Now using an Apple magic keyboard. It’s quiet, doesn’t make me hurt, actually has all the keys I need and doesn’t piss anyone off.
This is something that quite a lot of keyboards have, and I find it terrible. The most comfortable keyboards I've ever used have been the Logitech Wave and the MS Sculpt wireless. I prefer the latter, since I never use the numpad, and the keys feel better. Overall it has a cheaper feel, though, and wrist rest padding is falling apart after some 3 years of use.
But I also love my Keychron K2 v1 with Gateron browns, which is flat (Fx row at the same height as the Space row). It's quite high, mind, but an after-market wrist rest has fixed that, and it's a really lovely typing experience. It's quieter than most "basic keyboards" (think basic office keyboards from Dell, etc) and the smooth, low-resistance keys are great for finger fatigue.
Now all I'm looking for is a split compact version of these Topre-like keyboards. Pretty much 99% of the custom keyboard scene is just various housing and PCBs for cherry style switches. For whatever reason with electro-capactive keyboards there are limited options. If anyone knows of a split topre keyboard please let me know!
See: https://rmi-kb.com/niz-ec60/
Something that uses MX-compatible (or alps) switches is going to have an easier time being designed and built, because all you need to do is have an up-to-date footprint to copy/paste in your PCB designer program.
Behold, my one-and-only foray into making my own PCB design. I just followed guides online, and it still took me about $300~$500 to get this from 0 to a working and typing prototype: https://imgur.com/gallery/lZglox7
People have certainly tried [1][2], but the big issue in the design is that the switches don't operate as a standard on/off (trivial to detect), but are instead capacitive, in that the current passing through the electrocapacitive pad on the PCB is somewhere between 1 and 0 (exclusive bounds, iirc, and simplified) at all times, dependent on how far the 'switch' above it is being pressed. This old repo seems to explain it well: https://github.com/tomsmalley/custom-topre-guide
Price and marketability are also issues. Split keebs are niche, ortho keebs are niche, EC keebs are niche, and you're talking about fusing those three together. People would 100% buy in, but it would probably be a microscopic market, to the point where the project would be financially lossy, even if you were selling them for $400 apiece.
The closest you/one might get for now is by buying two of these[3], unless you're dedicated enough to DIY.
[1]: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=97975.0 [2]: https://aficionerds.com/en/blog/20210205_crkbd_ec/ [3]: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=106685.0 (Groupbuy is ended, so you'd have to rely on aftermarket, which would probably be tiny and marked up)
But for work I've used a Mac keyboard for years as well, the numpad-less compact model. It's great and my go-to / default.
But, I bought into the Moonlander hype as well, currently typing this on one and trying to get used to it. I'm a quick typer but no keyboard warrior; typing this message seems to be fine, but coding is a lot more painful or difficult to get used to; I use the arrow keys, which are in awkward positions on the Moonlander; I use some keyboard combinations to select or navigate across whole words, that's some muscle memory that needs to be retrained and the finger combo seems weird. Feels like I have to stretch my fingers a lot more for anything that isn't just typing shitposts on the internets.
Might just be getting used to things, might be I need to relearn some muscle memory, or might be I should finally learn vim or emacs since that's apparently what all the cool kids do. I could never get into it myself, even knowing some tricks, navigating is still painful in vim to me.
> coding is a lot more painful or difficult to get used to
Primarily, it was the symbols, {}()[]$ etc, which were hardest to hit for me. I put my Layer 1 "hold" key to the left of my H key (I use the QWERTY layout) and have remapped keys under my left hand to output symbols with Layer 1. It takes some memorizing to remember which key to press for each symbol, but it is not too bad.
> I use the arrow keys, which are in awkward positions on the Moonlander
I used to use the arrow keys using my middle and index finger. Now I use my thumbs. It's a lot easier this way.
> finger combo seems weird
Try remapping those modifier keys to an easier-to-reach key, or alternatively setting up a macro key (for example, I have a Command-space macro key because command and space are on the same thumb cluster in my layout).
I switched to Apple chicklet keyboard because I thought is would resolve sore wrists I had with membrane keyboard.
Then I switched to mechanical keyboard because the sore wrists was even worse with Apple flat keyboard. Same path for few of my mates.
I didn't spend that much because I don't care about aesthetic (iKBC 60 MX Brown for work and DIY 60 Kailh white with QMK for home), never went back.