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A beginner's guide to split keyboards

justinmklam.com

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Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#81

Post by ehnto »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #4

So after almost 50 years of hacking, I'm starting to feel it in my hands. But I don't have any wrist problems -- no carpal tunnel. What I have is tendonitis in my fingers, primarily in my middle fingers and my right pinky (from slamming Enter several million times). I've had steroid injections into the tendon sheaths of my fingers a couple of times, which hurts like a bugger when it's done but definitely improves thi…

I forget the name of the layout (the board is a Lily58), but my keyboard does away with the staggered key spacing and has keys aligned vertically with a subtle bowling. You're usually pressing keys with your pad, not the sides or tips, and I suspect it would be even better with flat low profile keycaps.

There are some styles of "chording" keyboards that might help too, and some that would be way worse. Chording keyboard are also wildly different to regular keyboards, totally alien by comparison to just splitting a keyboard.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#82

Post by ehnto »

soufron wrote: post #2

The main question should be: are split keyboards any better than normal keyboard? When I gave it a look, the studies were on the side of split keyboards being the hardware equivalent of snake oil. But whatever. And maybe then: are keyboards the best input device in 2026?

By what metric makes a keyboard "best"? It's crazy subjective, and objectively diverse as we are all shaped differently with different levels of injury/wear etc.

Who cares if it's "better" if it's working better for you?

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#83

Post by ehnto »

johnhamlin wrote: post #27

What about when you’re on the go? Or can we presume split-keyboard users never leave the house

If you don't mind looking like a blade runner extra who's gone missing while working in public, there's not much difference carrying these around. The moonlander is a great portable option. Just slip it in your laptop bag.

I quite like it because it gives me a bit of flexibility on where I put them, and gives me a bit of extra room in the middle. Great for a small airport table or whatever, can even use them rested on your legs

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#85

Post by spudlyo »

eru wrote: post #78
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of fun to be had by replacing the spacebar with four keys. Mine are tab, esc, space, backspace... plus layer shenanigans ( https://configure.zsa.io/planck-ez/layouts/jDnba/latest/0 )

On my Kinesis Advantage it's a lot more than four keys. And they definitely help.

The 12 thumb keys on the Kinesis is quite a luxury. I have:

Left hand: control, meta, command, hyper, super, backspace

Right hand: space, enter, command, hyper, super, del

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#87

Post by sesm »

piskov wrote: post #14

The issue with kinesis and all those nice small symmetrical keyboards is that not every alphabet is as short as English. Russian, for example, has 33 letters. So if you’re someone like that, you really want that ordinary macbook-like number of keys = larger non-symmetrical right half. — As for the ortholinear keyboards, I spent a few months with the latest kinesis but sold it eventually: not that comfortable. Just cl…

I'm a native speaker of Russian, using Ergodox as my only keyboard for over 5 years. Here is my layout: https://configure.zsa.io/ergodox-ez/layouts/XEYyW/latest/0

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#88

Post by sesm »

Surprised Ergodox is not mentioned, that's the keyboard that started the movement. Very safe pick since firmware is open source and it can be both self-assembled and bought.

It has too many keys in thumb clusters and bottom row, but you can easily remove them.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#89

Post by waynesonfire »

eru wrote: post #77
cduzz wrote: post #75

I'm not sure why nobody mentions this, but for windows and linux, you can fiddle with a "split keyboard" by using two keyboards. You can put your right hand over the right part of the right keyboard, the left and over the left part of left keyboard, and ... type away. It just works, and usually it is free, almost everyone I know has a pile of keyboards somewhere. Irritatingly, this doesn't work by default on the mac…

I use a split keyboard, and I definitely don't want my two halves to be as far apart as the setup you describe would put them. It's an interesting hack, though.

I agree, though realize this configuration really shines when you relax the per-hand half-keyboard constraint.

Re: A beginner's guide to split keyboards

#90

Post by Frotag »

russdill wrote: post #35
incr_me wrote: post #33

I resent the idea of an absolute standard of ergonomics or typing technique. I often use my left thumb to key z/x/c/v/b. I often reach with my left index finger to key y/h/b. During certain chords, my hands often cross over the split. I tried multiple split keyboards over the period of 2 years and never grew out of these habits. I always wished, at the least, that some of the middle keys were duplicated between the t…

Curious if there are any split keyboards with "overlap", eg, the center of the keyboard is duplicated on both sides

Yeah the handful of times I've tried a split keyboard, I dropped it because of this. Like I use a different hand for the 'y' key if I'm typing my (left index) versus yes (right index).
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