HHKB Studio: The New Happy Hacking Keyboard with TrackPoint | Hacker News Reader

HHKB Studio: The New Happy Hacking Keyboard with TrackPoint

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48 pointsraskelll73 comments

I'm a happy owner of a Tex Shinobi and Tex Shura. It's pretty hard to get a good trackpoint experience and Tex have done a good job getting right over the years (including producing a Lenovo-branded mechanical keyboard). They're a small shop based in Taiwan.

Shura is $169.

https://tex.com.tw/collections/keyboard

Those boards are absolutely gorgeus. I'm not looking for a trackpoint or a standard layout, but I'm still tempted to buy one.

I used the Tex keycaps for a keyboard I built about three years ago. After three years of daily usage I have noticed a lot of wear on the keycaps. Some letters are barely visible, and some of the caps have gotten really shiny, i.e. they have lost their surface structure.

Have you noticed something similar? Other than that they feel really nice and I like them a lot.

The Shura uses double-shot keycaps, where the legends are a different colored plastic whereas earlier TEX models used UV printed or laser etched keycaps.

TEX’s older method is common to a lot of keyboard manufacturers and is prone to wear like you’ve seen. By contrast double-shot keys will get shiny, but their legends will always be legible no matter how many years they’re used.

Those keycaps are doubleshot ABS, though, and ABS is widely considered to be an inferior material compared to PBT. At that price, you would expect the latter.

For cheaper keycaps that come with an office or "gaming" keyboard, sure, but not for higher end ones. PBT doesn't shine after a lot of usage like ABS, true, but high end ABS keycap colors and the sharpness of double-shot legends still tend to be better than PBT (e.g., GMK). Sound and texture is quite variable too, so it's really just a matter of preference. I've used nice PBT keycaps but tend to prefer how nice ABS feels and sounds better.

I’m not too surprised because PBT as a material is harder to work with. It’s more prone to shrinkage and large caps like the spacebar are prone to warping, and this compounds if you try to do doubleshot PBT.

Most of the affordable PBT caps I’ve seen have been dyesub (which can be very durable if done well) or PBT-ABS blend doubleshot.

Yeah, dyesub can be super durable. For the past few years I've rotated between several keyboards as daily drivers. All with dyesub PBT keycaps that retailed in the $30-$40 range.

Zero issues with the dyesub labels.

I generally prefer them to doubleshot PBT, because dyesub labels tend to be much crisper than doubleshot labels. Though, of course, you can find ultra-crisp doubleshot labels or fuzzy dyesub labels.

Absolutely.

By any objective measure PBT is the winner in all regards.

Thank you for the explanation.

If you're in Japan, you can get,

https://archisite.co.jp/products/archiss/quattro/tkl-jp/

, for ~ 15000 円＝ $100.

Sorry for being such a newbie, but I never understood why HHKB was popular, and where it got its fame. I saw my roomate already having it 10 years ago, I find cool the minimalist aspect, but why such keyboard with basic design made it so far ?

Also, on a personal note, having a 65% keyboard now for 3 years, I'll go back to a 75% keyboard. I think functions keys and arrows are used way too frequently to spend your time using shortcuts. Also sometimes it becomes a hell of shortcuts in shortcuts.

I've found that overwhelmingly it's brand perception, fashion and trends that build these situations more than anything else. Add to that the situation where people have spent hundreds of dollars on something and generally feel like they will have to justify it. It must be great, right? They spent hundreds of dollars, of course it's great!

I bought a mechanical keyboard (ErgoDox EZ) for more than $300 after import taxes and it wasn't remarkably better than anything else. I don't use it nowadays, I just use "classic" models from either Logitech or Microsoft (or even a lower-status brand) for the equivalent of ~$13-$17 a pop. I bought several at once but they've never broken so far so I just have a few in storage.

P.S. I had problems with wrist pain and stuff before I bought the ErgoDox which was one of the reasons I bought it. It only got worse after I started using it and the only thing that helped was voice coding and not using a keyboard for some time. After that I started using these bland, uninteresting keyboards and I've never really had the same issues again.

I think part of it is the switches. They use Topre capacitive switches which have a very distinct key feeling than your average mechanical switches made by Cherry (and its clones) or Alps.

RealForce (the keyboard brand from Topre) now have their own line of capacitive keyboards, but a while back HHKB was _the_ capacitive keyboard, or at least around the people I know.

Which makes it very interesting that this new model is using Cherry-type linear switches instead of Topre.

It's mainly due to using topre switches but they also swap CAPSLOCK for CTRL by default (which used to be normal back in the day). For me, having gone through heaps of MX-based boards, I always return to topre. The typing experience is just superior IMHO. Unfortunately this new board uses MX type switches which to me is weird because it's their biggest differentiator and selling point.

    having gone through heaps of MX-based 
    boards, I always return to topre

Have you compared/contrasted Topre switches vs. higher-end MX-compatible switches?

Actual CherryMX branded switches are not great in my experience. I find Gateron's factory-lubed MX compatible switches to be excellent, and they are considered (I think?) middle-tier.

But I have never tried "exotic" or "high-end" MX-compat switches, nor have I tried Topre. I would love a comparison.

HHKB fan here. When using macOS or Linux, I basically never use the function keys, and I find the arrow key shortcuts pleasant to use because they do not require me to move my hands from the home row. Another factor is that I use vim (and VScode with vim bindings) so I use the arrow keys less than usual. Add to that the high build quality, light weight, high quality switches which are not too loud for an office environment, and they are one of my favourite keyboard designs.

I will say that under Windows, or when playing games, the layout becomes problematic... but I use another keyboard for gaming anyway. As always, YMMV.

One thing I like about the newer HHKB keyboards is that they're remappable, which somewhat addresses the Windows shortcomings. The remap tool is only officially supported on the more expensive wireless keyboard, but it works on the wired Classic model by editing the "KeyboardDatalist.json" file in the install directory and replacing all instances of "false" with "true". I mapped Fn+HJKL to the arrow keys, Fn+F to PgDn, Fn+B to PgUp, Fn+N to Home, and Fn+M to End.

I’m in this boat too, although I don’t use VIM. On macOS where mnemonic key shortcuts are the norm, function key usage is low enough that them being layered isn’t an issue, and layered arrows are actually nice than dedicated once you’re used to them.

I have a few boards with the HHKB layout, only a couple of which are HHKBs. For me the layout is nearly perfect, just wish I could have it in my laptops too.

I got the original HHKB when it came out in 1996. The layout makes sense on Unix where function keys are not used much and you can use hjkl in Vim and in readline vi mode. The compact layout saves desk space and allows you to easily take the keyboard with you everywhere.

The HHKB was inspired by the original Macintosh keyboard which doesn't have arrow keys at all (not even via a Fn key): https://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_M0110

But I agree with your point about shortcuts, and I later switched to full-size ergonomic keyboards due to RSI and for Windows use, and now despise keys being relegated to Fn combinations.

I find it really funny how people refer to pressing two keys at the same time as "shortcuts". I never understood that. "Ctrl-C" isn't a "shortcut for copy" any more than pressing "C" is a "shortcut for typing the letter C".

I guess what you don't like is (excessive) key combos or "chords".

I've been using a 65% keyboard for a few years now and I don't miss the function keys one bit, but I do occasionally miss the arrow keys. A lot of UIs are built with the assumption that the arrow keys actually exist and aren't just "arrow commands" that might be bound to other key combos. It's just awkward then if they want you to press "Shift-Left", for example, which is I guess what you call "shortcuts in shortcuts".

It's a shortcut because it's an alternative (and faster) way to access a functionality. There's no other way to get the letter C than to press the C key on your keyboard, therefore it's not a shortcut. Saying that using the function key to access the arrow key is indeed not a shortcut, chord or combo would be more appropriate, but your "Ctrl + C" example was a bad one to take.

What other way is there to access "copy" (Ctrl-C)? I feel like this stems from the belief that the keyboard is secondary to the mouse. So the official way is to right click and select copy from the menu? When was the last time you actually saw someone do that?

You could go the other way and say all the letters on your keyboard are shortcuts for entering the characters specific to your language. After all, there are far more characters in unicode for all the languages in the world and there is no shortcut for those. In Emacs I could do absolutely everything via M-x commands, even typing: e.g. M-x "insert-char" "LATIN SMALL LETTER J".

OK, this is becoming a bit silly. My main point really was that by adopting a keyboard-driven workflow you no longer think of the keyboard as "shortcuts", it just becomes the way to do it and, yeah, I definitely think Ctrl-C counts as that.

Take a new software, like Blender or Gimp, and you'll totally have to do things "manually" via the menus before memorizing the "shortcuts" that will boost your productivity. It's nice for discoverability, accessibility, and probably necessary for most people (including me). I really don't see what's wrong in calling these shortcuts, if there's a longer, manual, tedious version, which has a shorter alternative. If you're a keyboard-driven person, I can get the idea, but you are being pedantic IMO...

Nobody has ever called me pedantic ;)

I get what you mean and I can see why they are referred to as "shortcuts". I just think it's a deficiency in UI design that leads to such a term. I have used software like Inkscape a lot and using it efficiently is a bit like playing guitar: one hand on the mouse, the other on the keyboard, working together. Discoverability is good (although I think massively overhyped) but a good UI should lead you to discover the most efficient way to do something, not the least efficient.

They used to use topre switches which many people swear by and combined it with a modern design. Compared to the gaming keyboards with MX blues and the ultra-cheap rubberdome boards of the time, it was a great package so they gained popularity.

Not sure how they got traction at the start because the main selling point was the weird layout and they didn't have topre switches yet.

This one doesn't have topre either. It still sounds great, but if I wanted MX switches and a trackpoint, I'd go for a Tex shinobi. Shortcut hell is a problem indeed, I want to Alt+F4 with one hand and on a 60% that's impossible to implement without something like spaceFN, which again has to be turned off for gaming.

It doesn't make sense to lose the function keys, the more keys the better (though i'd argue that it's better for less frequently used functions where it's easier to remember spatial position while not wasting much by moving your hands), though for arrows it's definitely more comfortable to have home row arrow keys with some thumb prefix, you can even have up/downs by various distance (e.g., "jk" for arrow down/up, "m," for pageDown/Up, and maybe "ui" for some "up to home/down to end") so that your same down/up muscle memory in your same two fingers

> I think functions keys and arrows are used way too frequently to spend your time using shortcuts

65% keyboards tend to put those shortcuts where you have to use a pinky finger to access those keys.

Whereas, keyboards much smaller than ~60% tend to use thumbs instead to access those keys, and put a big emphasis on reducing movement from home row & bringing the full functionality of the keyboard to within reach of the hands there.

The keyboards which make more use of layers put the layer keys in a nicer spot than those 60% keyboards.

> I saw my roomate already having it 10 years ago

and could use it to this day I guess. Like carpenter may use proven tools then you can be accustomed to the feeling and layout of the tool you use everyday. I still have my first hhkb which I bought almost 10 years ago, works like on day one, even I am usually using newer hhkb wireless model these days. If I am not mistaken before buying first model I read article about someone who had similar experience like I now.

The location of the Control key.

https://hhkeyboard.us/blog/the-mystery-behind-the-ctrl-key-a...

I have always been a fan of the trackpoint. The Ultimate Hacking Keyboard is a split keyboard with trackpoint, trackball, and touchpad modules (choose one). https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/shop

I am excited for the upcoming release of the dygma raise 2 because it has integrated 60 degree tenting in addition to being split. It has a module system as well which will hopefully offer trackpoint. https://dygma.com/pages/dygma-raise-2

I am happy using the NuPhy Air v2 as my portable keyboard. I love the low profile- not for looks, but for better ergonomics and portability. No track point though!

Looked at the UHK Trackpoint module just now and I can't imagine buying this. It can't be used with index finger+thumb (without moving your hand) and does not have a third mouse button which is crucial for jumping between scrolling and moving the mouse.

They also can't easily fix the first issue, because they expect their modules to be attached at certain places and the trackpoint should be way up there.

Maybe I'm just prejudiced from my thinkpad keyboards. Haven't used an ergonomic or split keyboard yet, no clue if this would make a difference on how to use a trackpoint.

On paper; it checks all the important marks: split, mechanical, has a trackpoint. I wish Keychron added similar (they have great mac/windows switching support; as well as some minor adjustments for some keys)

TrackPoint is cool, but happiness can only be reached on a proper ergo split keyboard without a huge space

Yeah, I would love a keyboard like this except that I've now moved entirely to corne-ish zen. I wish I could have a corne-ish zen with a trackpoint, but I expect the people who would like that must be a tiny niche-within-a-niche.

Yep. I think QMK's mouse support[1] is sufficient for those who need it.

But personally I use mouse _really_ rarely because of my keyboard centric workflow (DWM, Neovim & Vimium).

[1]: https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_mouse_keys

Track point offers the unbeatable awesomeness of "analogue" reaction

- the harder you push, the faster the mouse goes.

- 360 (or whatever the effective number of directions you can push with a finger) is also much richer than 4

You can't replicate it with binary down/up buttons, so QMK-like support isn't a good replacement.

(at least for the first one you could have a newer generation of keyboards that have "analogue" buttons the track more than 2 positions)

you could technically slam a trackball onto an ergo split keyboard. wouldn't recommend it but you could. people tend to put one between their keyboards so why not just build it into the right one?

Too bad they shifted away from Topre switches

It's weird. That seemed to have been their selling point. Plus black? I don't know about others, but my all my black keyboards acquired some gray parts pretty quick (tiny ones, I like my keyboard clean, but that's precisely why it hurts the aesthetics).

It really surprises me that the Happy Hacking Keyboard brand has stuck with their key layout. For a more conventional layout one might consider keychron.

https://www.keychron.com/

The HHKB layout is a copy of the layout from old Sun UNIX keyboards: https://i.stack.imgur.com/D8RsW.jpg

I like it more than the conventional PC keyboard layout, it makes Esc and Ctrl more easy to access, and means you can press Backspace without having to stretch your pinky as far.

For a split version, there's https://www.keychron.com/products/keychron-q11-qmk-custom-me...

Now, if only there was a track-pad or -ball

Why would anyone need a capslock?

Elsewhere in the comments, someone said "I want dedicated keys for arrows / function keys, I use these frequently enough that I don't want to hold a modifier".

Some programming languages type constants in UPPER_SNAKE_CASE. -- The same rationale applies: it's easy to understand why someone would prefer to avoid having to hold a modifier key for that. -- I quite like Caps Word as an improvement on CapsLock https://docs.qmk.fm/#/feature_caps_word

Though, I'd agree that CapsLock isn't important enough to put where it is on a traditional keyboard. (Nor does the spacebar need to be 6 keys wide..).

Besides the better caps word (by the way, you can have it in software in Win/Linux apps like https://github.com/jtroo/kanata/blob/main/docs/config.adoc#c...) you can also toggle capslock with e.g. a double tap while having on-hold functionality to the more useful Control, so you still wouldn't need to hold any modifier key

To rebind it to Escape of course. :D Works wonders if you're using vim or vim mode somewhere.

BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE WRONG ON THE INTERNET

First time I have ever used caps-lock for it's intended purpose. It's surprisingly liberating. I RECOMMEND GIVING IT A GO, IT'S LIKE THERAPY. Maybe we should go in the opposite direction and add even more dedicated keys for all forms of cringe-mode typing - leetspeak, texting, emoji-poisoned, valley-girl, German etc.

GPT powered politeness toggle maybe?

I remap 'both shift keys' to toggle CAPSLOCK.

I remapped my caps lock as a modifier to let me use my central row keys as arrow keys, also stuff like caps look + space bar = return, caps lock + Z = delete and so on. It's quite handy.

I largely use it to switch layers, eg. caps + hjkl turns into arrow keys

I write a lot of ${BASH}

OT: What’s a great keyboard for people who don’t like mechanical keyboards?

I took the plunge when I switched to a job where we worked on windows instead of macOS and got a keyChron as my daily driver instead of a Magic Keyboard.

I had good memories of clicking away on an old IBM as a kid in the 90s so I thought I’d enjoy a “real” keyboard.

I don’t dislike my low profile keyChron. But even after a year and a half it still feels tall and I mistype a lot. I don’t think a Mac keyboard works well on windows so I also don’t want to connect my Magic Keyboard to my work PC.

    But even after a year and a half it 
    still feels tall and I mistype a lot.

I had a Keychron K3 and I found the default keycaps to have a weird shape ("profile" in keyboard lingo)

This was resolved by getting a new set of keycaps: https://www.keychron.com/collections/keychron-low-profile-ke...

...at which point I found it to be an excellent typing experience! However...

    feels tall

There are low profile models from Logitech and others but I don't know that their height would be different enough to matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6WZNKzHzXc

Maybe the Corsair A100? That looks like it uses unique laptop-style switches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-kC_tnXGj4

Logitech makes excellent, "mac style" keyboards for Windows. Checkout Logitech MX Keys. It should fit your needs if you liked Apple Magic Keyboard

Which caps did you go with?

I can recommend NIZ keyboards if you are looking for something totally different. The switches are electro capacitive dome not mechanical. Very light and effortless to type and very quiet as well with a hint of tactileness. They are expensive and need to be imported, but the feel is amazing. Good luck on your journey.

https://www.nizkeyboard.com/collections/all

Not sure which keycron keyboard you got, and how low pro low profile it actually is. The NuPhy Air v2 gives me the low profile feel that I like. Tented split keyboards for me also help avoid the issue of a keyboard raising from front to back although certainly the feel is still not low profile.

Surprised that they abandoned the signature Topre switches for this 'custom' HHKB switch.

Doubt if any of the keyboard-otakus will go for this esp. given the sheer variety of MX switches now.

You need custom switches to go around trackpoint.

I had the same problem building my own custom keyboard. In the end, I opted to redesign the layout to have one key worth of space dedicated to the trackpoint. I was able to do this because I can learn a completely new layout on a whim, but if you want to produce a keyboard for mass market then I see how this could be a deal breaker.

Actually this model is designed by PFU with Japanese DIY keyboard otakus.

I've been using hhkb pro 2 for 5 years and I haven't found a better solution. This is one of the best purchases for me. I can say that it is a device that I am emotionally attached to. However, if I want to buy it with mouse features, I can buy Text Shinobi. The design and quality seem to be better and I have never needed bluetooth.

I like that it's non-Topre. They claim the switches are hot-swappable, but what with?

Only black-on-black keycaps are very lame, though. They don't offer any other ones, and you cannot just buy any other ones, gotta accommodate that TrackPoint.

Also US-only, meh.

Does anyone know if there are any portable bluetooth keyboards (think usable in the train) with a trackpoint? The only ones I can find have a trackpad, but I think a trackpoint would actually be a lot nicer.

- ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II Bluetooth ?

It's pretty close to full size, but very slim and light weight.

I'm writing this message on that keyboard and I don't really recommend it. It's a literal copy of the modern ThinkPad laptop keyboards, only a little worse.

It's mushy for a proper desktop keyboard, the TrackPoint is too flat and requires a lot of force to use (just like in the recent laptops) and worst of all, dust, crumbs and dirt easily get under the keys and make them not register unless you press hard.

I have one of these in usage as an entertainment center PC keyboard, as an alternative to the media PC keyboard with godawful integrated trackpads or extra coffee table clutter of a mouse.

It’s solid. Not quite to my taste for primary keyboard usage but not bad.

Isn’t this keyboard exactly that? It has Bluetooth and isn’t any wider than your laptop already is. If it’s too thick due to the mechanical switches, the ThinkPad TrackPoint Keyboard II might be an option.

You can make any USB keyboard a BT keyboard with a USB2BT (from Japan) and a battery. If it has LEDs you might have to disable or dim those (I had to enable tachyon mode on my keyboard).

I want this for my HTPC, but cant justify the price. Happy to see other similar options mentioned here.

Question to keyboard enthusiasts: Are ergo column staggered keyboards that much more ergonomic, comfortable?

Column staggered and even more so ortholinear are easier for my brain to work with: the layout can be made almost symmetrical and fingers always go up.

One thing to watch for is that many have same size modifier keys as letter keys, which I find not ideal.

I love it. I want it. I've been dreaming of this for years.

But I refuse to buy a black HHKB.

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