https://web.archive.org/web/20200916174120/https://relivesig...
The image itself: https://web.archive.org/web/20200916210058/https://doc-14-a0...
https://i.ibb.co/MgzRRbk/7.jpg https://i.ibb.co/dQqqtgB/2.jpg
Sincerely typed by someone on a 44 key layout :)
On ergonomics and RSI, tough to say whether some of these things make a difference or not. There's no data. The single biggest difference to me is having multiple thumb keys because that allows you to almost completely relieve the pinkies. The only sideways movement I use them for now is a "sticky keys" style one-shot modifier for Control on the keys adjacent to the home-row. Although having a split board (and standing desk) has been super for overall posture.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/infzme/t... [2] http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/8105b7f97f89fa...
Thumbs do L3, space, L1, escape, L2, L4, control.
L0: dvorak
L1: programmer, left hand symbols (all 4 braces paired under middle and index), right hand arrow keys, nav, pgup/pgdn. Vimlike navigation at the keyboard level!
L2: left hand function keys, right hand numpad
L3: qwerty layout but with command so I get natural one-hand undo/cut/copy/paste
L4: mouse keys. Not a big fan of mouse nav, but keyboard issuing scroll up/down is handy
L1+L2: macros live here, I use this to eg. flip between iterm tabs. I desperately need more bucky/control bits though - It's hard to know which hotkeys are mapped across various applications. Give me a real Meta key, dangit!
This lets me rarely move from home position and it's great for ergonomics. Still trying to figure out what to about the mouse, as that makes my hand cramp. I keep a magic trackpad between the ergodox halves for gestures which is neat. But the dang mouse. Maybe it's the way my brain works, but I'm rarely in a single context, flipping between Pycharm and chrome and terminal constantly. Controlling application focus is a pain point.
I can't do the vim thing. I've tried for years. I'm a fast yet inaccurate typer, and the lack of any insight into the state (other than mode), and the heavy chording setup means spooky action constantly happens. I also hate having to hit a key for mode changes, chording is so much more efficient.
I use bettertouchtool and alfred, and don't have a lot of customization in there, so if anyone has any tips for utilizing this sort of setup to reduce mouse reliance, I'm all ears.
sort of like this: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Frederik...
And they even have keys (modifier keys?) for their feet. They left that off the table (so to speak)
hmm... and maybe some sort of suspension system for your arms, so your arms could float over the keyboard sort of like monitor arms keep your monitor suspended in place but allow movement.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_Oracle_type-7_keybo...
It's sort of like when people see emacs next to something like sublime text on a mac. It's probably super-capable but being a prototype it lacks the polish of a finished product (while overshadowing what it can do)
I use it for things like having keys which jump directly to specific windows, keys which open various terminal types, and even macros for some common commands (Git operations for example).
I don't know that there's any good reason why this isn't more popular other than fashion, which means that an industry has not really built up around plus-sized keyboards like it has around smaller ones. My example was purchased used and was formerly used at a telephone operator's workstation, based on the key legends. There is a fairly robust used market for plus-sized keyboards originally used for specialty applications, mostly POS and dispatchers/radio operators, from companies like PrehKeyTec and Cherry (of the switches). Unfortunately they mostly cost $500+ new and still often demand over $100 used. The majority of these keyboards feature on-board macro programming, but are intended to be programmed in bulk by the vendor of some turnkey solution so the programming tools are a bit awkward (for me, use a GUI keymap editor, export a file, use a command line tool to flash the generated file to the keyboard - I think it actually just produces a full firmware image each time).
The only real disadvantage I would report is that the PrehKeyTecs are made with dome switches that feel decidedly mushy when they're old (and my used model is probably around a decade old). The Cherries use mechanical switches, of course, but tend to be more expensive and aren't made in as interesting of configurations IMO.
Note the blanks in the lower right there do have switches under them so you could put keys there as well (that's where mine has Hold and UnHold incidentally). One warning is that the blank keycaps and relegendable keycaps (the ones that are a clear plastic cover you can stick a bit of paper under) are mostly sold in bulk to system integrators and it's expensive to get them in small quantities. So if you're in the market, you probably want one with as many of those as possible. PrehKeyTec's software supports printing legends for them but it's pretty basic so you might want to use something else to design them.
well, all the emojis.
1) For some reason this thing gives me joy. Imagine sitting at work in front of one of these bad boy keyboards! You'd never get interrupted! People would assume you're running a battleship remotely or something!
2) It seems very Soviet. Or at least very 80s Anime - this is the keyboard we should all be using, only each key should light up in disco colors.
All working together casting arcane spells with the aid of the keyboard.
Dialects of programming languages so old and obscure that even Cthulhu himself would flinch at the sight upon such seeing.
For example, you can't have an ! key. That is always Shift+1 (with a US layout, that is). QMK and other firmwares will let you make an ! key, but it's implemented by pressing shift, then pressing 1. So you could never make a keyboard shortcut that is Shift+! even though you can press that on your keyboard. The OS wouldn't be able to tell the difference between than and Shift+1. As a corollary, you couldn't rebind your keyboard such that Shift+1 outputs @ instead of !.
It's really just a classic case of bad abstraction. All the keyboard hardware does is scan rows and see which columns are also active. That gives you a grid position like (1,2) for "w". It is then forced to translate that to a scancode that it sends to the computer. The computer then sees that scancode and translates it to a letter. Obviously, things would be easier to program if the keyboard just emitted characters, or the OS just read key matrix grid positions. (In the first case, your X key would always be X, no matter what. Annoying for laptop users that want to use Dvorak, of course. In the second case, things like QMK wouldn't need to exist, you could just write a normal program running on your computer to add layers, shifting, tap dances, etc.)
The end result is that everything sucks. Isn't it always?
I know that was probably just meant as an illustration, but you can have an ‘!’ key — it's 07:00CF “Keypad !”¹.
Linux will ignore it² though, because being Linux they had to NIH their own key codes, and Windows will ignore it³ because it wasn't on the IBM PC keyboard in 1981.
¹ https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/documents/hut1_12v2....
² https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v5.8.9/source/drivers/hid/h...
³ http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/6/1/161ba512-40e2-4...
My conclusion: QMK could do this, or at least some firmware could do this. It's hard to come up with an eloquent way to express it, however.
But there's no a priori reason that pressing shift-1 couldn't be special-cased to instead send shift-2, yielding @. It's all being precomposed by the firmware, after all.
It's too bad, because I have a custom key for delete-back-word, and I want shift-thatkey to send delete-forward-word, but as you point out, I can't. But that's a limitation of QMK, not a fact of nature.
I think a lot of people in the mechanical keyboard community think of their keyboards as a hobby just as much as a day-to-day tool. The huge variety of key-switches and keycaps and firmwares and the much greater customization opportunities make mechanical keyboards a very good hobby. And, given the variety, it’s probably possible to find the “perfect” keyboard for everyone.
In the end, I was convincing myself that the expensive mechanical keyboard I bought was better than my ThinkPad and Mac keyboards, when I actually still prefer the laptop-style keys. Is there a mech keyboard out there somewhere that would be the perfect fit for me? I’m sure. But I don’t want to spend the time and money searching for it when my current preferred models work plenty well for me. I’d rather spend my resources in other ways.
Travel distance can also be adjusted, either with o-rings that are used as spacers (that also silence the switch), low profile switches (kailh has laptop-sized switches now) or simply finding a switch on which you wouldn't bottom out (either by making them heavier or by using tactiles with a light bump).
I have a 60% board with gateron yellows (mid-weight tier linear switches). Lubed and with double o-rings on the keycaps, it's one of the quietest keyboards I've ever owned, and the travel distance is very comfortable at about half of what these switches are intended to be (around 2mm).
If you're not much for building these things yourself and doing all the research, I can always recommend the HHKB.
As for profile, the ThinkPad keyboard is rather high profile for a laptop. I don't know of any low-profile mechanical keyboard but some switches have a short travel distance, ideal for gaming and fast typing.
BTW, the ThinkPad keyboard is available standalone if you like it. You may need to buy it secondhand if you want the original though.
It looks like the creator just used whatever random keycaps he had. There are also duplicate arrow keys and duplicates from the navigation cluster (e.g. pgdown). The katakana(?) keys also look like they might be incomplete.
Your option when it comes to a lot of keys (as the one posted here) is either to build it yourself or try to find some very specific offerings, maybe aimed at video production.
Here's one with 127 keys: https://mcinformatica.loja2.com.br/715631-Teclado-Multimidia...
Look out for PS2 and a hard requirement to program them via a real PS2 (not a USB emulated port).
I've bought one (cherry switches sans keycaps), filled it with blank keycaps and now I need to put together some electronics to make it useful (it looks like it uses something like SPI internally).
But first, I'm stuck trying to remember why I thought it would be cool. Because it's just an 8x16 grid of switches.
Point-of-sale hardware is so much fun to play with, and there's so much of it out there!
It's been a really low-priority desire (I won't dignify it with "need") and so I haven't even really worked out a layout or even carefully defined what I'd like, but yeah, the Really Big Keyboard would fill at least a small need.
That is probably trivial to setup on conventional keyboards but I wonder if it is ergonomically better.
There are split keyboards with more keys than the Corne, such as the Lily58. https://github.com/kata0510/Lily58
For ergonomics.
