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Comment by gigaflop | Hacker News Reader

When people are already chopping out numpads, etc, in their custom designs, they can afford an extra horizontal inch of space on their keebs for fancy features, without getting too big.

For a large segment of people, a keyboard like this has everything they need on it: WASD, numrow, arrows.

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You could easily fit extra controls on a full-size keyboard as long as the keyboard and mouse are not wider than your shoulders. TKL has no ergonomic benefit, it's just an opinionated design decision which is common today because people don't learn to use a numeric pad. Cramped designs are good for portability, but bad for ergonomics.

Personally, I will never buy a TKL keyboard. I may rarely use the numeric pad, but rarely is not never, and I can think of a few specific use cases aside from typing in numbers quickly that require one. I wouldn't mind a keyboard with even more keys to provide better coverage of legacy layouts.

I daily-drove an IBM Model M that was a few months older than me, for about a summer. I love it, but it's just so comically oversized for my desk, even while using a deskpad.

Modern custom mech boards, like my current TKL, allow for extra function layers. You can hypothetically set up a 'numpad layer' on '890', 'iop', kl;', actuated by a layer key that can be held with a finger on the left side of the board. Less overall movement of one's fingers and arms, with equal access to the numpad functionality, if one needs it.

If you want a proof of that concept, see the Planck. Hypothetically, this little thing could replace your desired 'Space Cadet' or 'Battlestation' style keyboard with less than 50 buttons: https://olkb.com/collections/planck

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