My favorite keyboards | Hacker News Reader

My favorite keyboards

fabiensanglard.net

146 pointstmach32148 comments

My ErgodoxEZ:

- nearly made me cry.

- solved my back pain.

When you didn't learn to type properly, relearning to type can be a very difficult task; re-learning on a split keyboard is particularly unforgiving. Around three weeks into re-learning I was convinced I would never learn properly and that I'd wasted a lot of time and money (I was freelancing at the time) on something that wouldn't help me eat, never mind sleep.

Two weeks later I was back up to normal typing speeds, a month after that I was faster than ever. Two months or so after that, my back pain was gone.

Of course, my back pain was caused by sitting lopsided - something an overdominant hand on a standard keyboard pushes you towards. No amount of exercise and posture correction was solving it - but when the true cause was resolved it cleared up (with exercise) very quickly.

I'd buy this keyboard again in a heartbeat.

Countervailing story: the Ergodox (EZ specifically but that's less important) gave me permanent RSI in my thumbs, because it was too big for my hands, and to this day I pretty much can't use a keyboard layout that relies on lots of thumb involvement. Even just hitting the spacebar throughout the day or using my thumbs to type on a smartphone is enough to flare it up, almost a decade after I stopped using that keyboard.

YMMV, ergonomics are highly personal with respect to your body size and proportions. We didn't have the proliferation of keyboard layouts then that we do now. Perhaps if the Iris or Corne had existed then, I would still be using my thumbs for modifier keys in a 40% layout. I never got the hang of tapdance or hold modifiers.

The Atreus layout is the only one I can still use somewhat, because the thumbs are held closer to the hand rather than splayed out.

Any other tips, I have basically the same thing.

Mitosis is the layout that I like, it doesn't require a huge thumb stretch.

I have joint problems in my thumbs and have trouble with thumb-heavy layouts, but have found the Sofle V2 to work well for me. For my hands it is important that the center thumb key be directly below the N and B keys, which the Sofle provides.

Details at https://josef-adamcik.cz/electronics/another_year_for_sofle....

PSA: Thumbs can get overuse injuries [1]

https://getreuer.info/posts/keyboards/thumb-ergo/index.html

I actually found going from non-split to split surprising easy, simply because none of my old muscle memory worked anymore, and I had never touch typed up until then, so I wasn't able to go back to the old way out of frustration. A few hours of doing touch typing drills on some free online thing, and I could type at 30wpm, and then it only took about a week of doing my usual coding, IRC chatting etc to get back up to my usual 100wpm.

Also surprising was that after I got there, I could also touch type pretty easily on a normal keyboard. But my old ad hoc 5 finger typing had somehow disappeared entirely.

> - nearly made me cry.

> - solved my back pain.

Reminds me of the first time I got to sit in an Actually Good chair that came with a new job. My back was killing me for the first couple weeks as the decades-old knots undid themselves.

I got to relive it when I went back to crappy office chairs at my next gig.

Exercising and specifically lifting weights will do so much more for your back pain than any ergonomic setup ever will

Why not both. That's my approach.

Also stretching and mobility training.. using a split keyboard has been awesome because you really feel the difference compared to a "normal" keyboard once you've been paying attention to opening up the shoulders

> When you didn't learn to type properly

Not learning to type properly is probably the best thing you can do for your wrists when typing.

Keeping fingers on home row is very bad posture for your wrists on a normal keyboard.

Basically the only thing interesting about the ConcertMaster is that Carmack used it (and that it looks somewhat cool). As for the keyboard itself, it is just a basic OEM membrane keyboard and not that good one even. The speakers are lets say adequate for the time and size.

Interestingly, the speaker part and the keyboard part are completely separate. The "cable" consists of four separate cables (keyboard, power, line out, mic in) in a thin sleeve. Mine was supplied with AT plug on the keyboard cable and Y-adapter that converted PS2 into AT DIN and barell jack for the speaker power. The keyboard label indeed says it is powered by 9V DC, but I guess that never really happened as PS/2 is 5V no matter what various devices say.

Edit: And as for the supper hard to find nowadays part: I suspect that part of the reason is that the keyboard module inside the thing is ridiculously sensitive to even minor spills.

Not to bag on the guy but he seems a bit obsessed over Carmack in general.

I mean he's made his career out of reviewing Carmack's code. If there were ever a Carmack historian it'd be him.

Mmmm, not a membrane keyboard. This is a membrane keyboard: https://www.the-liberator.net/site-files/retro-games/hardwar...

if we're being pedantic, the concertmaster is an RDoM (rubber dome over membrane) :)

I have one! It's fun for retro PCs that don't have speakers or a mic, as it provides everything you need right there without having to setup the Altec Lansings.

Also LOL:

> it has the advantage of packing the best sound system I have ever come across on a keyboard

Well, as a bog-standard person, I use Logitech MX Keys Mini 2 (with Bolt support).

It's good enough for typing for long sessions and reliable enough to type on without much thinking.

It has great features though. Automatic backlight and standby via hall & ambient light sensors, great key texture and weight, scissor switches instead of bog-standard membrane, etc.

It's not a mechanical keyboard and not smooth as one, but it's not an enemy of fingers and hands.

Logitech's bolt receiver is great though. Encrypted, low latency and has native Linux support via Solaar.

I have 3 mechanical keyboards, but one is too big, others are not in my native layout and miss a couple of keys which I need for certain characters, so they are delegated to long coding sessions at home.

Logitech is by far the best "get shit done" PC accessory manufacturer. They work, last forever, and have options for nearly every niche there is

For the longest time, I was preferring Microsoft keyboards and Logitech Mice, but in the recent years, Logitech surpassed Microsoft as the better keyboard maker, and I'm very happy with their hardware.

My secret weapon is not my keyboard, but my trackball actually. I switched because of a finger pain, and it took me half a day to get used to it. It doesn't have a "heavy" scroll wheel like m705 or MX Anywhere 2 has, but it's actually much better than mice for me. Also it's much more ergonomic without being awkward.

Logitechs mechanical keyboards are pretty good. I love the MX mechanical line, I have a mini simply because I don't need a numpad but the full size is also great

yep. I've tried everything from a bunch of mechanical keyboards to topre keyboards and I finally just came back to the mx keys mini, the magic keyboard mini, and the logitech mechanical mini. they just feel the best over the long term and are close enough to my laptop keyboard that it doesn't feel like I'm making a big change.

Two of my mechanical keyboards are "low profile", and they are very smooth & comfortable, but they feel niche/custom enough that they need more brain power to operate.

As I noted, they're en-US layout, and I can touch type it, but I need my native alphabet and letters while typing daily, so I get them out when I'm going to code at home.

The best part of MX Keys Mini is not the switches but the materials. They are heavy duty and made to be typed on it, all day, every day. Combined with auto-layouting it has, it's a very practical device, esp. if you're using multiple different machines at the same time.

Logitech's wireless keyboards, as you know, automatically switch modifier key layouts when you switch between Mac and PC hosts.

agree with you. my home device is a PC and work is Mac and it switches between them seamlessly

Yamaha DX7.

Oh you mean… OK. The one on my 2008 unibody MacBook, which I likely put the most hours in on of any of them. Then the one on my ancient and lovely Thinkpad T240 — one of the most pragmatically delightful computers ever — and probably the N33SX I owned in 1992.

The keyboard on the M1 Max MBP is quite nice, too.

What, did Korg release an M1 Max? How did I miss it?

Yeah. Loads more keys.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045464/

DX7 had a dreadful keybed. Midi CC only up to 100 (instead of 127), wtf?!

Fatar learned a lot of lessons from Yamaha in that regard.

Looking forward to adding an Expressive E Osmose to my rig soon ..

I never actually owned one but I loved playing one.

Just the fact that a synth thing was so (relatively) affordable and accessible and also made music we heard all the time.

I should probably make a Dexed thing. Ultimately I don't even play an instrument with frets, let alone keys, so it would only be for tinkering.

>Dexed

Get a Zynthian and dive right in to all the FM synthesis you can possibly imagine, and more. Its pretty freakin' powerful. Plus, you can do all kinds of mad things with it, vis a vis oddball controllers and such.

I'm interested to make a Dexed thing more for the fun/process of it.

At the moment I am mostly playing lap steel but it's early days as an electric player so I am trying to not spend much money :-)

For lap steel which is continuous pitch I feel I'm more likely to settle on a Boss SY synth pedal or something signal-processing-based like it, rather than MIDI. But these days audio-based midi-tracking like MIDI Guitar 2/3 seems to work quite well. I know of at least one player using a Fishman Triple Play on a lap steel but that's an expensive experiment.

I fully appreciate the desire to make a Dexed for the fun of it, however .. if you haven't dug into Zynthian yet, it won't be obviously clear that:

>Boss SY synth pedal or something signal-processing-based like it

.. is exactly what the Zynthian delivers, plus way, way, way more. You can run Dexed on it, and also run multiple signal-processing chains for your lap steel. It is huge bang for the buck! Especially if you do live things, you can have Dexed tracks running in parallel to your FX chain ..

Just sayin', take a closer look. For lap steel (and indeed any similar instruments), Zynthian is a godsend. (Get a good mic for it too, of course..)

I am positive you will find it extremely rewarding to pipe your lap steel through these:

https://zynthian.org/engines#effect

.. alongside these:

https://zynthian.org/engines#synth

(Dexed is but one in a very, very sexy list..)

The DX7 IIFD is a bucket list keyboard for me. I fell in love with it in my youth, and I will eventually buy one in good condition.

The Yamaha FSR1 would be nice, too! :)

The FS1R is the #1 reason I still have my 19" rack after all these years..

No keyboard on an FS1R, although a workstation version of the FS1R would kick serious ass.

OMG thank you - as a musician, that's the first thing I think of when I see "favorite keyboard."

The only good laptop keyboards have been older MacBooks and older Thinkpads.

The only way to top that would be someone eschewing portability for a mechanical keyboard of some kind. I would totally buy that

First generation powerbooks, the 140/170, were amazin keyboards. The 100, not so much.

After a decade of exploring various mechanical keyboards (a few form factors, but mostly exploring the switches), I settled on a Topre Realforce around 2016 and fell in love. I later learned of the Topre silent switches (often branded as "Type-S"), and have used those ever since over many few boards: a HHKB, a Leopold FC660C with a PCB swap for programmable layers, various revisions of the Realforce.

I used a friend's ErgoDox a few years ago, and quite liked it, but what holds me back is the Topre switches. If only it was feasible to acquire individual Topre switches and put them onto a custom PCB...

Here's hoping someone on HN will swoop in and tell me "It's totally possible! Just _____!"

Some enthusiasts have made custom PCBs for Topre and Niz switches, even columnar ergo. I've not seen the ErgoDox layout specifically, and I dunno how to source individual switches though.

There is also the XVX Whisper switch, with has a Topre-like mechanism for Hall Effect keyboards: with a magnet under the dome. You could buy pack of switches but reviews say it is mushier than Topre.

I was using a standard/non-silent HHKB but found it a little too noisy for a quiet office. Plus I like using arrow keys and found I'd get a sore pinky with the HHKB layout.

I'm back to a cherry style board with silent tactile switches now but have half a mind to try and find a 75%ish layout with exploded arrow keys and with silent Topre switches.

Same. I used to be on keyboard forums, looking for the holy grail. Eventually I tried Topre switches a bit more than 10 years ago and haven't ever looked back.

I'm using a HHKB Pro JP (although I've got japanese family I don't speak japanese): because the japanese version has got a narrower space bar and more modifiers. So I configured to have, for example, an "Hyper" key. Also for the space bar is narrower, the modifiers are easier to reach with the thumbs.

I decided to camp on this because my thinking went like this: the country of Japan and the language of japanese is unlikely to disappear, so it's very probable that I'll be able to buy Topre keyboards with that exact layout for a very long time.

Same thing: I cannot get into the MX switches (I own a few nice Cherry keyboard, like the elusive split Cherry MX-5000).

It's Topre and nothing else.

I find it strange that people who start caring about ergonomics settle for Ergodox, Moonlander and other halfway there solutions when Kinesis, Glove80, Maltron who have put in real ergonomic research exist..

I’m one of those people. I loved Ergodox, switched to Moonlander but didn’t like it, tried out Voyager and stuck with it.

Voyager is not even a very ergonomic keyboard, but it’s good enough for me, I configured it so that it’s very convenient for me to use, I added some accessories to for better tilt, I’m good - my wrists don’t hurt anymore, and that was my goal

You find it strange that people have preferences? The ultimate ergonomic keyboard is the one that feels good *for you*.

I don't like the Ergodox-style keyboards myself because they're missing a row, and no amount of meta layering is going to convince me otherwise.

Yes, I find it strange that people have this preference.

If you are deep enough into the rabbit hole of ordering a mechanical ergonomically keyboard you are doing yourself a disservice by not ordering an actual ergonomic one. Especially given that the price is virtually the same and r/ErgoMechKeyboards/geekhack(which you will inevitably know exist if you are at this stage) is full of Glove80/Advantage vs Moonlander threads which all say the same thing.

I know, right? I feel every keyboard warrior goes through stages where each stage imposes a "no return" point - mechanical, split, concaved. I've tried so many boards, yet these three factors invariable remain important. There are many things I dislike about my Advantage 360 - it's absolutely not suitable for travel, even taking it from the desk to the couch is a hassle; there are too many keys (the halves definitely never needed to be this big); firmware patching is wonky (I have the ZMK variant); etc.

Yet, that is the only class of boards that allow me typing without getting wrist and neck pain for 14-16 hours. Over the years I owned like a dozen boards from KinesisErgo - I started with Advantage models, then Advantage II, then I bought Freestyle for my kid, then pre-ordered 360, etc. In-between I tried Glove80, Mistel, Ergodox, Vortex Pok3r, and some others.

I am also sad that I have discovered the importance of the choosing the right switches way too late. I highly recommend getting to know your boards and the types of switches you can install on them, and then get a switch tester. Finding just the right type is absolutely worth it.

IMHO the persistence of Model M (now Unicomp) worship is a meme. Yes a chunky Buckling Spring mechanism is a very unique and "fun" feel, but that doesn't mean it's actually good to do a lot of typing on in terms of ergonomics or speed. So what of it? It's a novelty item, not the ultimate keyboard.

I'm big into the custom mechanical keyboard hobby (not that that makes my opinion special or anything, ha) and I definitely agree. It's funny, cus a lot of people in the hobby see the Model M as their "holy grail" keyboard. But the more modern keyboards are just so much more comfortable to type on for extended periods of time (whether they are 'ergo' keyboards or not). It's all personal preference, but I think a lot of the love for the Model M is just nostalgia.

How many other 40+ year old keyboard models do people still regularly use today? The Model-M reputation earned more than a click.

My Kinesis Advantage is only a little bit younger at 32 years old.

I think, to a degree, ergonomics are a complete package and sound can be part of it.

I tend to err on the side of loud-click switches (Alps/Matias, buckling spring, Gateron Melodic or Kailh Box switches lately) in part because I beat a series of late-1990s dome keyboards to death because I needed some sound to feel like a key was registering.

A family member has a light linear board basically because he wanted a Pride-exploded-on-his-desktop lightshow and it's very awkward for me to use.

My fave keyboard is the IBM Model M SSK. I started out with the full sized Model M, but the keypad got to be a bit too much and as I was making several geographical moves as a young person, I wanted something that saved space on my desk.

In a way, I agree with you that buckling spring keyboards are a novelty now but back then they were a revelation, and once you start using a keyboard with high tactile feedback and positive keyclick you won't want to go back.

I still have my Model M SSK, but these days I use a LoFree Flow84, which is a smoother, quieter experience. And it has absolutely the best space bar I've ever used on any keyboard.

I have a Moonlander but I could never get used to it, even when remapping some keys so that tab is where my muscle memory expects it to be. But maybe trying to use it for both windows (play) and macos (work) was a problem. I should give it another go. Of course another issue may be that I'm very much a mouse-and-keyboard person instead of a keyboard wizard.

I should get an alternative to my old compact / flat apple keyboard one day though. It's been going strong for nearly a decade.

I have an Ergodox EZ for work, and I love it for that, but for my gaming I just use a typical keyboard, I couldn't get used to it for gaming.

It might also be that you just don’t want or need an ortholinear layout, plenty of people don’t. If you like the split design and programmability of the Moonlander but not the layout and associated relearning curve, I can recommend the UHK as a good choice.

Yeah, I bought an ErgoDox EZ and tried to get used to the ortholinear layout, but after a couple weeks things just still felt off. It's been in my closet for years now. This UHK looks really interesting though, thanks!

I like everything about the Moonlander (ortholinear, split) except for the lack of F keys. From what I can tell, Kinesis is the other side of the "ortholinear or F keys" tradeoff, holding most everything else constant.

Typing this on a Moonlander right now. Love it to pieces. The tenting kit is pricey but incredibly stable and, to me, is worth every penny. I've gotten used to the ortholinear so much so that I hate other layouts now.

I've looked at some other more minimal boards and, while they look nice, I actually make good use of pretty much all my keys and I would not like going down to a smaller layout.

In my mind, the most important pieces of a good keyboard are, in this order:

1. QMK/ZMK firmware so you can add stuff like mod-taps and whatnot

2. Split & tented to avoid bad wrist angles

3. Lots of buttons for your thumb to press: it's your strongest finger so you should put it to work

4. Ortholinear layout for more natural finger movement

ZSA (the maker of the Ergodox, Moonlander, and Voyager) is a great company—I've had incredibly positive experiences with their support team whenever I've needed help. One time I was having trouble using their online configuration tool (https://layout.new) and so I emailed support. I got an email back within the hour from a developer asking for more details. After I supplied this, it was just another hour until I heard back saying that they had found a bug and that the fix was live. So awesome!!

The Moonlander and the Ergodox both lack Function keys. How do you cope?

I spend much time in IDEs, mostly Jetbrains but also VS Code. I'm also constantly in Emacs and VIM, and even my desktop shortcuts have many Function keys used. The IDEs are particularly troublesome as there are quite a few triple buckies that involve the Function keys. Another layer (e.g. using a modifier key) just doesn't seen like a good solution.

Do you ever miss the function keys?

I'm in Emacs 99% of my day, and I don't think I've ever used the function keys inside Emacs.

All my volume/brightness/etc functions are handled on a separate layer. I've got function keys on another layer as well, but I don't ever use them.

If you use function keys a lot, then you could do something like putting the function keys on one layer all on the right hand like it's a num pad and then adding a key on the left hand to switch to that layer. You could add combo-taps on your main layer to trigger the function key (e.g. press `q` and `1` at the same time to hit `f1`, `w` and `2` at the same time to send `f2`, etc.), etc. etc.

QMK gives you a lot of options to do what you want. There's also 3 keys towards the center of the keyboard on each side that I rarely hit (in fact, they're used for some layer switching some times!) that you could easy bind to function keys directly.

Note that a key can do like 4 different things depending if you tap, hold, double tap, or tap and hold if you want to get really fancy.

I use a Moonlander and regret it entirely for this reason. It would be perfect if it just had that extra row of F keys. I know there are a million ways to compensate for it but they all involve tradeoffs that I don't want to make.

I stopped working a day job that requires typing, so I can deal with the inconvenience, but my god I wish I didn't listen to the people who pooh-poohed away the lack of F keys. Not having the keys present and labeled adds all this cognitive overload when having to remember which magic combo changes layers and which keys are the F keys, while switching between windows/macOS/linux. Have to hit F2 to boot into BIOS? Good luck hitting the magic incantation in time before you miss your window of opportunity, when the keyboard doesn't show which layer you're in because it just powered up.

I like the tactile feel of it, the build quality, the ortholinear layout, and the customizability, but at this point I'd trade off the customizability for that extra row and labeled modifier keys.

My default layout has function keys as basically an "fn" key plus the appropriate number. I thought I was going to miss the dedicated keys way more than I do in practice.

If I were starting from scratch, and really had a function-key-centric workflow, I'd probably make the number keys (and - and + for F11 and F12 respectively) be tap-and-hold for that function key input.

Tap and hold would be annoying for many workflows, such as tapping through breakpoints.

I bounce between boards and my favorite solution so far is a layer that gives my right hand a “numpad” for the F keys. You need to make sure you can hit other modifiers trivially from that position, but I like it so much I’ve added this to boards that do have F keys and it’s now my primary way of activating them.

As a Mac user, I seldom need function keys, so I don't miss them at all on my Voyager. On Windows, X11, or Wayland, that's different of course. macOS basically pretends the function keys don't exist, and my editor of choice, Helix, doesn't use them in its default keymap either. I have them stashed away on a layer but I don't think I've ever used it.

With those things said, I don't actually use the number row on the Voyager either. I have numbers on home row in an easily-activated layer (with a resting position thumb key held down), and I _love_ it. It feels wonderful rolling across home row to type sequences of numbers. I'd probably put the function row on the same layer, shifted one row up or down, if I needed it regularly.

Layers work well for me. I know they don't for everyone, though.

I really didn't enjoy the cheap plastic construction of the Moonlander. I had two of them for home and work. I even modded a mousepad onto the wristrests to make it more comftable.

But in the end the housing being out of plastic, it creaked, wobbled and just was not satisfying to type on.

I came from premium mechnical keyboards with solid steel or aluminum construction.

I ended up with the Neo Ergo, a middle ground. Not as ergonomic, but solid feel, no plastic and great looks too.

Yea I used the kinesis 360 for a short time but couldn't stand how cheap it felt. Such a big difference from nicer custom keyboards, and it's essentially the same price which is a shame.

A custom one is worth it in my opinion. Mine feels quite nice. Not 100% of a gasket mount heavy keyboard, but pretty darn close. Took a while to find the switches that worked for me, but I love it. Also, I have lots of sound deadening in it that help make it feel and sound more solid.

But yeah, the stock browns are pretty bad and the plasticky case doesn't sound great stock.

What switches did you end up on? I've tried a bunch, but yet to find my "end game" switch so to say

My Kinesis Freestyle 2 will always be the greatest ergo keyboard I've ever owned - with cables. I can tilt at 5, 10, 15 degree angles. I can move the two parts differently (and do), and with the risers, I can tilt it 90 degrees - which I'm never doing. The flexibility is perfect for me, so I keep one at home, and one in the office.

Kinesis Freestyle Gaming for me. The "traditional" Freestye has a wrist pad that's made out of a material so horrible I returned the keyboard immediately. Yuck. This was years ago, maybe newer models are better? But I'm very happy with the Freestyle Gaming in general.

By the time the 2 came around the wrist pads were an add-on. Like you, I'm not a fan, so I never bought them. I paired it with a Kensington Expert Mouse.

The author writes: "I discovered the IBM Model M in 1993 ... It took me many years to find one. I vividly remember the Craigslist ad for a dilapidated computer shop in a Toronto suburb. Inside I found piles of them, stacked six feet high. All of them had some kind of damage so I picked a few for $20 apiece and rebuilt one that looked pristine."

My Model M story:

I'd heard of the famous Model M for years.

I found a Model M in storage at a place I worked in 2004-2005 and started using it, loved it.

In 2006, I found one for my home PC at the Salvation Army Thrift Store on St Clair W at Christie in Toronto. I paid $20, and it worked!

I still have it, but stopped using it around 2010 - I was asked to use a quieter keyboard :(

I bought 2 M13s (one black, one beige, the one with the builtin track point) in Seattle thrift stores in the early 2000's, one was $5 and one was $10.

At one point, other copies were both $300 plus on ebay.

Sadly the black one has an intermittent issue with some of the keys where hits are doubled, but the beige one is still a daily driver.

I’d suggest to folks in general to start using ergonomic keyboards well before any sign of RSI sets in, because once it does you are unlikely to reverse it, you’re merely managing it. The body is full of one-way valves.

I'm a keyboard nerd.. After nearly 15 years on an Advantage, I went down the rabbit hole all the way down to 34 key boards, and everything in between. But you know? The *best* developers I know, use a cheap keyboard, usually a Dell one, that you can find closets full of and have never thought about switching. Funny. I've bought of a few of these devs nicer mechanicals as gifts, and they've never been appreciated.

I'm also a big fan of the ergo dox ez, and I'm pleased with it.

I don't know how many hours I spent to get my neo 2.0 layout running. Neo 2.0 is a very nice “German” layout I have been using for ages: https://neo-layout.org/ (and before that something similar called de-ergo).

The biggest win for me is to have all the brackets on the home row for coding.

MS Sculpt ergonomic keyboard for home (discontinued now but "improved" versions are available here (https://matiaseu.store/products/fk413xx), Logitech K380 when I travel to the office.

>discontinued

in case you don't know, there's back and made by incase. The first manufacturing run completely sold out I think, it's backordered until sep 2026. The matias is... not a good replacement, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46388976

Thanks. Slightly ruins my plans for when the original dies :(

As someone who's tried several keyboards, a key feature I've found myself unable to go without is contouring of the keyboard. Keyboards like Kinesis Advantage 2, Kinesis Advantage 360 and the Glove 80 essentially. I've personally found it the biggest gain to reducing strain on my left hand.

I loved the Model M, but my first real THIS IS MY FAVORITE I WILL CUT YOU keyboard was a Northgate. Dang, I loved that one.

For most of the last 20 years I've been on Kinesis boards. First a regular Ergo, and then starting about 6 months ago their new Advantage 360, which is a definite improvement.

The Northgate was a great keyboard, and a company called Creative Vision Technologies briefly owned and sold keyboards under the "Avant" brand. I had one of those, it finally succumbed to some sort of electrical issues so I let it go. You can still by old Northgates and Avants on eBay, but ~$300 a pop.

No keyboard since has ever matched that level of responsiveness and tactile feel. The downside is just that it was so loud. Now that everything is open floorplans I wouldn't use one even if I still had one.

That Model M SSK looks real nice. I have not one but two Filco Majestouch 2 TKL with brown MX keys, one for 12 years and counting. They are so much heavier, nicer compared to what I got recently second hand: a WASD with a very wobbly case.

I have a moonlander and love it for typing. My issue is that I use my mouse a bunch as well, and find it awkward to switch my right hand to the ouse and back again. Does the touchpad work better for this?

Any QWERTY or QWERTY-inspired keyboard (layout) is silly.

Switching to orto without solving a real bottleneck is like changing Opel to Porshe but keep using a set of square wheels. Of course the car will run better, but...

My experience switching layout is poor. I touch typed Qwerty at around 75 WPM. I switched to Colemak, and after a month or so of Monkeytype I am back at around 75 WPM but didn't gain significant speed. I never had serious wrist pain, so I can't say Colemak helped with that.

After sharing this with some people, it turns out that a lot of speed gains, and maybe wrist pain improvement, comes from people that switch from Qwerty + peeking (and sometimes avoiding pinky) to Other layout + touch typing.

My only gain with Colemak is that typing feels smoother than Qwerty, but I can't honestly recommend anyone the switch. Using other computers, which are all in Qwerty, is now unconfortable.

I switched to colemak, but I paired this switch with split keyboards. So qwerty is still easy to use on regular keyboards, but I'm sure I'd get super tripped up if I used qwerty on a split kb.

You have read my comment inattentively, I consider QWERTY-inspired ones exactly as weak as QWERTY.

Speed is not important in typing goals at all. What maters is ability to delegate a typing routine out of your consciousness. No peeking, no misusing pinkies, no caring about WPM, no mismatching keys from different layouts. You should always prefer to put all of your 10 fingers on the keyboard even if all you need is to type one letter, even being interrupted from sleep, because you should understand that touchtyping is faster than hunt-and-peck even in one-button case.

You either can input your password using touchtyping or not. If you have achieved touchtyping on any layout, no switching helps you to decrease cognitive hardness. Touchtyping should be done in youth, so if you are not cosplaying some idiots you should devote your brain cells to the proper layout at once.

> the proper layout

which is?

"I'm tired of trying to do something worthwhile for the human race, they simply don't want to change!"

Interesting. My experience is almost the same. But I wouldn't call the experience is poor at all. The biggest advantage is that typing feels smoother with Colemak.

The fact that just learning to touch type in any layout is what contributes to the speed is probably right. But then again, my experience is that speed is primarily a function of practice and much less of technique. I remember reading some AMAs by someone who types at 200+WPM and they mentioned that they use QWERTY and they don't touch type.

I largely agree. Split, ortho/columnar, and tenting is 90% of the strain benefits. The biggest benefit from layout change (for programmers at least) is moving symbols and numbers to a layer where they share positions with alpha keys so you don’t have to extend to type them. Any benefit I could imagine from switching alpha layouts (more even utilization between left and right hand for typing prose) is mitigated by the switching cost when trying to use a normal computer.

Just ask the normal computer owner to set the proper layout for that 5 minutes you will be tinkering with the normal computer, it does not need root or any complicated setup.

This opinion is so quaint that it makes me smile.

For me, the #1 feature of the Advantage2 is ortho. Everything else is a distant second. I don't understand how anyone can use anything but ortho.

Yes, another layout would make your fingers travel even less, but ortho lets you reduce a lot of seeking/travel without learning anything new.

Great article, your site is super easy to read.

Moonlander's build quality leaves a lot to be desired for IMO. Tenting only available for biggest hand size config, thumb clusters fly off, ports struggle after a few years of taking care of it.

I like RealForce 55G (non-variable) the most, or really any full-sized-boring-keyboard with any amount of tactility (even the MS Ergo). Buckling springs would be great if they weren't super loud. HHKB is pretty rough for the shoulders, it's best use is on a shelf visible from your webcam.

I have an Ergodox EZ I built as well as a Moonlander, but I ultimately decided split/tilt wasn't right for my wrists. I switched to an Arisu layout ergo single-frame keyboard and that is what I rely on to this day. The biggest win was going to a vertical mouse. I'm also a lover of the Model M and Model F, but these are not properly ergonomic in 2026 (and at 40+ years old).

Shoutout to the IV Works AV3/AV4 and the Evoluent vertical mouse for helping stave off surgery for another 6 years (and counting).

That list really misses Glove80! It's an incredible keyboard, and imo is better than the Moonlander at practically everything.

Edit: on second thought, I guess some people might not like the low switches?

I switched from the moonlander to the glove80, and the low switches are nothing compared to the much more intuitive ergonomics.

I moved to a corne a few years ago and loved it. Lately I was missing number-keys and had bought a 3d printer so tried making a custom-fit Charybdis inspired keyboard, but my lack of soldering skills lead to a keyboard that was unusable. For some reason I pivoted to a totem (which has fewer keys than my corne) but I absolutely love it so far. Still looking for a solution to gaming on it, but for daily work it's been phenomenal.

From what I've read, very few people who buy ortho split keyboards, even people who love and swear by them, ever recover their WPM. I could never get comfortable on my Ergodox. The Glove80 seems more promising, but I can't afford the productivity hit at work, particularly when communicating on Slack. But the Kinesis Freestyle2 with the tenting kit quickly became my daily driver & basically solved my wrist and thumb pain.

Not me. I have a Mistel Barocco and am still at 100WPM

I just tested. I'm 99wpm on a splitkb.com Kyria split ortho and 102wpm on the built-in keyboard of my macbook, doing a single run on each on monkeytype.com.

Switching layouts (e.g. qwerty to dvorak or colemak) takes a long time to get back to your normal speed, but ortho/columnar vs staggered in my experience is something you get used to very quickly.

But apparently there is a huge variance in how quickly folks adapt, so I may just be lucky or have enough past experience with different keyboard shapes that it happened to be easier for me.

I went from “regular” keyboard to kinesis freestyle 2 to kinesis advantage 360.

The switch to the freestyle 2 was basically seamless. Switching to the advantage 360 was brutal, but I can tell you that i have not only fully recovered my typing speed but have even improved on my historical ability.

I used monkeytype.com for a couple years before the jump to the advantage 360 and still to this day, and you can see the deep trough my speed went through while i figured out the ortholinear layout and thumb clusters, and the new all time high records i’ve recently set.

People who are happy with their keyboard over a long period of time don't bother to test their WPM and tell other people on the internet about it. Nor do they regularly buy new keyboards and screw up their muscle memory.

I've been using some kind of split keyboard for the past 25 years, last eight on a Kinesis. My WPM on a normal keyboard is ghastly.

For anyone interested in a single-body, low-profile mechanical keyboard with a split layout, checkout PERIBOARD-335. Highly recommend it.

Or PERIBOARD-413 if you need steeper angle. Perixx keyboards are cheap (and you’ll feel this cheapness every time you use them) but that’s why they are so good: a low-barrier entry to try out ergonomic keyboards before moving on to something more premium.

Dactyl Manuform 3x6 for me.

Going to such a different form factor feels enough like relearning to type that I found it also to be a good time to learn a better layout than qwerty.

I use my own layout called hubris:

https://github.com/jpease/hubris

The Ergodox was also too unstable with high tilting for me, so I search for other options. I found the Dygma Raise. Been using it for 3 years now, it is a blessing. I will buy a Raise 2 wireless for my work desk in the office too now.

I cannot fathom all my collegues who still use non ergo keyboards and mice...

I have a HHKB Professional Hybrid. I like it. Quiet enough to use in work. It is bloody expensive though

What are those trackpads/touchpads between the left and right boards? What cables are those that are attached to both the keyboard and trackpad. Looks almost like an Ethernet cable but must be a usbC. Does anyone know the type/brand of the cable.

The thing in the middle seems to be described as a "platform accessory"

I learnt to type on an Acorn Archimedes 3000 which had Ctrl to the left of A. I was so happy to find HHKBs in the late 00s had the same feature and have been using once since. I wouldn't mind never having a CapsLock again.

But you don't need your physical keyboard to do that. Couldn't you have brought any keyboard that you liked and remapped the Caps Lock key to Ctrl? I have it remapped to Backspace in all of my keyboards

I know, I'd like to reward the companies who do it properly though. Well, company.

Can't wait for mainstream laptops with ortholinear layout and split space bar.

Given how long staggered qwerty has been around (longer than computers have existed for) I wouldn't hold my breath

I don't think that's ever happening. They're still using a layout that puts I and O next to the numbers row as a remnant of the era where these letters were used as numbers. Can't blame the laptop manufacturers either. Masses are going to come out with pitchforks if any major laptop manufacturer changes anything with the keyboard.

I was hoping for this to happen with Framework. Alas, it did not.

ZSA Voyager sticks to these pretty nicely: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMHT5LZ5

Huge fan of the Voyager with home-row-mods.

Don't like having a 2 piece keyboard, or missing F keys

Can I get a full layout keyboard, split, wired, with a trackball, in a single board. Or is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile, Keychron Q10 is the best

I love my moonlander, don't get me wrong, but I've also recently gotten a RealForce R3, and I love it, too. Very nice for a daily driver work keeb.

Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. More specifically, currently the UHK 80 with the key cluster module (on the left half) and trackpoint module (on the right half).

I’m kinda surprised that more people don’t have this keyboard. It’s pretty expensive I guess.

I’m greatly enjoying my Charybdis nano: the built in trackball makes using the mouse just as convenient as the keyboard

I need a split wireless mechanical keyboard to use with my phone on the go. Anybody have something good?

I've enjoyed the corne I got from typeractive [0]. I am pretty sure I have paired it with my phone for the heck of it but not used it in any meaningful capacity that way. It's running zmk so you should be able to read about others' experiences with it.

[0] https://typeractive.xyz/

Oh cool! Always a new one to discover.

Though, that is a steep price.

My most likely one that I would take is this one: https://jezailfunder.jp

For me it is RealForce R3SD13 with the lightest switches.

Can type on it for days. I bought a few just in case :)

I wish I could find a Model M Space Saver with modern OS keys. I love the springs.

Wish granted.

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/MINI_M

https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/category/Buttons <- these also fit the IBM ones (still using the Model M I pulled out of a telco dumpster in the rain when I was a teenager, it's a bit Ship of Theseus at this point with bolt mods and USB but still the same to me)

Fun! Thank you. I wonder if I can find Mac keycaps and swap those in software. Their Mac versions are all full-size.

Glove80 for me (even have 2 of them) with Kinesis Advantage 2 being a close second.

Do you just buy more of the footpads online or have you figured out a more permanent solution? I pack mine up and travel with it frequently, and the rubber feet are always coming off.

3 went off so far... maybe I should try a proper glue for them? It is not like I have any reason to access the screw behind, and if, I can always cut the rubber away somehow.

This said, it is nothing exotic, the M3 m9448A is the number for rubber feets. It just difficult to buy it a non-industrial amount.

Love this, but doesn't having to mouse with a touchpad do your head in?

I'm a 65/68% guy, I need my arrows

And a Delete key. I DETEST keyboards that lack Delete keys.

WTF, Apple?

I would love this keyboard for myself.

Was hoping this would be about synths.

Try thocky keys, Aula F75

Went also through ErgoDox EZ and MoonLander but down-sized to a Corne-ish Zen. Happier since.

Less keys (3x6) and lower profile is even nicer for ergonomics, for me at least, but does require a bit more of mental gymnastics for layers. well worth it IMHO.

C'mon, the Amstrad keyboard is not that bad :(

My iKBC MF87v2 from 2018. I like it so much I bought a spare, even though it cost $170 at the time. Double-shot light-through PBT keycaps so the labels won't wear off or the keys develop that yucky slick finish, a solid block of aluminum that's 1.8kg so it's not going to shift on the desk, nice thocky MX Blue switches and a Tenkeyless layout without annoying numeric keypad, because I'm not an accountant.

I keep a Ducky One 3 with silent red switches at work because I am not a sociopath.

>It felt like using a typewriter

Maybe an electrical typewriter, but most normal typewriters feel nothing like any electronic keyboard, as you have to beat the crap out of the keys and hit them precisely in the center (or your finger would get stuck).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com