Comment by mk_stjames | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mk_stjames | Hacker News Reader

I like the slab form factors (One of my first portable computers was a Tandy Model 100) but I cannot understand how someone uses a keyboard that ...doesn't have at least all the letters and numbers and period/backslash/colon etc... especially for programming!

I mean I get by reading a bit from the hackaday post that there are combos or 'chords' and so I guess you are meant to memorize these chord claw combinations for things, and yes I see the videos of people claiming it can be fast etc etc but....

man I just don't get how someone could just unlearn the muscle memory of a normal keyboard layout. I had a partner with a Spanish layout keyboard macbook where a just a few keys are mixed around compared to ANSI and even after sitting with it many times it was still nearly un-useable for me... and that was just a few keys swapped around!

I have noticed all the people building and using these reduced-key-count keyboards on youtube are all very young people. So maybe it has something to do with still having a pliable brain and not having decades of muscle memory to get past.

It's just a thing. As a US qwerty layout user I've had to use JP while living in Japan. Got into mechanical keyboards and have used a 60% HHKB, 40% Vortex Core (chords), and now a fully programmable ZSA Moonlander of which no one but me could actually type a large set of special characters on.

Then mix in the emacs, vim, kakoune obsession and, well, fluidity in key memorization is king.

Have tinkered with the dvorak layout or similar but can't really commit because that is actually the one thing where the effort curve takes too long to pay off for me.

I turn 44 this month FWIW.

Impressive evolutionary history for your various keyboard and keyboard-focused tool preferences! Would like to know more.

Curious to know if you have any thoughts about the Eucalyn layout. It's a layout focused on Japanese, Vim, and Dvorak: https://eucalyn.hatenadiary.jp/entry/about-eucalyn-layout

Shameless plug, this is my Dvorak/Vim focused layout Small Board for Dvorak (SB4DV): https://github.com/1MachineElf/qmk_firmware/tree/_sb4dv/keyb...

Remember how fast people got at texting on feature phones? It's like that, but faster. You just have to train at it; like a stenographer's keyboard.

Anyone who types in a language that uses a lot of non-keyboard characters (think accents, etc) is already used to some of it.

Sounds dumb, but I miss the days of being able to reply to a text without actually pulling my phone out of my pocket. Usually it was something to the effect of a predictive "one sec" or slightly risky "yup" if I thought I already knew how they'd respond.

Thank you for confirming that we didn't type that slow back then. I felt like I was faster on physical keyboards.

The ergo community loves their 40% keyboards. The reasoning is that your fingers can not reach large number of keys anyways without moving the whole hand, and by eliminating the hand/wrist movement you can be more ergonomic even if it leads to more keypresses.

Same thinking can be applied to speed too, hand repositioning and finger-stretching are not fast things to do, so concentrating functionality near home positions allows you to do the keypresses very fast which trades off the number of keypresses.

This all said, I personally haven't used such keyboards, this is more of second hand impressions

I thought the ergo community loved their split, ortho, big ass keyboards? I just bought an used Kinesis (the simple one though), love to see if it improves my wrist pain.

I see lot of love for Corne (and similar) keyboards, and 3.6k GH stars attest to that: https://github.com/foostan/crkbd

What are you basing this on? Every serious ergo keyboard I've seen is a split keyboard.

I'm just grouping in general 34-48ish key keyboards into "40%" category regardless if they are split or not or something in between. So popular designs such as Corne falls in there.

Actually this one is really cleaver. The keys you see are actually a full QWERTY in the normal layout so no memorizing chords for typing English. [Shift] is just long-pressing Z so you are not completely confounding your muscle memory. Numbers and arrows being behind a fn key seems a good trade off for the space saved. So really only `[];',/` are become chords to match `{}:@<>?` on a full keyboard.

space being saved for what though? space saved is a false economy.

Most people use a 0% keyboard on thier tablet; I think space is the most premium. Personally I would not go this far in a desktop keyboard. Though I trade away the numpad to save space for a more central mouse.

> man I just don't get how someone could just unlearn the muscle memory of a normal keyboard layout

Honestly - this is the draw to unusual layouts to me. It's significantly helped RSI for typing too much. I don't need 'ultimate speed' really as much as comfort and physically being able to type.

It's medical! At least that's what i tell my wife (... and myself) when the credit card bill comes in.

I totally see where you’re coming from, and yes, the first few days on it were nightmarish, but I eventually got good on it. I code as fast as I do on my 65%, and not having to ever move your hands away from the main position is actually super comfortable! Chords and tap dancing definitely require a lot of muscle memory, but they are game changers.

Please add attribution to the cyberpunk image you are using on your github. That artist is Deathburger. https://citadel9.com/

I tried to get into more ergonomic layouts several times over my lifespan ... I got somewhat proficient in Dvorak and later in Neo2, still have them on "hot dial".

While plain writing was fine with both layouts, what really made them unappealing to me is that I just could not use Vim anymore. A lot of working with Vim is blasting through chains of single button presses that have become second nature to me over the decades. With alternative layouts my text editing just ground to a crawl.

i guess the secret is learning blind typing and always use the same layout like querty/dvorak/colemak

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