art demands sacrifice. if you want to use that artisan keycap, impale your finger on it.
pain is weakness leaving the body. listen to the beautiful clacks it makes.
(it can get a little TKLraiser, if you will.)
> Music lovers buy stereo systems to listen to their music.
> Audiophiles buy music to listen to their stereo systems.
Looking at my hands as I write this, my wrists are not bent, or at least so little that I don't notice it. My hands are still in the normal touch type positions. Tried split keyboards (like so many other people did) but they don't do anything for me. "Normal" keyboards have the huge advantage that wherever I am (at customers, home, work, computer rooms, everywhere), there's a keyboard I can use.
The problem with home-row typing is that your wrists are bent.
It's possible to learn to type without bending your wrists. I am self-taught and have typed this way for three decades with no wrist issues due to keyboard use. My fingers rest naturally on "QWERF" and "JIOP". I actually cannot type on "ergo" keyboards due to the angles being wrong, and not being able to reach certain keys with both hands.
(I did once have wrist issues due to mouse use, about 15 years ago. This disappeared when switching to a trackball.)
Anyone who prefers "Control" next to "A" (myself included) is likely old enough to have learned to type before computer typing lessons were common, so maybe the author also is not a home-row typist.
People keep saying that and it confuses the hell out of me. Keeping wrists straight while still landing the fingers on the row seems... natural?
Ergo layouts are nice in theory but they make it harder to touch type. The modern keyboard layout is an example of a standard that works: everyone can sit down at a keyboard and start typing, even if function keys are different here or there.
EDIT: Ah, of course I am just one singer in the chorus of self-taught typists responding.
Because they're the exception? That's a bad rule. The only way we improve things is by creating exceptions and adopting them.
Personally, I switched to ergo keyboards 20+ years ago and I'm much happier for it. I've had to change models over the years and there was always a brief adjustment, but it was minor -- and my hands rest is such a more natural position!
For reference, I use a ZSA Moonlander.
It's amazing how many switches you can find today, mostly boring variations of the mx types where people post minutes-long videos of sound and smoothness when lubed.
And how it does rainbow. This is clearly what sells.
Ergonomic keyboards are a completely different market. You can't review an ergo keyboard in 5 minutes, or 5 days. The effort required to learn, and then judge the aspect of a different layout is much, much harder and time consuming. I'd argue it takes months by my own experience.
Ergonomic also means something different to each of us. For people coming in with RSI or other issues, there's no single "best" solution.
What I'm quite happy with though is that this keyboard craze has still increased the number of alternative/ergonomic layouts (and somewhat lowered the price) anyway.
My current keyboard of choice is actually a Unix layout Sun Type 7. Keys are very easy to push but not mushy.
Unlike the chiclet keys, where they trigger at the bottom, so you are always bottoming out and pushing against a "wall".
Everyone has different problems though. I have no problems from hurting my fingers when typing, or carpel tunnel. But I do have messed up shoulders, and having them internally rotated all day is my biggest issue.
The biggest relief for me was a fully split keyboard so that I can have my shoulders neutral rather than rotated. Other people have no problems with their shoulders.
Most of these ergonomic things do help _someone_, I wouldn't claim that they don't work just because they don't help you.
There are also many mechanical switches with little travel and low force (eg. Choc v1, Kailh Super Speed).
I think it might be a result of selection bias when you see more "keyboard enthusiasts" with non ergonomic keyboard. When they find their fit with the right ergonomic keyboard/layout, they might not be that active with looking anymore.
My hands naturally sit at a 45-degree angle across the keyboard. For the most part, my wrists are straight and my fingers are lined up with the key diagonals.
I also move my arms at the shoulders while reaching for keys, so my hand comes closer to the target key and my finger doesn't move so much.
A split normal keyboard doesn't sound advantageous for me.
Maybe I could be convinced to try a split ortholinear keyboard, but a 1-piece unit sounds like a very bad match for the way I keyboard. I feel like I'd be introducing all the same problems others are trying to get away from!
EDIT: Just checked with my wife. She holds her hands in the same position, but locks them in place and does all of the reaching with her fingers.
Also, most people don’t even touch type, does not mean they don’t like a nice keyboard.
There is also the Alice layout, which is an interesting step towards ergonomics on a traditional keyboard.
I wish there was a keyboard club or something that let you try these out for a week or so.
There's a useful tool for comparing ergo layouts and printing out 1:1 scale templates to get an idea of how they would fit your hand size:
It's not quite a substitute for actually using a real keyboard, but it can help to narrow down what you might want to try.
(Now using a Glove80, which provides benefits over the Advantage2 and doesn't have the issues of the Advantage360 Pro.)
I am thinking about getting one, but am unsure about the choc switches and which type I should get.
> Every split keyboard with nice keyswitches has a different layout from every other, and most of them miss one or more of F keys, symmetrical meta keys, standard navigation cluster layout, volume buttons, and so on. Quite extraordinary, considering how much this type of device relies on muscle memory to work. It's like their designers want the device to be less useful, not more!
> Particularly annoying when there's such a wide range of non-split keyboards with nice keyswitches. You've got all the bizarre layouts you can eat, but you still get the option of a more standard one too.
> I wish people would just copy the MS Natural Ergonomic 4000, but with better keyswitches.
Anyway, must be 10 years since the first time I noticed what I can only describe as This Fucking Shit, and here I am still using my MS Natural 4000.
(Probably about time for my biennial keyboard hunt though. Maybe this time I'll get lucky?)
Those small split keyboards generally have layouts that are more coherent and well thought out than the MS Natural Ergonomic 4000.
The design features of standard keyboard layouts are hard to justify: the spacebar takes up the space of 6 or 7 keys; which means the thumbs are only able to use one key when the hands are on home row, and the pinkies get used for many keys. The hands inevitably need to move/stretch in order to use most keys. The rest of a standard keyboard layout is asymmetrical, and the asymmetrical row-stagger makes no ergonomic sense.
The small keyboards instead almost always have 2-3 (or more) keys for each thumb.
That alone makes it much easier for the keyboard to make use of keymap layers.
It's generally also common for such keyboard users to use Home Row modifier keys; where the Alt/Win/Ctrl/Shift keys are put underneath asdf (and jkl;) keys when held. -- This is much more ergonomic than having to use pinky fingers for these keys.
On those small split keyboards, the navigation keys, volume keys, F-keys are all within reach without having to move the hands from home row (and without having to stretch fingers).
Those small split keyboards do force a trade-off, though: the benefit of reduced hand movement / finger stretching comes at the cost of a more complex keyboard layout.
The rectangle layout doesn't cause me issues maybe because I don't bend my wrists sharply when typing and I use a palm rest.
There is definitely a benefit to going split (less hunching of the back and shoulders) but then it can cause cramping with the pinkies. Cramping of the pinking can be solved with a columnar layout for some but by that point you are having to relearn to type.
The problem with ergonomic layouts is that they are not a one size fits all and it can get costly and time consuming to figure out what works for you.
Personally I have arrived at a Cantour Remix with a Colemak-DHm layout but even then I am only 90% happy with this setup.
Fear of losing typing speed holds a lot of people back from trying ergo layouts but from my experience it's possible to use Qwerty during the day while learning another layout on a split board at night without it impacting my Qwerty typing speed.
I do have an ai03 Meridian, which is a Alice-style board (which while not ergo is more in that direction), in the closet that I need to build though but have been putting it off because it requires soldering (hotswap has spoiled me).
I did have keyboard related wrist issues in the past but it was mostly from truly bad keyboards - e.g. spent a couple of years using an Apple 'magic' keyboard. I have no interest in using a tiny reduced layout input device.
I like the magic keyboard because it requires little effort to actuate the key and makes it easy to switch up my working position as it is so similar to the laptop keyboard.
I wish Apple would offer a combined keyboard and trackpad for desktop use that was the same as their laptops. I find being able to switch hands on the trackpad reduces strain.
EDIT: Jokes aside, truly I wonder, for the column stagger folks who use qwerty, how do you deal with the “in” bigram? It’s one of the most common bigrams in English, and a column stagger layout usually _increases_ that distance, ie, it’s actually less ergonomic.
They also use stupid "aviation" connectors on USB cables and all sorts of things, its just aesthetics.