Shift Happens: A book about keyboards | Hacker News Reader

Shift Happens: A book about keyboards

shifthappens.backerkit.com

27 pointssigna1111 comments

Marcin Wichary, the person behind this book, has long done outstanding work chronicling computer history through photography and I would expect this book on keyboards (generally speaking) to continue that excellence.

Very happy to see this kickstarter being so successful.

The update emails through this kickstarter have been fantastic. Tons of fascinating details on the process, little previews of content, and interesting insights. Would highly recommend.

Keyboards are an endless money pit for me. Every year or so I’ll randomly get dissatisfied with my setup and seek to somehow upgrade it. At some point I’ll have to admit that it’s because I just like playing with new hardware… but maybe not today :)

I take it you have experience. What are you looking for in a good keyboard?

(As someone who's always dissatisfied, but don't like shopping. ;)

If you don’t like shopping, it’s fun to build your own keyboard :-)

Agreed!

Built a LilyPad kit. I found it too tall for my liking, so went back to my old Dell keyboard.

I have parts for a low-profile Bluetooth keyboard laying on my desk. I couldn't find an existing design I liked. Just waiting for inspiration/time to design the PCB... It'll come.

Funny, I wrote this the other day on HN:

I eventually wound up with Kinesis ergo keyboards and stopped being much "into" keyboards; they are a means to an end: https://jakeseliger.com/2011/07/17/further-thoughts-on-the-k...

Now I have an Advantage 3 with Box White switches, after admittedly talking to an Upgrade Keyboards key switch sommelier, which I somewhat undercuts my first sentence in the preceding paragraph.

New hardware is fun but, simultaneously, keyboards are fundamentally means to an end, more than ends in themselves. Then there are people like Stapelberg, who produced the stapelberg for the Kinesis keyboards, and who I have to admire for their obsession with modding and their fortitude: https://michael.stapelberg.ch/posts/2020-07-09-kint-kinesis-...

Exactly my thoughts but with the HHKB. I can't imagine another keyboard surpassing it in terms of usability or thoughtful design, so shopping around for new keyboards isn't interesting anymore.

However, I still like enjoy looking at keyboard designs and am always interested in novel layouts, so the book appeals to me. $150 on a book is certainly a lot cheaper than $1000 a year on keyboards.

That tracks with my experience. There's just not much in the full ergo market (though there's plenty in the faux-ergo market ...), so once you find one you like, there's very little compelling you to switch.

It's an incredibly fad-driven market, and full ergo is "weird enough" that it doesn't have nearly as much widespread appeal (despite being inarguably superior for preventing RSI).

Not "endless" - I won't live that long :(

But once every three or four years, I try replacing my Model M. I'll try the new one for a week, and then switch back to 35 year old Model M. I now have half a dozen high-quality $200 keyboards that go unused.

Ah, per limited edition & popular demand, will eventually be a real world, example of type sematics of the topoid ducktype. aka worn out & held together by duck tape.

At moment, looks like the electronic version seen as having an incompatible structural type system [0].

----

C/C++ has type punning [1].

Lisp has nil punning [2].

Python has duck typing.[3].

[0] : http://nullprogram.com/blog/2014/04/25/

[1] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_punning

[2] : http://ericnormand.me/podcast/what-is-nil-punning

[3] : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_typing

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