Two hackers one keyboard two ways | Hacker News Reader

Two hackers one keyboard two ways

flak.tedunangst.com

206 pointszdw96 comments

I remember thinking as a nipper that if only I had a second mouse, I could plug it in and have two pointers. I was interested in this for solitaire-cheating purposes: I thought I'd be able to click-drag away the top card (with nowhere to put it) and then (while holding it still with the other mouse) click to reveal the one underneath.

And what could be better than that.

Linux (or rather Xorg) has support for 2 pointers. I wonder, if each mouse pulls on one side of the desktop, does it stretch or does it shatter?

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Multi-pointer_X

Linux being linux, I bet it rather deforms the fabric of time before stretching the other dimensions. Can’t wait for quantum computers with a 5th dimension.

> Linux being linux, I bet it rather deforms the fabric of time before stretching the other dimensions. Can’t wait for quantum computers with a 5th dimension.

Depends on what driver you have. That only happens if the spacetime driver is loaded, you can change which one it loads at startup by altering your xorg.conf file

You can still use the spacetime driver at runtime if you remembered to load the anti-entropy plugin at boot. You just set the system clock back to (uptime - 1), load the spacetime driver and then fast-forward time back to now. Though you should make sure not to make any filesystem (or family tree) modifications while you have the system in the past. See the video tutorial "Back to the Future" for more info.

The Amiga had support for this in circa 1985. You could play 2-player competitive lemmings which was a game like nothing I've seen since.

I remember playing Settlers in 2-player mode with a mouse each on my Amiga 1200. I thought that was the only game with support for that, TIL...

Settlers at least, had support for 2 mice back it the day.

The true legend of quad mastery foretells the coming of a hacker capable of using four keyboards simultaneously. One for each hand, one for each feet. Such a superhuman being could theoretically hack anything, even the NSA. They would not be able to turn off the monitors of the computers fast enough to stop him.

One with such power must surely see within the network, that shadowy place that repels and terrorizes us.

The network fears him. He walks unmolested through the cyberspace despite not having put up any firewalls. His logs are clean for not one dares make a move against him. Chinese bots send themselves signal nine when they spot him, thereby escaping a fate worse than deletion.

He can eat glass. It does not harm him.

Every moon and well into the depths of the night, for it is the only time he may work undisturbed, he takes a few of his numerous magic silicon runes and imbues them with purpose using a magic keyboard enchantment. It is not long before the results are observed. Yes, he purposefully overdrives his uncooled chips to red hot temperatures until they melt away, the nanometer inscribings sublimating into magic smoke.

He breathes the magic smoke. Lesser beings recoil at the sight and yet the quad master is unfazed. His eyes shine terminal green once the ritual is complete, scanlines visible in his pupils, his source sorcery enhanced. Merged with the essence of silicon, he becomes more machine than man, a human compiler, able to squeeze out C performance out of the most dynamic of languages.

Why do you think we have multitasking os's?

There's no other reason for being able to open multiple instances of a text editor.

Anyone remember Uplink[1]? It was a pretty fun, somewhat realistic black hat/script kiddie simulator game.

I always wanted to make a game where you go against another human, and try to hack into each other's systems; but with pretty graphics and some "physical" game world, where your agents could be autonomous or remote-controlled bots. So there's a bit of combat / tactics; "hacking" something could require solving a very short minigame (2048, tetris, hangman, think WarioWare[2]); you could dump a fallen enemy bot's memory to recover their programming and look for a weakness; deploy RF jammer to make enemy bots in the area revert to auto-pilot; etc. You get to make your own designs, setup perimeter defenses, maybe a little bit like Factorio meets Robot Wars, with scripting in Forth/Scheme/Lua.

[1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1510/Uplink/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarioWare,_Inc.:_Mega_Microgam...!

Relevant discussion from 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38047861

Not quite the same but the Netrunner card game is an assymetric hacker vs corp game. It's... being revived via community support and has an active online scene I believe.

Edit: Netrunner not Nethack... oops

> Netrunner ... hacker vs corp

"The game took place in the setting for the Cyberpunk 2020 role-playing game"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netrunner

Yep, sounded familiar from the Cyberpunk RED game my tabletop group started recently. It's interesting to me how I just never heard of this setting for over a decade of playing TTRPGs and now it's seemingly everywhere.

Just to comment on this, given you mention a year: the game is from 90s and out of print. It is by the same person as Magic: The Gathering:

> Netrunner is an out-of-print collectible card game (CCG) designed by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering. It was published by Wizards of the Coast and introduced in April 1996.

CCG is a bit of a weird mention, as there isn't the typical RNG involved with buying the cards (like w/MtG) since you buy the entire set or expansion in once.

The game also has a spiritual successor: 'Android: Netrunner' [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android:_Netrunner

I thought Android:Netrunner was a reskin/remake of the same game, so a bit more than a spiritual successor. Garfield is credited IIRC.

I don't know. I can only comment on the original. A friend of mine had it back in the days, could just play it like that. The game suffered from the same issue as Star Wars CCG: too little players in my vicinity. Everyone played Magic, and I only played type I cause I CBA to replace all my cards so often.

Either way, I won't play physical card games anymore except those involving the basic set from A to K plus joker (whatever its name might be). Because those cards are cheaply replaced when playing with little kids. Otherwise, for multiplayer, a computer is OK. Same with tabletop RPGs.

Android: Netrunner was a partnership between Fantasy Flight Games' Android (who is now owned by someone else I think) and Wizard of the Coast's Netrunner.

The game lives on via a community version: https://nullsignal.games/products/system-gateway/ it's print and play or order cards, it has a core set and regular expansions. I don't know how vibrant the scene is but they seem to do regular work on it.

Yeah Netrunner was a fun card game, and not really P2W but B2P. You'd buy the set (or expansion) and you and your buddy could play, doing blue vs red and vice versa. The game was fun but also you had to buy it once and that was it. No RNG with regards to packs of cards, new expansions obsoleting your already owned cards, etc. If you want a fun B2P fun card game (with rogue-like elements, which you may appreciate given your comment of Nethack ;), I can recommend Slay The Spire.

Sorry, you mean asymmetric.

assymetric is when both buttchecks are not perfectly identical.

(Most of my own long term spelling problems are in this same format — I know there’s a double letter, butt I double the wrong letter. (Sorry))

I think youll find Assymetric is a measure of how much of an arse someone / something is.

At my job, this is something we are measured on. ( I work in a call centre, for a government complaints dept)

This reminds me of the scene in Ghost in the Shell when the man approaches the terminal and then each of his fingers subdivide into thin metal wires, flurrying across the terminal’s interface.

I wonder how research is going w.r.t. augmenting perceptual input bandwidth for humans. It seems like a strong limiting factor on the species.

I'd put that way, way down the list behind a bunch of cognitive biases, inability to consider scale or plan for the long term, etc.

I think the biggest overhead is language itself. Writing unambiguous language into text is a lot of work. If we could factor the work of disambiguation out somehow, we could apply that as a sort of UI/UX compression.

Watching my 10 year old manipulate the mindcraft ui is mindblowing - she was anticipating the UI before it appeared. On the other hand, watching my officemate try to edit command lines by pressing left arrow 65 times fills me with rage. I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit where people aren't aware of the power of their tools.

Fun fact: That scientist does that instead of simply using a neural interface like the Major and other cyborgs because he's an old-fashioned computer scientist and doesn't trust his brain to computers. Seeing as they live in a world where remote servers can fry your brain if you fail to hack into them, it doesn't seem like such a bad idea.

Source: the manga.

That is a very fun fact! I have yet to make the leap to manga, but learning this definitely encourages me to do so. I've been been thinking about taking the first leap with the Berserk Deluxe Edition, but have yet to take the leap.

Is the ridiculousness of these scenes an inside joke amongst writers trying to top each other? Or is that just another false internet un-fact I have saved to my brain :p I like to think it’s true because it’s hilarious.

I think that's totally possible. Especially when you're many seasons deep into a TV show, you have to get creative.

I used to work with a guy that mounted a keyboard vertically on each side of his chair, using both at once.

A true legend.

I saw someone playing a concertina once and thought hmmmm... a split keyboard might work there. Never got round to doing anything about it, though.

May I introduce you to the Commodordion: https://linusakesson.net/commodordion/index.php

Even more DYI https://github.com/YangPiCui/ErgonomicVerticalKeyboard

I'm typing this from a split keyboard right now. If someone made a nice set of arms that could mount my keyboard halves to my chair arms (with enough room on the right for a trackpad) I'd absolutely spring for that and get rid of my desk. Then when Apple makes a Vision Air I can just go full cyberman and drop the monitor too.

It frustrates me to no end that the split form factor has not gotten more poplar. It naturally seems a better fit for the human body. Instead, I am stuck paying a premium to kinesis for their garbage software.

Sadly I agree. Splits are great. I am eagerly awaiting my ortholinear split keyboard from https://dygma.com/ - no affiliation other than being a customer of their first keyboard, the raise and having the defy on order.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the proliferation of mechanical keyboards brings people closer to the fringe where custom keyboards, layouts, parts and pcbs are the norm for the pursuit of perfection.

I don't know how popular you would like, but ZSA has been around for quite a while. Their ErgoDox has been around for years, and they have other models as well. [0]

The Dygma Defy has also been making waves, it released not too long ago. [1]

The Keyboardio Model 100 has been out for a while, it pops up occasionally on eBay so can't be too unpopular if it shows up there. [2]

The MoErgo is probably less well known but has a good following both in the US and Europe. [3] Their Discord is pretty active.

> premium to kinesis for their garbage software

All the keyboards above are programmable, often with more than one option for programming. QMK is the common denominator and it isn't bad, but their are other options (Python, etc) and usually web-based configurators also.

...If you're willing to go with something that is too new to be popular, but has excellent ergonomics, programmable, and great customer support in US, I'd recommend Cyboard. [4] Currently waiting for mine to be shipped.

There are lots of options besides these. So you are correct split keyboards are not available at the local big-box store, but at the same time they are definitely more powerful, more comfortable, and more customizable as a class. They are out there and they have a following, just have to know how to get started.

[0] https://www.zsa.io/voyager/

[1] https://dygma.com/pages/defy

[2] https://shop.keyboard.io/

[3] https://www.moergo.com/

[4] https://www.cyboard.digital/

I know a lot of these options exist, but I have a few unbreakable requirements.

1) not building it myself. I need off the shelf. I am lousy with a soldering iron.

2) it must have a dedicated F row. I do not care about layers and supposedly saved movement distance. I must always be able to mash F5 without any chording. Give me an F row + layers. The keys need to physically be there, my desk has plenty of “vertical” space to hold it.

Dedicated FN row supported by 2 out of 5 links above, check Cyboard and MoErgo. Most places (all in these links) provide turnkey, no soldering required.

Agree your requirements get into rarefied territory if you want something ready-to-go, split, programmable, with FN row. But there are options.

Get Keeb.io sinc it’s sold prebuilt and has an f row. I have 2

You don't need to solder modern day DIY keyboards (to my disappointment). There are now switch sockets. So everything is pre-soldered and all you do is maybe put in some screws, put in the switches and put on the keycaps.

Glove80 has a dedicated F row, is off he shelf, and also has layers if you -want- to use them. I haven't bothered with the layers yet, but my carpal tunnel definitely thanks me for switching to it.

I am not affiliated in anyway, just a happy customer who is no longer in pain after work. Dedicated F row was a must for me as well.

I’d say non-split keyboard is barbaric at this point of computer evolution

Check out this mounting kit: https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/tripod-kit/

This is nice in that it has standardized threaded mounting points, but doesn't solve the distance from the chair arms outs to the keyboard halves. So there'd still be some doing.

The cable connecting the two halves of my ZSA is just a standard 3.5mm TRRS audio cable. Moonlander docs say max length is 6ft~=2m. That should be plenty to route it around the back of your chair.

sure, that's not the issue. The issue is that these mounts let you put a moonlander on tripod bolts. They do not address attaching the so-equipped keyboard halves to the arms of a chair.

Glove80 has a quick release mount system meant specifically for that use case. The first version was better in my opinion, but they had trouble source some parts and just launched a version 2 with the parts they can get.

Welcome to the rabbit hole https://aposymbiont.github.io/split-keyboards/

I do something similar at home: lie on my bed with a keyboard half leaning on each of my hips.

One of these days I'll get around to 3D-printing a clamp or something.

One of the first things I saw Linux do was utilize two mouses with two separate mouse pointers (serial and ps2 at the time), I was a young teenager and it blew my mind and I was installing Linux at home by the end of the month.

Windows 95 could do that, maybe even DOS (less sure about that though).

> Windows 95 could do that

With two separate cursors on screen? I don't think so.

I played countless hours of Settlers 2 with two mice on split-screen with my friend on Windows 95.

The linux port of world of goo supported multiplayer via two mice. It was a bit of an involved setup(special udev rules if I remember correctly) but I thought it neat they took the time to make it happen.

update: I looked it up. you had to change the game config and change permissions on the mouse device. so not that bad considering.

That NCIS scene is ridiculed a lot. But I think it was here that someone told me writers intentionally write s like this to f with people like us and laugh about it. And I now think that is true and it changed me.

Those shows are so formulaic, they have to do something to entertain themselves I suppose.

The thing is, everyone who has ever said or done anything stupid can say the same, that they were only doing it to troll people. Pretending to be stupid isn't trolling, it's making yourself look stupid.

You’ve never hammed anything up on purpose for laughs? Overexaggeration is peak comedy!

Not at the expense of my own dignity, no. Or at least, not knowing it would be at my expense ahead of time.

The two hackers on one keyboard portion of that scene may have been to screw with people. But the last portion of that sequence, I think, was actually meant to pander to the elder generation that makes up the vast majority of their viewership. What happens at the end is that the older, no-nonsense detective just waltzes over to the outlet and unplugs the monitor, this stopping the hacker in his tracks. the two hackers give a sort of "why didn't I think of that look" as the old detective grins.

Ha! I always though it was a power plug, but it indeed looks more like the plug from a monitor... That's even stupider. Or... they laugh at us even more.

The part I always liked about that 2 people on a keyboard scene from NCIS was the boss unplugging the power to the workstation, preventing them from further attempts at blocking access to....the server.

Completely unnecessary. Why didn't they just turn off the monitor? /s

Onion headline: "Man angry at hard drive hits monitor"

Well, they said the hacker was going through the workstation, not sure why... but seems reasonable to drop the workstation if that's the case (but the real question is did the boss pull the computer power cable or the monitor power cable)

If that was the case, then they were both idiots, because unplugging ETH or Power would have stopped the "hack".

The thing that always gets me about the NCIS scene is the lack of continuity in Tony's sandwich - it is either "full" or "half-eaten".

I'd love some kind of quick method to move my entire second screen, primary keyboard, and mouse, with one keybind to my Mac instead of my Windows machine and vice versa. I don't need multiplexing, I'd even be OK with keeping pointer as-is. But two keyboards on my desk, it is too much. One solution I've found is USB2BT with different Bluetooth profiles. A KVM could also work, but I require 4k HDMI and USB. The KVMs I've found are too expensive for my liking.

Also, with practice of keybinds in screen/tmux/zellij you can achieve something which approaches what is written in this article. With a good DE, you can even run two applications together on the same screen, or on two screens, or more.

And I knew people who were running three monitors, keyboards, and mice on one computer back in the end of 90s, using XFree86. I used to run two fullscreen X servers myself on the same monitor, one for gaming. If it would crash, and least my whole DE wouldn't die with it. Usually. If it was a kernel crash I was SOL.

I can recommend you KVM from level1tech, I'm using personally version 2DP x 4Computers, but recently I saw they offer 4computers KVM without monitors version, I have no idea what magic they use to know when your cursor reached edge of the screen but it looks exactly what you described is your need

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yep, I looked them up. That seems about the only brand I'd have trusted (need high performance HDMI/DP), but the price is too high for my liking. We're looking at 300+ USD w/o tax.

I've gone with a docking station [1] for my MBP because it also has 100W PD (a big pro as it saved me from buying another power adapter). I put my monitor from DP to HDMI1 and it works. Since it is China ware I don't use the ethernet port. YMMV! And I still have to use the second keyboard. Which sucks. Perhaps I could retry Barrier specifically for that. I also haven't thought of sound yet. On the PC I use a Logitech headset with a user serviceable battery. It uses a proprietary USB-A dongle.

[1] https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005300851711.html (the 'pro' version, and no I didn't buy it because of the lame LED strip but because it was a good price/performance thingy. I did read reviews on docking stations before I purchased)

Not quite the same thing but Barrier and Synergy can make two computers share a mouse and keyboard multi monitor style over a network (ie, you they switch when you mouse over the edge of one screen).

Tried it. Couldn't get it to work reliable (something with it getting stuck to one or the other? I forgot). Latency was noticeable but OKish.

Thanks for the suggestion tho.

I use an external keyboard for my right hand and the laptop keyboard for my left so that the left one can be more straight. So that an inflammation doesn’t worsen. (This is on Ubuntu/Gnome 3 (ugh))

I have tried two external keyboards (on the laptop) but then I had to deal with very annoying input lag from the second plugged in keyboard.

> So that an inflammation doesn’t worsen.

I feel that. It seems like you've found something that works for you, but if you're ever looking to change up your setup, I've got some keyboards that are helpful to me. I'm attached to a certain pricey brand (and they're awesome and I wholeheartedly endorse them), but you can find some cheaper alternatives as well that are similar. (They're also open hardware, so you could build them if you're so inclined.)

I have a Keyboard.io Atreus. It's very small, it has 44 keys. You don't move your hands to type, they just stay where they are and only your fingers move. The downside is that, to make up for the lack of keys, you've gotta use several layers with modifier keys (eg I have 3).

I've also got a split keyboard (Keyboard.io Model 100). Each side can be positioned independently, and they're hooked together by an Ethernet chord. So you could get a similar set up to what you have now.

The other things that were important for me are a vertical mouse (Logitech MX Pro Vertical), and a gaming mousepad, and additional padding for my chair's armrests.

Obligatory reminder that everyone using a computer all day should make sure to put some effort into ergonomics and not developing an RSI.

Aye thanks for the recommendations.

I need to let my arm rest on a wrist patch and/or armchair. Else I get inflammation. With my second keyboard (for my Mac) I didn't do this, as it stands behind the first one, and so now I have developed an inflammation.

The advice for vertical mouse I read before. But I like that my mice are wireless (Logitech G903 and Apple Magic Mouse 2).

There are wireless vertical mice, e.g. the cherry MW 4500, cheap enough to just test it. I really like that model, it comes with a dongle (so likely better latency than if it used Bluetooth) and uses regular batteries, so it can be powered with rechargeable ones. No idea which sensor is in there, likely nothing great, but it worked fine for me for work and gaming.

Yeah that seems like great bang for the buck. I'll try that one and if it works out I will use it till it breaks [EDIT: or try one of the mentioned ones and send it back within 2 weeks if not satisfied]. I read reviews and if it works out I will go for either BakkerElkhuizen Evoluent D Wireless (probably this one), R-Go Tools: Break HE, or Logitech MX Vertical.

Trackball attains too much dirt (heck, even mice do). Maybe BakkerElkhuizen ErgoSlider Plus would also work.

The evoluent mouse often pop up in this space, quite expensive. Not sure they are worth the price. I had a different r-go mouse in for a small test, felt OK, but not better then the cherry. The Logitech MX Vertical should be the mainstream option, but Logitech has quality issues, specifically by using switches that double click after a while. For the price not okay, even if it can happen with many different mice as well.

I really liked the cherry mouse given the alternatives I had at the time ;)

Supposedly the scroll wheel gets dirty quickly, and requires cleaning with contact spray and then some lube. It also has no support for pink apparently. People are claiming defect after X months. Either way, in EU I get 2 years warranty and the price warrants trying it out.

I did never need contact spray with it, during a few years now. The pinky finger might depend on hand size :)

I did have a broken button though, claimed warranty and got the money back, afterwards I soldered in a new button. Was easy enough, but I hope it does not happen too often! https://www.onli-blogging.de/2103/Kaputten-Maustaster-auswec... was my writeup.

Useful to know: Cherry has an additional manufacturer warranty for that mouse, which I claimed with the vendor.

What about using a split keyboard like those from: Kinesis[1], ZSA Moonlander[2] or ErgoDox[3] or Voyager[4], etc. Or full key keyboard with split design like seen at: Logitec[5], Microsoft and others[6].

[1] https://kinesis-ergo.com/keyboards/advantage360/

[2] https://www.zsa.io/moonlander/

[3] https://ergodox-ez.com/

[4] https://www.zsa.io/voyager/

[5] https://www.logitech.com/en-us/products/keyboards/k860-split...

[6] https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/g3935770...

That scene has been elided from recent reruns!

May just be a casualty of trying to cram in more ads. Older shows are often slightly sped up, and suffer cuts, to fit ad loads that are higher than when they were first broadcast (and that episode might count as “older”, these days)

Those kinds of changes irritate me more than they probably should, and having changes like that for such an annoying reason as ads makes it even worse.

If you're watching a show, it should be the same show it was before. I want to see the historical record of how it was when it was broadcast originally.

Same thing when they change other things about the show, eg Dawson's Creek where they have now completely changed the music because of some licensing garbage. It's not the same show. I don't even watch Dawson's Creek but that annoys me.

Maybe overstating it but I feel that it's important for our shared cultural heritage.

Say someone recommends a show to you, then you watch it but you're actually watching what is essentially a different show...

Also, insidious retroactive censorship/whitewashing.

I remember the game Double Dragon on DOS where you could play co-op using one keyboard. Less impressive with just a few buttons used, but a lot of fun.

It was pretty common for games of the era. You could play Settlers 2 with a split screen and two mice! I had a lot of fights with my friend about whether one of us looked on the other half (being 10 year olds, we of course did all the time).

I used to do this a lot as a kid. Liero was the game. Emulators too. I still prefer playing games with a keyboard to this day.

Not 04/01. Hmm, this is either a serious prank or serious hackery for the art of it. Perhaps quantum both. I approve. :]

I just need the upside-down and mirrored keyboard. :{

EDIT: I recall in the 90's - 00's there was a Linux kernel patch to detect and reject feline keyboard input.

Feels like it could be useful for one-handed keyboarding as well.

Haha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8qgehH3kEQ

title sounds like a succession of 2 girls one cup

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