minimalist keyboards - WHY?

[kbdfr]

[…], but I like to have as little hand movement as possible during work. […]

So do I, see the red lines:

Hand movement.jpg (440.02 KiB) Viewed 5667 times

[Halvar]

FTFY:

Hand movement_ftfy.jpg (437.71 KiB) Viewed 5659 times

[jacobolus]

So do I [like to have as little hand movement as possible], see the red lines:

So what you mean is you wish you were using this setup full time:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=80080

[Chyros]

What le fuckque.

[Muirium]

Even as a sixty lover, I can't say I'd relish that particular thought!

But this line of assault on Kbdfr's maximalist ways is generally right. He uses his Rollermouse as cover for all the hunting and pecking going on up across his keyboard. Hand movement aplenty.

[kbdfr]

FTFY:

Well, if you don't need that many keys, you can still minimize hand movement like jacobolus shows or simply:

Hand movement-2.jpg (341.56 KiB) Viewed 5621 times

[CeeSA]

I move less

Trackpoint half.jpg (155.07 KiB) Viewed 5615 times

[tentator]

ahahaha! I totally second this last one CeeSA!!!

[kbdfr]

CeeSA wins.
I actually have to move my thumb down about twice as far as he moves his index on that right half of his split keyboard

[davkol]

Whoever uses eye tracking wins.

[Muirium]

But I'm always looking out the window…

[Scarpia]

Here's a thought experiment. Imagine a keyboard so vast that you never had to press any chords at all. There's two number rows, so you can hit !@#$ etc. without Shift. And there's a whole second alpha block just for UPPER CASE ALL BY ITSELF.

Love it! ..joking aside, I would love to see a serious discussion about a Better Way(tm) that involves a bit of outside-the-box thinking. If you had never seen an keyboard before and you had to invent a widely usable input device from scratch, how would you do it? With no prior notion of a keyboard, but knowing what you know about computers, about desk space, ergonomy, hand & finger dexterity, the importance of tactile feedback, the frequency distribution of characters in English text, etc.

I'm really asking.

Consider for example that that the 'z' and 'q' keys probably see less use than the Ctrl+v chord. Or that, for some of us, the key combo "colon-w-q" has a higher frequency than all the above-the-numbers symbols put together.

What if you designed a keyboard based on the California Job Case? Or what if you designed it with a nod to the learnings from 100-year-old stenotype tech?
What if the ten most used chords simply replaced your F-row? Who says a key has to be depressed to actuate, or that a switch can't have multiple actuation levels with different semantics?

Am I advocating a departure from everything that is holy? Throwing away your Cherries, Alps and Topres? Of course not. But given that this is one of the few communities in the world who spends all their time thinking about keyboards and disassembling keyboards and sometimes even designing PCBs and cases for keyboards -- if anyone is ever going to come up with a better mouse trap, it's a fair bet it'll be someone with a DT account.

[Chyros]

But I'm always looking out the window…

I didn't know you were a civil servant Oo .

[tigpha]

Hi Scarpia,

"Doug Engelbart began experimenting with keysets to use with the mouse in the mid 1960s [...] Engelbart used the keyset with his left hand and the mouse with his right to type text and enter commands."

A very short video demo of an Arduino recreation of Doug's keyset

I had toyed with the idea of a keyset design, but the biggest hurdle to jump was how to teach using it. The video above offers a possible suggestion, of guiding successive key presses, which are held until the combination is complete, followed by releasing all the keys. The combinations of key-press sequences amounts to well over a thousand possibilities, all from only five keys. Fewer keys could actually be used, I suppose, if the range of combinations does not need to be so huge.

Doug had a more direct, power-of-two for each digit, instead of the key-press sequence method above:

Doug describes the operation of his keyset design

[Muirium]

But I'm always looking out the window…

I didn't know you were a civil servant Oo .

Hey, I'm a frickin' imagineer, okay!

if anyone is ever going to come up with a better mouse trap, it's a fair bet it'll be someone with a DT account.

Yeah, nice thought, but there is an obvious and objective way to define a better mouse trap, involving counting dead mice. Yet keyboards come down to taste and individual learning / habits, which makes a much more complex problem space. One user's steno-inspired chording cornucopia is another's What The Flying Duck? Even something as simple as using layers to shrink a fullsize keyboard down to 60% gets a lot of pushback here, let alone out among more ordinary people who really do rely on key legends to find their way around. How could we ever agree? That's not what we're about at all!

Instead, what you'll find is what we've already got. Experiments and niches within niches, where each man goes down his own path, rarely overlapping with anyone else. While the majority stay with what we're used to, from 60% on up.

[jacobolus]

Everyone should be mousing with their foot. Then there’s no need to move the hands off the keyboard.

[Muirium]

Feet are too slow. We aren't all Diego Maradona. (Fortunately!)

[Scarpia]

Everyone should be mousing with their foot. Then there’s no need to move the hands off the keyboard.

Ha! I'd be totally willing to try this! You mean I could surf the web while eating a messy quesadilla without getting guac all over my mouse (or keyboard)? I'm in.

[Scarpia]

Yeah, nice thought, but there is an obvious and objective way to define a better mouse trap, involving counting dead mice. Yet keyboards come down to taste and individual learning / habits, which makes a much more complex problem space. (...)

Instead, what you'll find is (...) experiments and niches within niches, where each man goes down his own path (...)

Those are very valid points, of course, but hidden in the chaos of all these experiments and deeply personal preferences and idiosyncracies there's a lot of consensus as well, at least in the broader strokes. What I mean is, you could never find one switch or layout which every Deskthorian would love, but you could probably find several switches and layouts which only a small minority of Deskthorians would categorically refuse to use. And it's these kinds of commonalities which potentially could lead to something useful for mainstream computer users.

[jacobolus]

Feet are too slow. We aren't all Diego Maradona. (Fortunately!)

Maradona plays soccer with his hands, freeing up his feet for typing.

[Scarpia]

[cookie]

I definitely can't go back to TKL or fullsize. Too much love for 60%, I am curios to try a 40% but only as a htpc keyboard, I think working on one is too challenging for me

[vvp]

Yeah, nice thought, but there is an obvious and objective way to define a better mouse trap, involving counting dead mice. Yet keyboards come down to taste and individual learning / habits, which makes a much more complex problem space.

You could minimize the energy required to type. This would probably lead to stenograph but the time/energy spent to learn should be counted too. If that is taken into account then it is possible we would finish with something like Kinesis Advantage or Maltron or something like Oobly's keyboard. Or maybe even something like a sixty percent board. But I doubt that since it does not have that good placed thumb keys.

[chuckdee]

I've always used Full-Sized keyboards. For gaming, there was the programmability of having many keys. If you can program a few keys for a few things, more keys means more space for macros. I also used brief for programming, which makes use of the keypad. So I never considered a smaller keyboard, and felt cramped when working on my laptop keyboard.

To make it easy to switch between devices, I started using a Logitech K811 and sitting it aside on my desk. That was my first introduction to a smaller keyboard. And at that time, I started to realize that at some point, I migrated to using less keys. Being on the K811 was not a big impediment, other than travel and it not being a mechanical. When I found out about the minimal keyboards, it just made sense, as those keys present are pretty much what I use 80% of the time. I'm still experimenting, but I have noticed that my typing speed is faster on the 60%, and it just feels better, even with similar switches. I haven't decided between TKL and 60% (having started out with the 60% for right now), but I don't think I'm going back to full-sized.

[Zensuji.]

I use a low sens in fps gams 60cm/360 hhkb gives me 60cm of space left on my desk pad. I can just about use tkl but don't like too. And full size just gives me a soft-on

[czarek]

[…], but I like to have as little hand movement as possible during work. […]

So do I, see the red lines:

Hand movement.jpg

I'm sorry but I don't like rollermouse. Totally useless in games, and even stuff like selecting text in terminal is troublesome for me. I tried using it for about 2 weeks and decided to return it because I couldn't get as productive as with normal mouse/trackball.

[nafsasp]

I can talk a little about my switch to a 60% layout (Pok3r with stock Fn layer). I'm 27, and for most of my life my only computer was a laptop so I'm used to having Fn keys behind the Fn layer and not having a navigation cluster.

When I began working after college I was using one of those cheap Dell keyboards that come bundled with your desktop and got into mechanical keyboards after a friend bought a Das Keyboard. Not knowing much about mechanical keyboards I bought one as well (with MX Browns, I believe). After using the Das at my office I decided I wanted to try a different switch, and began researching other keyboard/switch options.

At first I really liked the idea of a TKL, and thought 60% keyboards looked cool, but couldn't possibly be practical without arrow keys, so I decided to split the difference and got a Filco Minila and a KBT Race II. I wasn't very happy with the Race II, so it went right back to the Electronic Bay. After using the Minila for a couple months, I realized it was actually easier to use the arrow keys under the Fn layer (ESDF). Around that time I also started working with HTML (I work for a small news publication and have to post my own stories) and finally figured out what the navigation keys are for. While I really liked the Minila, it wasn't without its problems (the 3u spacebar surrounded by Fn keys and 1u backspace and R Shift to name a few), so I ended up buying my first 60%.

After making the switch to a Pok3r I'm far more efficient with my keyboard, and actually make use of the navigation keys. I also find the arrow keys at IJKL to be far more useful than a dedicated arrow cluster. I also noticed a big improvement in ergonomics after switching to a smaller form factor. I have some arthritis in my back/neck and have a lot less pain on my right side after switching away from a full size keyboard.

The only drawback I see with a 60% layout is if you work with Excel, I rarely do, but have found the Fn layer arrow keys and lack of a number pad to be pretty inefficient. Luckily I only use Excel for a few very basic tasks and spend nearly all of my time either writing or note taking in Word and editing HTML in Dreamweaver, where the 60% has been wonderful.

[chuckdee]

so I decided to split the difference and got a Filco Minila and a KBT Race II

Umm... do you still have your KBT Race II? My eyes sort of glossed over when I saw that. Been looking for one!

[nafsasp]

so I decided to split the difference and got a Filco Minila and a KBT Race II

Umm... do you still have your KBT Race II? My eyes sort of glossed over when I saw that. Been looking for one!

No, sorry, I sold it on eBay a while ago. Still have my Minila (MX Blue) though. I'm planning to sell it so I can get a second Pok3r (MX Clear).

[yellowfour]

people are trained and tested to type fast on the 10-key, so it should stay on the right side. navigation keys should move to the left side.