51–60 of 81 posts
Any reviews from the actual users who used this CODE keyboard. In comparision to other high end 150$ keyboards, would you recommend this one?
It is just a normal mechanical keyboard. any one who never tried a mechanical keyboard would love it.
Are you implying that someone who has wouldn't like it?
I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…
"Very much agree that Caps Lock should be diminished in importance.... Many of my colleagues and I simply disable the key outright." Augh! Don't do that! Remap it to something useful! CTRL is popular, but I'm loving backspace, personally. It's a key that never comes up if you just count keys based on taking text file samples, but I for one like having it available where it does not rip my fingers off the home row. (S…
What's wrong with caps lock? Only when using an editor is there an easy shortcut to capitalise multiple characters at a time. Typing a word in caps using the shift keys is uncomfortable due to alternating which hand presses shift.
I agree with what I take as the underlying premise of this blog entry: if you're going to call something a "keyboard for programmers" it would be nice if you made concerted effort to improve matters for programmers, moreso than just tactile ergonomics. However, I have mixed feelings with several of the author's specific points. 1. In general, I think a keyboard should retain all legacy keys, including Scroll Lock and…
I think there should be a 100% remappable keyboard. I never use any of the legacy key functions, but the switches are precious on a fixed piece of hardware. It is maddening to me that there are dead keys on my keyboards; having a completely soft layout would allow me to customize things exactly the way I want.
[1] http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/keyboards/POS/SPOS_Rows_Co...
I think I'm going to order one of these once they come out. It looks gorgeous, and I'm coding so much these days, I think it would be wise to buy one of these.
It also has a detachable number block, which I find great. I need these for Blender 3D work, but apart from that never use them. So I can just stow them away.
It also seems to have two space keys. I wonder if it is possible to detect which one is the left or right one. Or remap them. Then I could remap one of them as ESC for vim, for example. That'd be rad.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My impression is that PS/2 is desirable mostly for NKRO
I don't think USB precludes NKRO, see this: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17458.0
Things I learned from reading this blog post: There are people who use their thumbs to press Alt (or cmd on a mac). That would never have occurred to me (either to do, or that anybody had ever done so). I imagine that explains why keyboard manufacturers are so happy to put garbage keys I don't care about right next to my Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys. Personally, my ideal keyboard would have those expanded and the windows…
I have a big thumb. :)
Also those "garbage keys" are very useful. The Menu key on the right side of your keyboard is, in Windows, a right click button. If I want to spell check something that is marked erroneous (such as "erroneous" when I tried to just spell it!) I can arrow over to it and use my Menu button to pop up a context menu that lets me select the correct word.
The Windows keys are also awesome, there are a ton of useful shortcuts bound to them already, and you can always feel free to bind even more! Especially if you are in unix land, where binding keys is easier than on Windows. On Windows, the Windows key is reserved for system commands such as Window management. Win-arrow for docking, win-d to minimize everything, etc. Heck Win-# switches between applications in the order they are open on my task bar!
Except for a few misbehaving apps (and the bloody web!), those extra keyboard keys mean the Windows UI is pretty much keyboard driven. I find it funny that people come over to Windows land from *nix and complain about how mouse driven things are! Of course you take take your favorite X windows manager and do all of the remapping yourself to get similar functionality. If you are using one of the keyboard based window managers already, think of it as a way to avoid the need for double bucky key-bindings.
The FN key on laptops does suck, but for a lot of smaller laptops with reduced keyboards, there is no other way to access a lot of functionality. Things like back-light controls, external monitor settings, and so forth, are all vital and accessed through fn key combinations. They aren't /often/ used, but they are used often enough!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think USB precludes NKRO, see this: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17458.0
It does. USB can't report enough keys being pressed at the same time. So keyboards that support n-key rollover internally can only support 6 key when using USB: http://www.daskeyboard.com/product/model-s-ultimate/
- There is a hardware switch to remap caps lock to CTRL - There is a hardware switch to remap scroll lock to windows lock (temporarily disable the windows key) - The weird context menu button can be hardware-remapped to a Fn key that turns the pageup/dn set of 6 keys into media keys (and Pause into what appears to be Mute)
Other neat things: - Hardware switches to swap between QWERTY, Dvorak, and Colemak, as well as to switch the alt/ctrl keys (supposedly useful when used on a mac?) - Backlit - 6-key rollover (n-key over PS/2)
Also: a PS/2 keyboard is required to get into BIOS on many (even modern) motherboards. USB usually doesn't register until too late. I'm not really sure why a PS/2 keyboard (or adapter, at least) isn't considered a hard requirement for a hacker's keyboard.
The bigger issue is that there's a steep learning curve to moving any of they keys that someone uses. You can't just arbitrarily move things and assume that it'll work for more than a couple dozen people.
Microsoft has a new ergonomic keyboard coming out, with chiclet keys like the Apple Keyboards / Laptops: http://xahlee.info/kbd/Microsoft_sculpt_ergonomic_keyboard.h... I think I'm going to order one of these once they come out. It looks gorgeous, and I'm coding so much these days, I think it would be wise to buy one of these. It also has a detachable number block, which I find great. I need these for Blender 3D work…
The detachable number block is amazing for ergonomics, it moves your mouse closer to your keyboard, reducing how far out your arm stretches.
The keyboard itself is chiclet, which I disprove of. :( I love my key presses to be deep and satisfying!
> It also seems to have two space keys. I wonder if it is possible to detect which one is the left or right one. Or remap them. Then I could remap one of them as ESC for vim, for example. That'd be rad.
I beta tested the keyboard (woot! I got in because a designer on it heard me complaining about keyboards to a friend!), and funny enough internally the keyboard does know that there is a difference, and from what I understand talking to someone on the team, they originally allowed for some limited remapping abilities of it. From what I gathered the feature confused people and got cut at least in the version of firmware I was handed for it. I am not sure what the situations will be like on release of course!
As far as the computer is concerned though, it isn't like with shift where keymaps defined for two of them (AFAIK at least), to make "space" work properly I imagine the keyboard has to report either key as the scancode for "space".
IIRC they allowed remapping one of the keys to delete or backspace or something like that, it was actually pretty useful for coding. ESC would also be nice. :)
> I think I'm going to order one of these once they come out. It looks gorgeous, and I'm coding so much these days, I think it would be wise to buy one of these.
It does look awesome, and it is amazingly comfortable.