I use a Happy Hacking Keyboard which has no capslock key, control is automatically mapped there. On every other keyboard I've applied that same mapping in the OS. I would hate that weird split key set up that Lenovo has done there though.
I like the minimal ideals of the happy hacking keyboard but I think it went a little overboard. I like having an arrow cluster and page up/down for applications that don't support emacs/vi bindings. I do like how the number pad is removed. It's too infrequently used and increases the distance between keyboard and mouse.
> I do like how the number pad is removed. It's too infrequently used and increases the distance between keyboard and mouse.
Take a look at tenkeyless keyboards, then. They don't have the numpad, but keep everything else the same as a full-size (104 key) keyboard. For example, the Realforce 87U is a tenkeyless keyboard with Topre keyswitches (same as the HHKB): http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php?sub=topre_keyboards,r...
Also Leopold 66 key keyboards are almost as austere as HHKB, but they have an arrow cluster with similar placement to laptops. I have the 66key touch mini, it isn't bad but I like the HHKB a little better and it's hard to go back and forth.
Ah, thanks for the pointer... I haven't yet come across any really worthy competitors to the HHKB until now (lots of stuff in the "small keyboard" and "nice feel" categories, but they always seem to screw something up...).
The Leopold looks like a worthy alternative to the HHKB, with a very similar vibe, especially as they allow you to swap Ctrl / CapsLock via a dip-switch (I wonder if they sell alternate keycaps with the labels swapped too). It seems to occupy a nice price middle-ground between the HHKB Lite (2) and the HHKB Pro, and has nicer switches than the HHKB Lite (to tell the truth, I don't mind the HHKB Lite's feel, but it's a little on the cheap-n-cheerful end)...
[The only significant difference in layout seems to be the "\" key.]
> I wonder if they sell alternate keycaps with the labels swapped too
I was looking into this a few days and it doesn't look like Leopold doesn't sell extra single keycaps or sets. You can browse their site (Korean) to confirm http://leopold.co.kr/
Yeah, the \ is swapped with the backspace key, which unfortunately I use a lot. The 66key has it in the normal place, but HHKB moved it south. HHKB has the ~ on the right top which is different as well.
I have to say the Topre tenkeyless is amazing. I was just killing time in a shop before traveling and fell in love with it. Two of my colleagues who i was pairing a lot with ended up buying the same keyboards. The only thing that took me some time to adjust to, was the missing enter key on the numpad. I would hit right arrow and then wait for a second before realizing. But it's very much worth it for the smaller travel to mouse.
I've read that they're rebranded Filco keyboards. The worst thing about the CM Storm is the key cap font, which is just really ugly. And because they're printed on, my wasd keys are fading after 2 years of use.
> I've read that they're rebranded Filco keyboards.
This is definitely not true. Filco build quality is unmatched in terms of Cherry switch keyboards, although Ducky is getting close these days. The CM Storm keyboards are of noticeably poorer build quality, although you do save some money in return.
Personally, I would get the Filco, since a keyboard isn't something you have to regularly replace. It's worth spending the money on the best keyboard you can get. Same goes for your desk, chair, headphones, and laptop bag. People were shocked at first when I dropped a lot of money on these things, but I'm still using them 5+ years later, where many others have had to buy new ones (especially bags and headphones).
While they are not rebranded Filco keyboards they are definitely at or just below the same level of quality as a Filco. They are made by the same OEM, use the same (crappy) material for their keycaps, and are comparable in overall durability. Filco keyboards were semi-infamous for chattering (repeating keys randomly) when they were still sold by Elite Keyboards and there weren't as many other options for mechanical keyboards in the US.
The noppoo is quite low quality compared to most topre boards, and also it's worth noting the keys are smaller than a "normal" keyboard, which gets annoying quickly (I own both a hhkbp2, noppoo choc and a few other mechanical kbs).
I'm probably the only person who can't "touch-calculate" on the number pad to save their life, but still loves the thing for its big honkin' enter key. When I'm using a GUI application and a dialog box pops up, I can smash that sucker with the left side of my hand to close it way faster than I can click on the "OK" button or move my right hand to the traditional enter key. Tapping enter with my thumb on a laptop keyboard just isn't the same.
It took me quite a while to get used to using the function key to access the arrows, and I'm still not entirely happy with that. If you get the Lite version that does have arrow keys, but the Lite is inferior to the Pro in every other way.
I couldn't live without Home and End. They're two of my most frequently used keys. Do you know of any other similar keyboards with the home/end/pg cluster intact?
Are split keyboards really that much better for avoiding carpal tunnel syndrome? It seems like I just don't hear that much about carpal tunnel any more, and I wonder if the general wisdom of taking frequent breaks is a bigger factor than an ergonomic keyboard.
I suffered from some form of CTS and I can say split keyboards didn't really make much of a difference. It's all about placement of the wrists and keeping a good posture. Also breaks, lots of small breaks throughout the day.
A properly designed split keyboard is aimed at improving the placement of the wrists though.
I found a minor but noticeable benefit many years ago switching to the Kinesis Advantage. I've recently switched to the Truly Ergonomic keyboard; I've yet to decide if it's better or worse overall than the Kinesis.
I think it largely depends on the person. If I rest my hands naturally on a traditional keyboard, my fingers end up somewhere around wdfv okjn. To pull them around to the home row basically involves tilting my hands outward and bringing my wrists inward even further, neither of which is good for either your hands or your typing speed.
If I have pain or numbness (either of which can last for days), just having my hands rotated to use a flat keyboard for a few minutes could be difficult.
Generally, though, if I get pain in my left hand/arm, it's from excessive typing; in my right, excessive back-and-forth to the pointing device (I use a trackball at home if I do any gaming, pad at work, just so it's not the same device all the time). I have never really been able to use a mouse.
Single data point: I had severe RSI problems a few years ago, but I am not completely recovered. For me, the biggest single part of the solution was to start using a break program. I also use a split keyboard and a pen mouse, but the break program is the key. I written up my story here: http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-beat-rsi/
I agree. Buying the Kinesis Advantage [0] keyboard was the best investment I ever made. CTS was gone in about the time I needed to get back to the speed of typing I was before (2-3 weeks) and has never returned (4 years and counting). I would LOVE to have something similar on my laptop and would gladly pay the premium for it.
I'll echo this - I was at a point where I was starting to miss work because I had so much wrist pain that I couldn't type, and then I switched to a Kinesis. A month later I was back up to full speed and haven't had any pain since. I don't know how it stacks up against competitors, but the thing quite literally saved my wrists, I highly recommend trying it if you're having trouble.
Definitely has a bit of a learning curve, though, for a few weeks I had trouble remembering which keys were where.
I'd like to try each of them, but at about $300 each, it gets expensive fast. Have you used the foot pedals on the Kinesis? Are they useful in practice?
I've never tried that keyboard, but I'm on my fourth Kinesis Advantage over 14 years or so. I'm not sure I would like the TEK, I want my keyboard to be a bit wider so I don't have to squeeze my hands together. The angling avoids needing to put your wrists into constant ulnar deviation, though, which is the worst part about normal keyboards. And I like the idea of putting extra keys by the index fingers, I'd much rather use those than stretch the pinky. Ultimately, you'd have to try them and see which ones fit you.
As for the pedals, I use them for shift/control, which avoids having to do multiple-key chords. These days I have almost no RSI problems, so I could probably get by without them, but it made a significant difference when it was worse.
As for cost: if you're a programmer, your hands are your life. Investing in proper tools (keyboards, adjustable keyboard trays, chairs) is worth much more than that, IMHO.
I switched to the TEK about three months ago after maybe six or seven years with the Kinesis (although without the foot pedals). Here's what I would say so far.
1. The TEK feels better in terms of physical key presses. Both use the same Cherry MX Brown switches, but because the Kinesis is a big hollow piece of flimsy plastic and the TEK a very solid brick, the overall effect is noticeably nicer to my fingers at least.
2. The function keys are much better on the TEK.
3. The arrow keys and brackets are better positioned by miles on the TEK. You can remap the keys of course, but the Kinesis only has one column to the right of the 'P' key, it's nearly impossible to find a good place to put them, and I just left them where they are. Similarly, the tilde/backquote key is also on that horrible bottom row on the Kinesis. And those arrow keys...putting left and right on the left hand and up and down on the right hand is one of those things that probably seemed like a good idea on paper, but after maybe seven years using the keyboard, those arrows were every single bit as completely unusable as they were the first day I sat down with it.
4. In contrast, the thumb well ends up being a better place for things like the enter and backspace keys than a single column in the middle, so score one for the Kinesis there.
5. The 209 International TEK has plenty of modifier keys. You get control on each hand, meta on each hand, and a blank key on each hand you can choose how to map. Plus you get a menu key in the middle column, and the space bar is split, so you can remap whichever side you don't use for space for something else. On the Kinesis, the thumb wells only have two modifier keys per side, so if you want symmetric layouts, you're stuck without a command or control key on the Mac, or super/hyper/windows on Windows or Linux. You can remap Caps Lock for that purpose of course, but there's no place on the right hand to put an equivalent key. If you use Emacs on a Mac, you know how badly you need Control, Command, and Option keys, and not having that ability on my Kinesis was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to try the TEK.
6. Remapping keys on the TEK is ridiculously difficult. You have to do the remapping on their web site in a (fairly nice, actually) little Javascript GUI. That part works well enough, but then to apply the changes, you have to download and flash new a new firmware image, which can only be done in Windows. Not in a virtual machine, but with the keyboard plugged into the back of a real USB port on a real Windows computer. I don't own a Windows machine, so any time I want to try out a new remapping, I have to haul my keyboard to work and reboot my Linux box there into Windows. On the Kinesis, you remap on the fly by pressing keys right on the keyboard.
7. I've bought two of both models now, and both are sort of a mixed bag. I can't stress enough how cheaply the Kinesis is made. Every once in a while, I have to take apart the flimsy plastic case and glue the USB hub back down (and yes, it's just glued right to the plastic shell). The TEK is built like a brick, but one of the two has taken a full month of use so far, and it's still not completely "broken in". That's the term that Truly Ergonomic use to refer to the property of your keyboard registering the keys you press. Out of the box, about 15-20 keys either didn't work at all, or else pressing them once would insert anywhere from zero to five or six of whatever letter you pressed. They tell you that you might need to press each key a few hundred times to "break them in". In my case, maybe 25,000 times is more like it. If I didn't live in Iceland, I would have demanded a replacement, but since shipping is such an enormous hassle, I decided to see if it got better, and it mostly has. My first TEK worked perfectly, but this second one still has maybe a 2-3% error rate, either duplicating or ignoring keypresses. Which is way better than the 57% error rate I measured on the 'B' key during the first few days I had it (and several others were nearly as bad).
8. The Kinesis has a USB hub. It snaps away from the case and dangles loose inside the hollow shell occasionally, but you can take the thing apart with a handful of screws and glue it back down at least. The TEK doesn't have USB ports. Not a huge deal I know, but it means that I need a separate USB hub with the TEK, and with the Kinesis, I could do without one.
Summing everything together, #4 is a really big point in favor of the Kinesis. You can get used to either one, but you really have to reach to hit that middle column on the TEK, whereas the Kinesis puts all those keys right under your thumbs. The remapping solution for the TEK is frankly embarrassing, but once you settle on a layout, it's not something you need to do very often. In contrast, the TEK feels better and on the whole, has a layout that is better designed for programmers I think, with the brackets and some other non-special keys in more standard locations. And for me, the modifier key situation is at least as big of an advantage for the TEK as the thumb well is for the Kinesis.
I honestly can't say for sure yet which I prefer. I'm sticking with the TEK for now, and I think, if push comes to shove, that the modifier keys are going to be the clincher, but both are really good keyboards.
What was your previous keyboard that caused you CTS?
Was your keyboard sitting on the edge of the table closest to you or did you place it further away from you to have space on a table for your forearms?
I'm using much less expensive "Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 v1.0" for many years and it works good for me.
I'd buy an HH keyboard in a heartbeat if it had the same layout as the Microsoft Natural keyboards. No, I lied. I would buy four or five; for home, for work, and for spares.
I use a Kinesis split keyboard now, and it's pretty good, but ESC / F1 are in the wrong place and I had to remap them.
(MS has been serially fucking up the Natural keyboards for nearly a decade now. The 4000 series started the decline, and I can't use the damned things at all now).
While I've never developed full-blown CTS, I've had mild wrist pain for pretty much ever. Since switching from an MS Natural to a Topre board pain has gotten a bit better. I suspect a natural layout with the topre switchs would be the real killer app.
