I’m just a newb when it comes to high grade keyboards, but these things look wild, and I kind of want to try one.
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It doesn’t get better than this though https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/charachorder/the-master-forge-a-keyboard-built-for-you
looks interesting, but too bad it’s not compatible 2 out of the 3 languages (Chinese, English, Japanese (only a bit)) I speak. I mean sure, I could just press the keys equivalent to those on a QWERTY layout, but that’s probably not efficient.
That looks interesting! I have tendinitis, so used Kinesis Advantage for 8 years, then I got the Glove80 a few weeks back - I’d love to try the forge!
Why didn’t they make it like a vertical mouse? Having your arm bones twisted the entire time is not good and one of the leading causes of carpel tunnel.
they include tenting kits, you can adjust it to however you like
Are there full-size ortho keyboards?
Short answer: Yes. ID75 or XD75 pack in a full set of keys in 80% case. Some are pretty ridiculous - BFO-9000 or FU!Keyboard
Long answer: most orthos are designed so that you can hold layer shift keys with your thumbs(RSE, LWR for Raise and Lower) to type other keys(e.g. Lower+J types “-“ and Raise+J types “_”). This way you type the keys of a full layout without moving your hands off home row and with less keys overall.
I don’t know of anything marketed as such, though some ortholinear POS terminals can be easily repurposed into big keyboards. The ortho users tend to be very interested in ergonomics, and one of the guiding principles there is minimizing hand movement (sometimes I personally think this goes a bit far; it seems to me that if it’s good to move the rest of your body from time to time, it’s good to move your arms and hands too). Most of them are quite small. The biggest size I’ve seen regularly is 75 keys in a 15x5 grid. Of course, ortho/ergo is also a very DIY-friendly space, so sometimes you see… outliers. LOL.
I just received my 4x12 keyboard 4 days ago! While there has been a steep learning curve and I took a huge hit on my typing speed, I really enjoy using it. I was a bit hesitant to spend much $$$ on something I wasn’t sure about, so I decided that if I didn’t like it that I could just use it as a macropad or use it in place of my dying Logitech G13 gaming pad. So far, I’ve been carrying it between work and home and using it for everything. If all goes well, this will be my main and only keyboard.
It’s a CSTC40 that I bought from aliexpress. Unfortunately, it looks like they stopped selling it after I received mine (lucky me!). This unit seems to get shit on by mechanical keyboard enthusiasts, but I love it because it was cheap ($70CDN shipped) and didn’t require soldering. I happened to have a set of keycaps that I’ve made work for this keyboard. I don’t really look down when I’m typing, so I don’t really care that some of the legends don’t make sense.
Has your ability to type on a staggered keyboard taken a hit?
I figured out a mental trick after 2 days. It’s hard to explain in words, but here goes…
In my brain, I created a second typing profile where in my minds-eye, I imagine the ortholinear keys while on my new keyboard. When I go back to my old keyboard, I try to keep my brain aware that it’s the old layout. I have a Logitech G13, which is an ortholinear style gaming pad, so I think my brain was already wired for ortholinear finger movements and it was already natural for my brain to distinguish between the two.
Now, the “weirdest” keys for me to type on the old keyboard are C, B, Y. I realize how super annoying it is having to stretch my fingers out for some keys and that’s why I’m certain that I’m going to stick with ortholinear in the long run.
Edit 25 days later: I am now slower on a staggered keyboard because my fingers are no longer accustomed to stretching far. I now hate the number row and backspace on staggered keyboards.
I have a split ortholinear keyboard that I made with parts from Keebio, I fucking love it. It has really reduced wrist strain for me.
It’s the Levinson Rev. 3, which is relatively cheap (this is an expensive hobby just FYI) if you want to get into keyboards.
Edit: Levinson Rev. 3 was discontinued but the BFO-9000 is still a good option for a no-frills dip into things.
I had one of the ZSA moonlander split keyboards for a while and I loved parts of it. My RSI vanished.
1 - it was hard for me to use other keyboards that weren’t colemak
2 - in split, if I took my hand off to use the mouse I found it hard to find the home row again. It took me like 2 months to learn colemak but never clued into the home row the same way I can on a normal keyboard.
3 - I felt like it took up a lot of space, not good for small spaces.
As a fellow Colemak user who has used other layouts in the past, I have to wonder how many of the issues I have with my keyboard now are because of Colemak, since I didn’t seem to have them with Dvorak or Workman.
But maybe I’m just salty that my WPM never recovered fully after switching.
Uh oh I’m getting that keyboard itch again. I think my max qwerty was higher my normal was fine, like 100-110 is my comfort zone. Colemak was so fluid, and I do still get RSI if I type a lot of my non-custom layout qwerty…
Maybe a good christmas present for myself.
Any PCB that’s compatible with QMK firmware (and maybe others, but QMK is easy & the most well-known) should be able to be flashed with any layout, so even if you get tired of Colemak, you can change it to whatever you want. :)
Edit: You can also get hot-swap sockets that allow you to change your switches without desoldering anything.
(this is an expensive hobby just FYI)
Yeah custom keyboards get absurdly expensive very quickly.
Only if you keep getting new ones though and doing it DIY is pretty good too. Don’t think I’d buy another keyboard again after building my current DIY one. Instead I’ll just be designing my own from what I’ve learned that I’ve liked with this current one.
this is an expensive hobby just FY
Oh yay, love hearing how more plastic is being produced and then discarded for no other reason than ‘a hobby’.
Overproduced, sure. Discarded? Not really. There’s a massive culture of swapping, similar to PC parts or craft notions and yarn.
Maybe the companies responsible for the fact that you have microplastics in every organ should be the focus of your ire instead of random strangers.
You don’t know that I already haven’t so still not addressing the point about being less wasteful and just a lame attempt at diversion.
Hmm, I think I’ll throw out all of my keycaps now since you’ve convinced me they’re useless. Happy? Lmao. Not sure what the fuck you’re trying to do here.
Tried a Typematrix. At the time, I was a roving freelancer who frequently worked with other people at their machines, so I decided that it was safer to stick with a conventional layout.
Having Enter on the thumb was interesting, but I never got used to it.
Orthos are far superior to staggered keyboards. No finger is bigger than 1U and you don’t have to twist or move your hands.
I disagree with that for thumbs, mine tend to be much flatter against the keyboard than my arched fingers, so I can hit the split space and mods easier with my thumbs if that row is at least 1.5u and preferably 2u for at least the split space keys. 1Us on the bottom row forces me to either contort my thumb or even worse, use my fingers for the bottom row.
Strongly disagree on the not twisting part. You need a split keyboard to get the proper wrist angle
My fingers are crooked and better suited to a normal keyboard lol
Have you ever used an ortholinear one?
No.
even with crooked fingers, unless your fingers are crooked in opposite directions an ortholinear one is still better
My middle finger curl outside which means my left middle finder perfectly follows the path from S to W which is important as a gamer. Honestly, I think I’m the latest in an evolutionary arms race to produce more biologically effective keyboard gamers.
unless you have the most fucked up middle finger that shouldn’t be an issue. fun fact, I moved w and s one down. s is where x was and w is where s was. makes gaming a lot nicer.
Glove 80 keyboard:
There’s also a wide world of alt letter layouts.
I hate it because I love the way it looks, but I could never use one.
I can’t use a split keyboard because of the way I’ve taught myself to touch-type. My fingers move around too much. On the other hand, I type around ~90 wpm (mostly using two fingers) so I win something or other.
Big hands crew represent
Same. I learned to type without the whole “home rows” method and with some exceptions like shift (and A for some reason?) I type with two fingers per hand. Typing at 150wpm consistently is very fun.
I touch type with fingers on the home row with a slight drive and my max is 110 wpm, average about 90.
I’m very impressed.
Can you type blindly when you don’t have home rows?
As in without looking at the keyboard? Yes.
150 wpm? Damn, I am in awe!
Thanks! On a bad day (or when tipsy, I use typeracer as a breathalyser) that goes away. Practice makes perfect
I had the same problem, and never cracked touch typing, because my brain kept going back to the old, faster way.
I finally cracked it by learning a different layout while only touch typing. Maybe that’s a way to go if you want to get there?
You can re-teach yourself.
Touch typing is like learning different languages. Just because you learn a new one doesn’t mean you forget the first.
This is true. I’ve gotten to the point where I can now type QWERTY and Colemak-dh on a standard, ortholinear or ortho columnar keyboards with no issues.
I’m sure I can but why would I?
As if Tony Hawk designs keyboards.
I love my Glove80, had it for about a year now and couldn’t be happier.
For anyone interested in alt layouts, https://getreuer.info/posts/keyboards/alt-layouts/index.html is one of the best introductions out there. Also https://lemmy.world/c/ergomechkeyboards is a nice resource on fancy keyboards.
I would really love to try something like that, but I don’t want to sink money into it just to realize I hate it.
Edit: 400$ for the Glove 80. As much as I love the idea, that’s a no for meGot a split keyboard (ergodox ez) just to notice that all the special keys are very tough to reach and there are no F-keys. All in all not such a great experience. The split part is good though if you type a loooot anf if you have wrist rests.
I’m not sure I understand. I have an ergodox moonlander and while it’s true there is no dedicated button for Function keys, that’s what the layers are for. It’s kind of the point of a configurable customizable keyboard.
So for me I have all my special symbols under my left hand while my right hand holds a special key. Takes some getting used to, but once I had practiced the special keys are actually closer than before because they’re all the normal keys. Similarly I have arrow keys under the keys labeled ‘hjkl’ when another key is held. My Function Keys are all accessible with special key and the number keys.
It takes some tweaking and tuning to figure out the layouts you want, but the whole point of a keyboard like this is that you can tune it to be whatever you need it to be. Now, if you don’t like to tinker and just want something out of the box, I get that, but even the default config has function keys, I think. Maybe you just didn’t read about how it works?
I had a moonlander for a while and I liked it. I think I put space on the main body since the little appendages were too far for my itty thumbs.
The best way to “try before you buy” is to go to keyboard meetups in your area if they’re available. Unfortunately, that does leave a lot of folks out, but if you live in a city that will probably be your best bet.
Look into DIY keyboards you can get PCBs created of the keyboards you like the look of for pretty cheap nowadays. You just need to be willing to solder, there’s not many small bits for keyboards so it’s not that hard.
I have this one, and never got used to it. I should try again.
I sense I’m about to fall into a deep, deep rabbit hole 😄
Resistance is futile.
They’re dope. Everything being the same size (1u) is fun. I’ve only ever typed on one though. I have 4 custom keyboards and none of them are orthos.
Prefer column staggered, but yes they really make you wonder how we got stuck with the dominant keyboard configurations. Typing with linear columns feels way more natural.
Typewriters.
They had bars that needed to physically move, and so staggering them helped them not collide and get jammed.
If you imagine a bar coming from the center of each key towards your screen, you can see how the staggering was helpful. For instance, M misses J and K above it, naturally, but it also slightly misses I and the 8 above that.
It’s a great solution for a nonexistent problem in keyboards.
It probably really helped people who learned to type on a typewriter make the first changeovers, and now it’s what everybody learns to type on for the most part so it hasn’t budged. I’ve noticed at work that my gen z coworkers often struggle to type out a solid nursing note (most of them learned to type on a phone screen) so I wonder if this is maybe an opportunity for more of those alternative layouts to start taking hold as typing becomes a less common thing people need to learn early on.
Wasn’t the whole idea to minimize the amount of times your typewriter seized up? Happened often enough with QWERTY keyboards when it came to the cheap typewriters. Yes, I’m old.
That is why the letters are all in a funny order, but that’s not why the keys were staggered. They were staggered because of the mechanical linkages underneath the keys, so the linkages could be made straight rather than having to bend around other keys in the way.
Ergodox EZ has my whole hearted recommendation. Their keyboards are amazing and the only thing better for ergonomics would be a more custom curved piece.
They’re a good company, I would recommend anyone checking them out.
Using one right now. Never had a better one.
Another vote for the ErgoDox EZ. It’s pricey but very much worth the investment. Makes me hate every other keyboard I use lol
Second this, using my ergodox right now.
I have a planck at work and a preonic at home. It takes some time to get used to but now that I have switched I will never go back. I might try something split like a corne next but I’m kind of waiting for something that matches my olkb boards a bit better. Ortholinear would be the new standard if I had my way. I’m also eyeing that MNT Reform pocket pretty hard for that awesome keyboard but I really want them to release a tactile switch option for it.
I want to try it but I’m worried that I’ll get too frustrated and then have (another) expensive keyboard that I don’t use.
I use a planck as my daily driver. I wouldn’t recommend it unless you have some good reasons to switch.
It took about 2 weeks of use and practice before I could type at a reasonable rate with it. And then it took about 2 weeks before I could type on a normal keyboard again.
I had a few reasons why I got one
- I travel enough that having a small form factor was important
- I have small hands, and was developing some wrist pain from stretching and moving my hand on larger keyboards. It did help a lot, but I think switching to a 60% would have been just as helpful.
- I didn’t type that fast anyway and have pretty bad form, I was hoping switching layouts would be a natural way to retrain my typing and type faster. I did improve for a bit, but I stopped practicing and am a pretty terrible typer again
I do think it’s pretty cool. It’s a conversation starter when people walk by my desk. The planck is a 40%, so most people haven’t seen a keyboard that small.
At work I use a planck paired with a numpad. It’s perfect for me, but it was definitely a learning experience. Probably 2 weeks or so to get used to it. Most people would probably like a preonic more, the number row is a must for gaming and it makes learning quicker.
I understood some of those words.
Olkb.com can probably answer most questions you have. They where one of the first to bring ortholinear keyboards to the market. Planck and Preonic are models they make. Preonic has a number row, planck doesn’t. MNT is a company making open and hackable devices like laptops, they aren’t making devices for the masses, instead trying to make something that is longer lasting and repairable. Their ‘pocket’ model has an ortholinear keyboard built in, and I just think that’s neat.
Ortholinear is a great gateway into better keyboards and a better layout. I started with a planck and used it to learn colemak-dh. I have since moved to a more DIY split keyboard with a columnar layout which is ortholinear except the volume are staggered to fit the length of fingers better.
This journey has been a godsend in helping my RSI issues from my Dev job.
The devil’s creation.
