Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

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  > How much does having the sides separate help?

All the difference in the world.

I'm currently on my second Matias Ergo Pro [1]. I love the thing, it is one of my favorite tools I've used in any industry. I put it up there with VIM, the hydraulic press, and Snap-On ratchets. I'll be honest, I prefer Cherry keys to these Alps clones, and the build quality is absolutely excellent in some aspects yet atrocious in other aspects. But a split keyboard with actual F* keys (used heavily in Jetbrains IDEs, plus I've got a bunch of KDE features on them) has become a necessary tool for me.

I'm now considering a Raise keyboard, which like the UHK is missing the F* keys. I'm right now prototyping some F* keypads, not unlike an independent numpad, but in truth I doubt that I will approach the level of comfort as the Matias boards.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have about mechanical or split boards. I've had quite a few )).

[1] https://matias.ca/ergopro/pc/

It seems like every ergo keyboard I've looked at has something about the layout that turns me off. The keyboard mentioned in this post has no arrow keys. The keyboard you linked to seems to lack volume keys but has dedicated cut, paste, copy keys.

I know everyone makes a big deal over key switches, but that's not something I've ever felt strongly about.

I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad. It would be great if the sides were fully separated, but that's less important to me. I've been using the MS Sculpt for a couple years now, and even after all that time I find my muscle memory is still calibrated to the old MS natural.

  > I really wish I could find an old MS Natural keyboard without the number pad.

I had one!

I actually sawed off the end, and folded the membrane underneath. The rest I filled in with Sugru I believe. I really don't remember if that was before or after I saw someone on Geekhack do the same. Those were terrific keyboards, I still have at least one (modified, but in a different way) in storage.

The Matias has volume keys, but they are on the F10, F11, and F12 keys when pressed with the Fn key. But the new version of the Matias can be reprogrammed, so the otherwise useless Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste keys can be made into volume keys.

The X-Bows Knight[1] looks like the closest option to me. I'm seriously thinking of getting one.

The lack of tenting is about the only thing giving me pause. There's also no Home, End or Insert keys[2] but that is not a deal breaker for me.

[1] https://x-bows.com/products/x-bows-knight-ergonomic-mechanic...

[2] Can possibly deal with that via function layers.

I had one of these and I cannot caution you against it strongly enough if you’re a programmer. Your right pinkie has so much to do, and the central enter and backspace mean you’re constant

ly going to be making errors like this. If you can get your hands on one to evaluate first I’d recommend that. For normal text typing though it’s probably fine.

Take a look at Kinesis Freestyle Edge (https://gaming.kinesis-ergo.com/product/freestyle-edge/).

Seconded. It's almost painless split keyboard for normal user but also has great software and some advanced features. Kinesis Freestyle Pro is almost same.

Xah-Lee's list of mass-market ergonomic keyboards has a Fujitsu KBPC E, which is the only one I see that keeps the inverted-T of arrow keys, but dispenses with the numpad.

I have a gallery of mechanical split keyboards, but I don't think what you want exists there either. You could design a PCB yourself.

http://xahlee.info/kbd/ergonomic_keyboards_index.html

https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/

I noticed a pull request to my gallery of split, mechanical keyboards, and it might be just what you're looking for -- although it's a 100% DIY solution.

The "Natural Ergonomic Keyboard, Type A", an open-source, mechanical reconstruction of MS Natural.

https://github.com/ecopoesis/nek-type-a#body

if you prefer mx switches and dont mind soldering you might like this:

https://keeb.io/products/sinc-split-staggered-75-keyboard

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