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Comment by michaelgrafl | Hacker News Reader

I don't know or care if mechanical keyboards increase my typing speed and/or precision, but they feel great and make me enjoy work more. If I can choose between a rocky desk and a sturdy one, I'll choose the latter, although they both do the job sufficiently well for my needs.

A few months ago I got myself a tenkeyless with brown Cherry MX switches, and I am getting a second one now, because I can't be bothered to type on a rubber dome at home anymore. I might even paint this one and install PBT keys and O-rings, which only shows that I'm enjoying these things enough to develop a full blown fetish.

I also agree that the MacBook keyboards were pretty great before the retina ones were introduced, and they seem to get worse (flatter) with every revision. I now prefer the current Lenovo chiclets over the current Apple ones.

The Apple Trackpad still rocks my socks off, though.

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If they only were as much available to buy as much people talk about them. I never used it before, I tried, I loved it, I researched a lot, I've finally chosen one ... and only got disappointed by availability. They're nowhere to be in stock. I found it only on Amazon UK and they want almost the same as keyboard price for a shipping. And no, it's not some bizarre custom made thing - it is just a normal Ducky One TKL. I got the feeling that market was pretty small on them, then people started to talk, hype risen, and now we have more requests then offers.

Look for different models. Corsair and Razer both make excellent mechanical keyboards as well.

In the end I've chosen Ducky One without back light. Not a big deal as I usually work with some small light on. There was shop in Indonesia which has not that bad shipping rates around Asia. Sooner or later I will probably buy PBT keycaps. I am good for now, still, that wasn't the best customer experience. I am talking about market in general, not this specific shop.

Massdrop usually has interesting mech kb's as well.

As a programmer I am disappointed with the lack of innovation in mechanical keyboards. They all look the same and have extremely similar layouts.

What I could really use is some navigation keys to the left of the keyboard; maybe two columns of keys that are programmable; any innovation actually would be nice.

or, hear me out, some kind of dynamic programmable bar just above the keyboard?

How about http://keyboard.io? They have a freely programmable "Any" key.

(Not involved with them, just a customer.)

There's lots of innovation but you need to look at the smaller developers and in some cases build it from parts yourself. Check out the something like the Planck, Keyboardio, The White Fox or the various Red Scarf II boards.

All of those you can also customise to make any key do exactly what you want, make the space bar double as a modifier key etc.

There's stuff like this: https://ergodox-ez.com/

Or this: https://shop.keyboard.io/

You can get keyboard without a numpad and add a Filco TenKeyPad to the mix.

Navigation keys on the left would be cool. But I'm also really happy with a default tenkeyless. I think that fact that they mostly look the same is good. Like most electric guitars look like Stratocasters or Les Pauls. But then I'm not a big fan of novelty in design in general.

There are people who build their own keyboards using mechanical switches in interesting designs.

Freaks.

http://geekhack.org/ . You're welcome.

I recommend the Ergodox wholeheartedly. You can put arrows wherever you want. I have a layer always set up so I hold down a thumb key and the home row becomes arrows. As a touch-typist, I can move the cursor and select text (holding "shift") without moving my hand. I'm using Dvorak layout, but if it was Qwerty, my (right hand) home row goes from this:

Y U I O

H J K L

To:

Esc PgUp Up PgDn

Home Left Down Right End

It is totally natural now for me, I get frustrated being on a keyboard without this functionality.

Odd, I couldn't get that to format correctly, is there anyway to define a code block in hacker news markup?

I blame consumers for the lack of (reasonably-priced/available) innovative options in keyboards.

Everyone who notices my Ergodox thinks I'm the one who's odd, while I think anybody who would use a horrible membrane keyboard for 8 hours a day at work without yearning for something better is the one who is odd.

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