The Oracle Answers

[Muirium]

Consensus in ergo land, for what it's worth, is definitely that lighter switches are better. Just look at the DataHand — the most extreme ergo of them all— with the lightest switches of all too! I'm no ergo devotee, but my understanding is that less force, and less movement, is what it's all about. Which spells trouble, as those two are opposed, on traditional keyboards. I move a lot, because as a hover style typist I don't rest on any keys, so I don't press so hard and I don't have to twist around individual fingers to such an extent either. My arms work more so my fingers work less. As far as I know, at least!

[zslane]

I had the misfortune to have old manual typewriters as my first typing experience. Even though I learned to touch type on 70s-era Selectrics, I never rehabilitated the stabby nature of my typing. It's why I've learned to love the sound of bottoming out.

[Muirium]

Stab-Stab-Stab-Stab! Stab-Stab-Stab! Stab-Stab-Stab-Stab!

Not ergo, dude, not ergo.

[Ray]

As I said, I can see arguments, that doesn't necessarily mean those arguments are perfectly true for everyone. But if asked, what favours MX browns ergonomically, actuation force is the only argument that comes to my head.
As for myself, I prefer lighter switches and less movement, but I don't die from using Alt-Gr + 7-0 for braces and brackets, which are one of the most stupidly placed key combinations I can think of… And there's persons with a lot of movement of their hands on the keyboard (see four posts up) and it works for them. Can't argue against something that's working just fine.

[OleVoip]

Consensus in ergo land, for what it's worth, is definitely that lighter switches are better.

This does not hold so generally. A light short-travel switch is ergonomically worse than a heavier long-travel switch, because bottoming out is a strain. Tactility provides important haptic feedback, so it must not be too light, but it's not only tiring if it is too heavy, also the jolt from the release pulse can be a burden on the knuckle joints.

[Muirium]

Yeah, I agree. (And I'm no representative of ergo orthodoxy, I only vaguely follow it really.) Bottoming out hard is bad news. But bear in mind that heavy switches get bottomed out a lot as well. Especially if they're linear, like the ubiquitous MX black!

A short switch with a soft landing could be good. It wouldn't need the adaptation that so many people fail to do when they switch to mechs. Come on, most of us here still bottom out, and we're the enthusiasts!

[zslane]

I must be a genetic anamoly then. I've been bottoming out for hours a day, nearly every day, for 30 years. I've never felt finger or knuckle strain. I've been mousing for almost that long and I've never needed to wear one of those repetitive stress wrist restraints. I can't help but feel that ergodogma is vastly overstating its case, like most dogmas actually.

[Muirium]

That would be true if everyone had the same anatomy. I'm built pretty heavy and haven't had RSI show up in all my typing either. But I don't deny it affects some people very badly indeed.

I've heard that narrow wrists correlate with RSI vulnerability, and narrow hands. I have wide hands, wide wrists, and no complaint.

Still prefer a nice soft landing on Topre than bottoming out MX blacks all day! Feels and sounds better.

[zslane]

My writsts and hands/fingers are about as narrow (and small) as male hands can get. If my typing technique is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Phill1]

Data point 2: I have large bones (my wrist bone protrudes over a centimeter and a half visibly past my arm) and long fingers with average hands (10 cm at the knuckles) for a man, and find myself constantly on the edge of developing RSI. Worst culprit is a trackpad, the M570 was a lifesaver.

I assume it's mostly genetic, a connective tissue issue. My mom has a bad back and neck, and I have bad knees (Can already predict weather changes in my knees in my 20s). I think the ergo stuff is more for those with bad genetic dispositions, just like all the other health advice.

[Muirium]

Actually, I've also got a crappy inheritance of "gammy joints" as my Mum and her family calls them. I can't predict the weather (this Britain, it is *always* wet) but I had aches and pains in my legs and shoulders in childhood, let alone my 20s. They're not as bad as they used to be (I've tried to move away from carbohydrates over the years, especially Britain's fixation: potatoes) but I'm still a bit creaky out in the rain.

Yet no palpable RSI. And I even use a Magic Trackpad as my main pointing device.

There's no one size fits all. I've always known that. Even more than most men I find clothes shopping torturous, As everything is wrong in different ways. The fact that mainstream (vintage!) keyboards work well for me is an unexpected relief.

[Ray]

Is using the trackpad causing a problem, or the fact it sits in front of your keyboard and you arrange your hands not to touch it? If it's the first, I'm kinda surprised. I can use a trackpad/touchpad for days without any problem, definately better than a standard mouse right of a standard keyboard, which causes issues in my shoulder.

[shreebles]

For me the classic desktop mouse and keyboard combo remains unbeaten. You need a compact keyboard to keep your mousing and keyboard hand close together and the keyboard always centered in front of you. And a good mouse with low sensitivity on a large soft mousepad. That way, you can keep your mousing hand very relaxed because you don't need to concentrate on micro-movements. Instead, your arm, wrist and fingers can work together to make anything from very small to very big mouse movements.

IBM trackpoints are a close second because you can keep your hands on the home row while mousing. But trackpads, bleech

[Muirium]

I never much liked trackpads until Apple made this great big one. Any mouse or trackpad without multitouch gestures is useless to me now. The Magic Mouse is my other input device, and I'm faster at pointing and clicking with it than the Magic Trackpad, but! that's not all I do with the buggers.

See, I'm a stickler for doing as much as I can with the keyboard anyway. I've keyboard combos for everything I do on a frequent basis, which work even on the little HHKB. So my mouse/trackpad input is mostly for analog stuff these days like scrolling through long screens of text, which I demand to do with inertial scrolling of course. I'm not an animal!

Mice with wheels, and trackpads without scrolling at all? Forget about it.

Incidentally: the place I like to use my trackpad is just to the left of the keyboard. Absolutely essential when I've one of the fullsize models out, like right now and my NMB. Shreebles is right: I demand my keyboard centred in front of me. Or, in the case of a fullsize like this, I demand the 60% or at least TKL block centred. Which makes for fun when trying to use one of these guys in my lap! TKL is the best size there. The HHKB can be a little juggling act…

[shreebles]

Keyboard shortcuts - yes please all the time!

Inertial scrolling - you filthy animal! I want scrolling to stop when I stop moving my finger so I can start reading immediately! Otherwise I would have to wait for the momentum to run out. BUT if you love it so much you can have inertial scrolling by holding middle click on most mice. As soon as you move the mouse from the center of the click it will start scrolling and not stop unless you center it again or let go.

Incidentally: the place I like to use my trackpad is just to the left of the keyboard. Absolutely essential when I've one of the fullsize models out, like right now and my NMB.

Well, that seems pretty smart and ergonomic as well, if the trackpad is big I bet it is good for a relaxed hand posture.
Having the mouse hand to the left is really smart, and works so well with silly full size keyboards that insist on having a huge number pad in the place where the mouse should be.
Unfortunately, despite being left-handed I adapted to using the mouse with my right hand. So I would have to use a keyboard that has the numpad on the left-hand side (like only one mech that I know of) or forgo it completely.
Option two is more fun, my fingers on the numrow are still pretty swift.

[Muirium]

I'm so TKL and 60% minded that I forget fullsize keyboards even have a numpad. Whenever I type numbers longer than a couple of digits, I realise, hey, shouldn't I go travel over there to the deadzone? But in the meantime I've already finished!

The way Apple's inertial scrolling works is you flick the content, and then touch the surface again whenever you want it to stop. Instantly. I find it as quick as Page Up/Down, while letting me appease my OCD by avoiding unsightly paragraph splits at the top and bottom of the view! Smaller motions of less than a whole page work without even lifting, thanks to this being a huge trackpad compared to anything else I've ever used. And I fit a lot on my screen: it's 4k.

[Hypersphere]

Wrist posture or alignment is important in preventing RSI. People who have small wrists are more at risk for carpal tunnel syndrome. However, I have relatively small wrists and I started my typing on a manual typewriter, sometimes cutting stencils or making carbon copies, so that I had to bottom out with a vengeance. I still type that way, even on light switches, such as my 45g HHKB. The trick is keeping the hand in a straight line with the arm -- wrists straight, not bent. I've never had a problem with RSI or carpal tunnel, even with typing on Model M, Model F, Topre 55, Topre 45, and various other switches.

[Muirium]

45g HHKB? I thought you'd modded everything of yours to 55g.

I do like 55g Topre quite a bit, but my HHKB is staying its native 45g. Perfectly balanced, and I didn't even have to open it up for rings. Going Type-S on my first Topre was a gamble, especially for a clicky IBM guy, but I'm very glad I did. Damping for all!

As for posture: I type best when I stand. That way, my arms do the work and I do indeed minimise flexing. While sitting down, I'm still a floating style typist, but have a lazier form. It's not as easy on my shoulders, which give me trouble eventually if I only do that. Standing really helps me out.

[Phill1]

@Ray, Laptop keyboard's trackpad, it makes me bring my hand and wrist right up next to my chest, which just drives my wrist nuts. If I had a separate trackpad next to my keyboard I'm sure it would be less problematic.

[Ray]

So it is like I thought, the problem doesn't come from using the trackpad, but the space it takes on the laptop computer. Luckily mine on a 10 year old Dell is small enough not to interfere with my typing at all.

[jou]

The size, feel and software integration are what makes Apple's multitouch trackpads not only a decent pointing device, but a great one. I used to hate trackpads with a passion (and still do for those tiny, plasticky one on most laptops) but I like Apple's enough that I use a Magic Trackpad as my main pointing device. Even now that I'm using a RollerMouse, I still have that trackpad around for gestures and 2D scrolling.

[Muirium]

Exactly. The only thing it sucks at is dragging, especially detailed drags. So I try not to use it for my image editing! That also renders it useless for core FPS etc. games, I'm sure, as does the lack of independently clickable buttons, like my Magic Mouse. But they both handle Kerbal Space Program just fine, so I'm all set!

[luckynet2]

When is the oracle's birthday? kinda sad no one's been celebrating it

also, topre 55g is too damn stiff... urghhh....

[GarTheConquer]

Any suggestions on a full ANSI Cherry MX Brown mechanical keyboard, for as little money as possible?
I'm just trying to steer my friend away from Razer...

[Muirium]

Cheap. Fullsize? MX Brown? In Canada? Sorry, I've no idea. What's the price to beat?

[Linkert]

Been working on a layout for a ISO 88-key wasdkeyboard. Came up with a mix of ANSI, ISO, Swedish and Dvorak. Think I've hit a sweet spot. (not final)

See any craziness? (updated) How does WASD handle small type, clear & crisp?

Spoiler:

XKB written for it: (not tested yet)

Code: Select all

Xrtial alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "se-dvorak" {
 include "keypad(comma)"
 include "level3(ralt_switch)"

 key <TLDE> { [	tilde,			paragraph				] };
 key <AE01> { [	1,				exclam					] };
 key <AE02> { [	2,				at						] };
 key <AE03> { [	3,				numbersign				] };
 key <AE04> { [	4,				dollar					] };
 key <AE05> { [	5,				percent,	infinity	] };
 key <AE06> { [	6,				asciicircum				] }; 
 key <AE07> { [	7,				ampersand				] };
 key <AE08> { [	8,				asterisk				] };
 key <AE09> { [	9,				parenleft,	leftsinglequotemark,	leftdoublequotemark		] };
 key <AE10> { [	0,				parenright,	rightsinglequotemark,	rightdoublequotemark	] };
 key <AE11> { [	bracketleft,	braceleft													] };
 key <AE12> { [	bracketright,	braceright,	dead_acute,				dead_grave				] };

 key <AD01> { [	aring,	Aring				] };
 key <AD02> { [	comma,	less,	semicolon	] };
 key <AD03> { [	period,	greater,colon		] };
 key <AD04> { [	p,		P,		sterling	] };
 key <AD05> { [	y,		Y,		yen			] };
 key <AD06> { [	f,		F					] };
 key <AD07> { [	g,		G					] };
 key <AD08> { [	c,		C					] };
 key <AD09> { [	r,		R					] };
 key <AD10> { [	l,		L					] };
 key <AD11> { [	slash,	question, bar		] };
 key <AD12> { [	equal,	plus,	backslash	] };

 key <AC01> { [	a,	A					] };
 key <AC02> { [	o,	O					] };
 key <AC03> { [	e,	E,		EuroSign	] };
 key <AC04> { [	u,	U					] };
 key <AC05> { [	i,	I					] };
 key <AC06> { [	d,	D					] };
 key <AC07> { [	h,	H					] };
 key <AC08> { [	t,	T					] };
 key <AC09> { [	n,	N					] };
 key <AC10> { [	s,	S					] };
 key <AC11> { [	minus,		underscore,	hyphen,	endash	] };
 key <AC12> { [	apostrophe,	quotedbl					] };

 key <LSGT> { [	odiaeresis,	Odiaeresis	] };
 key <AB01> { [	adiaeresis,	Adiaeresis	] };
 key <AB02> { [	q,	Q					] };
 key <AB03> { [	j,	J					] };
 key <AB04> { [	k,	K					] };
 key <AB05> { [	x,	X					] };
 key <AB06> { [	b,	B					] };
 key <AB07> { [	m,	M					] };
 key <AB08> { [	w,	W					] };
 key <AB09> { [	v,	V					] };
 key <AB10> { [	z,	Z					] };

};

[Chyros]

Been working on a layout for a ISO 88-key wasdkeyboard. Came up with a mix of ANSI, ISO, Swedish and Dvorak.

DvörÅNSISÖ?

[GarTheConquer]

Cheap. Fullsize? MX Brown? In Canada? Sorry, I've no idea. What's the price to beat?

He was hoping under 100CAD, but good luck I think.

[GarTheConquer]

Now he wants backlit as well and is willing to go as high as 140CAD. I dunno. CM TKL maybe? But no arrows or delete cluster on that one...

[Linkert]

Been working on a layout for a ISO 88-key wasdkeyboard. Came up with a mix of ANSI, ISO, Swedish and Dvorak.

DvörÅNSISÖ?

Haha something like that Dvårak-ANSISO