomic research exist..

I’m one of those people. I loved Ergodox, switched to Moonlander but didn’t like it, tried out Voyager and stuck with it.

Voyager is not even a very ergonomic keyboard, but it’s good enough for me, I configured it so that it’s very convenient for me to use, I added some accessories to for better tilt, I’m good - my wrists don’t hurt anymore, and that was my goal

Re: My favorite keyboards

#22

Post by otherme123 »

eimrine wrote: post #2

Any QWERTY or QWERTY-inspired keyboard (layout) is silly. Switching to orto without solving a real bottleneck is like changing Opel to Porshe but keep using a set of square wheels. Of course the car will run better, but...

My experience switching layout is poor. I touch typed Qwerty at around 75 WPM. I switched to Colemak, and after a month or so of Monkeytype I am back at around 75 WPM but didn't gain significant speed. I never had serious wrist pain, so I can't say Colemak helped with that.

After sharing this with some people, it turns out that a lot of speed gains, and maybe wrist pain improvement, comes from people that switch from Qwerty + peeking (and sometimes avoiding pinky) to Other layout + touch typing.

My only gain with Colemak is that typing feels smoother than Qwerty, but I can't honestly recommend anyone the switch. Using other computers, which are all in Qwerty, is now unconfortable.

Re: My favorite keyboards

#23

Post by aa-jv »

dofm wrote: post #6

Yamaha DX7. Oh you mean… OK. The one on my 2008 unibody MacBook, which I likely put the most hours in on of any of them. Then the one on my ancient and lovely Thinkpad T240 — one of the most pragmatically delightful computers ever — and probably the N33SX I owned in 1992. The keyboard on the M1 Max MBP is quite nice, too.

DX7 had a dreadful keybed. Midi CC only up to 100 (instead of 127), wtf?!

Fatar learned a lot of lessons from Yamaha in that regard.

Looking forward to adding an Expressive E Osmose to my rig soon ..

Re: My favorite keyboards

#24

Post by gwerbin »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #18

My ErgodoxEZ: - nearly made me cry. - solved my back pain. When you didn't learn to type properly, relearning to type can be a very difficult task; re-learning on a split keyboard is particularly unforgiving. Around three weeks into re-learning I was convinced I would never learn properly and that I'd wasted a lot of time and money (I was freelancing at the time) on something that wouldn't help me eat, never mind sle…

Countervailing story: the Ergodox (EZ specifically but that's less important) gave me permanent RSI in my thumbs, because it was too big for my hands, and to this day I pretty much can't use a keyboard layout that relies on lots of thumb involvement. Even just hitting the spacebar throughout the day or using my thumbs to type on a smartphone is enough to flare it up, almost a decade after I stopped using that keyboard.

YMMV, ergonomics are highly personal with respect to your body size and proportions. We didn't have the proliferation of keyboard layouts then that we do now. Perhaps if the Iris or Corne had existed then, I would still be using my thumbs for modifier keys in a 40% layout. I never got the hang of tapdance or hold modifiers.

The Atreus layout is the only one I can still use somewhat, because the thumbs are held closer to the hand rather than splayed out.

Re: My favorite keyboards

#25

Post by bayindirh »

Well, as a bog-standard person, I use Logitech MX Keys Mini 2 (with Bolt support).

It's good enough for typing for long sessions and reliable enough to type on without much thinking.

It has great features though. Automatic backlight and standby via hall & ambient light sensors, great key texture and weight, scissor switches instead of bog-standard membrane, etc.

It's not a mechanical keyboard and not smooth as one, but it's not an enemy of fingers and hands.

Logitech's bolt receiver is great though. Encrypted, low latency and has native Linux support via Solaar.

I have 3 mechanical keyboards, but one is too big, others are not in my native layout and miss a couple of keys which I need for certain characters, so they are delegated to long coding sessions at home.

Re: My favorite keyboards

#26

Post by braggerxyz »

The Ergodox was also too unstable with high tilting for me, so I search for other options. I found the Dygma Raise. Been using it for 3 years now, it is a blessing. I will buy a Raise 2 wireless for my work desk in the office too now.

I cannot fathom all my collegues who still use non ergo keyboards and mice...

Re: My favorite keyboards

#27

Post by dofm »

aa-jv wrote: post #23
dofm wrote: post #6

Yamaha DX7. Oh you mean… OK. The one on my 2008 unibody MacBook, which I likely put the most hours in on of any of them. Then the one on my ancient and lovely Thinkpad T240 — one of the most pragmatically delightful computers ever — and probably the N33SX I owned in 1992. The keyboard on the M1 Max MBP is quite nice, too.

DX7 had a dreadful keybed. Midi CC only up to 100 (instead of 127), wtf?! Fatar learned a lot of lessons from Yamaha in that regard. Looking forward to adding an Expressive E Osmose to my rig soon ..

I never actually owned one but I loved playing one.

Just the fact that a synth thing was so (relatively) affordable and accessible and also made music we heard all the time.

I should probably make a Dexed thing. Ultimately I don't even play an instrument with frets, let alone keys, so it would only be for tinkering.

Re: My favorite keyboards

#29

Post by _thisdot »

petepete wrote: post #19

I learnt to type on an Acorn Archimedes 3000 which had Ctrl to the left of A. I was so happy to find HHKBs in the late 00s had the same feature and have been using once since. I wouldn't mind never having a CapsLock again.

But you don't need your physical keyboard to do that. Couldn't you have brought any keyboard that you liked and remapped the Caps Lock key to Ctrl? I have it remapped to Backspace in all of my keyboards

Re: My favorite keyboards

#30

Post by dfox »

Basically the only thing interesting about the ConcertMaster is that Carmack used it (and that it looks somewhat cool). As for the keyboard itself, it is just a basic OEM membrane keyboard and not that good one even. The speakers are lets say adequate for the time and size.

Interestingly, the speaker part and the keyboard part are completely separate. The "cable" consists of four separate cables (keyboard, power, line out, mic in) in a thin sleeve. Mine was supplied with AT plug on the keyboard cable and Y-adapter that converted PS2 into AT DIN and barell jack for the speaker power. The keyboard label indeed says it is powered by 9V DC, but I guess that never really happened as PS/2 is 5V no matter what various devices say.

Edit: And as for the supper hard to find nowadays part: I suspect that part of the reason is that the keyboard module inside the thing is ridiculously sensitive to even minor spills.

Post reply on HN