Split Keyboards Are Superior And The Reason I’m The Writer I Am Today.
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You will encounter this man at work.
They will ask for your help with something on their workstation, and it would be faster for you to drive with them watching over your shoulder, but this cryptic thing is their keyboard.
Instead, you will be forced to sit behind them like Patrick Swayze guiding Demi Moore at a throwing wheel. You will eventually take your shirt off, launch Unchained Melody in Spotify, then slowly guide them through a system setting panel.
You will notice how soft their hands feel. The hyper-ergonomic keyboard has allowed their fingers to move with minimal effort, allowing the skin to remain as supple, smooth - almost unused.
You will ask yourself, “Is he right?” How could a keyboard be so aggressive and wrong, and yet, support something so gentile.
You try to deny the feeling. Your friends and family will mock you like your uncle Dvorak. Maybe you start with a trackball and see if being naughty feels right.
Imagine having a keyboard like this, and still needing to be guided through a system settings menu.
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Imagine playing Dwarf Fortress in a recliner with a pair of these.
As someone who has only played since the Steam version, I don't know how you people did it with the ASCII graphics and lack of mouse support.
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I was the lucky owner of a rare FingerWorks Touchstream keyboard for many years. If you don't know it, it's the precursor to the keyboards used in Star Trek Enterprise.
It's a keyless keyboard. Two large flat mousepads with a keyboard layout printed on top, and you type by pure touch. There's no mouse; the surface just cleverly detects when you are doing mouse gestures. Or a lot of other gestures.
Trekkie joke aside, it's actually the magic tech that made the iPhone possible. Of course Apple didn't invent anything, they bought existing future tech.
I miss that keyboard. They still sell on ebay, for 1400$!
You mean I can have all of the worst aspects of modern smart phone keyboards with my desktop? Sign me up!
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Many, many moons ago (must have been around 2006?) I managed to procure a FingerWorks. It was magic, like holding a piece of computing history!
It allowed a lot of the gestures we take for granted, to switch applications or workspaces, to go back a page, etc. But it also had really cool stuff.
You could bind gestures like twisting your fingers clockwise to open a file (just like opening a jar!) or counterclockwise to close it. Pinch and zoom for copy and paste.I was only able to get a hold on a Dvorak copy. And because the key labels were printed on the board, you couldn't really change the layout. Getting used to a split layout, no keys and Dvorak at the same time was too much and I had to sell it again. But I've been using split keyboards ever since!
Seems cool but kind of gimmicky (particularly the twist gestures to open files). I'll take actual tactile feedback over gimmicky features.
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Hear me out, take the optic sensor from a mouse and put it on the bottom of one of those boards. Then you wouldn't have to move your hand to use a mouse.
Or just get one that has a trackball/touchpad/trackpoint, like https://ultimatehackingkeyboard.com/
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I just want The Wheel.
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You will encounter this man at work.
They will ask for your help with something on their workstation, and it would be faster for you to drive with them watching over your shoulder, but this cryptic thing is their keyboard.
Instead, you will be forced to sit behind them like Patrick Swayze guiding Demi Moore at a throwing wheel. You will eventually take your shirt off, launch Unchained Melody in Spotify, then slowly guide them through a system setting panel.
You will notice how soft their hands feel. The hyper-ergonomic keyboard has allowed their fingers to move with minimal effort, allowing the skin to remain as supple, smooth - almost unused.
You will ask yourself, “Is he right?” How could a keyboard be so aggressive and wrong, and yet, support something so gentile.
You try to deny the feeling. Your friends and family will mock you like your uncle Dvorak. Maybe you start with a trackball and see if being naughty feels right.
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I love the Power Glove... It's so bad.
Every Power Glove sold should have come with one complimentary Fred Savage
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One of Jobs' many failures was not getting this into market.
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That's ok, insanity comes in many forms.
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Here's what I want: tiny, one handed bluetooth chord keyboard.
For typing on my phone. Can someone make one?
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As long as it's got mech switches and can run a qwerty layout I'm happy
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I've used plenty of ergo keyboards and fancy layouts, but as soon as I try to use a regular keyboard I have to re-learn how to type and it really halts any productivity.
This sort of thing may be nice if you only ever use one computer or you're willing to pack around your keyboard.
Even still, I never liked ergo boards enough to think it's worth the effort, especially considering being useless on other keyboards once I'm used to ergo.
Now I just stick to a 75% or TKL. Keeps me versatile.
I don't have this experience, I am briefly confused for a second and then it's fine, are you sure this lasts more than like 30 seconds?
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I built and configured an Arkenswoop some time in 2023. It's really nice. However... I have gotten quite fast on a conventional keyboard just by using it over the years, and re-learning that is just so tedious. Every time I try, something with a deadline comes up, and I switch back "temporarily".
Anyone have experience overcoming this?
I'm going through this currently trying to find a privacy respecting Android keyboard.
Latest effort is Futo, recommended by a coworker. So far, I don't like it.
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That's ok, insanity comes in many forms.
When I was a kid, I got my hands on a PS/2 Y-adapter and so typed on two keyboards - left hand on one in my desk, left hand on one on a keyboard tray. I don't know what my typing speed and accuracy were then, but a few years back an entire office of people tried to beat me in a typing test and couldn't. Since then I've taken a typing test on a laptop while sitting in a hotel bed and gotten a score of 158 with, IIRC, 98.2% accuracy. (This was my best score but even since then all of my typing evaluations have gone well.)
I also use a trackball as exclusively as my environment allows, including while gaming (other than Minecraft). I'm not remotely a pro, but among my peers I tend to score highly in, for example, FPS'.
I'm not trying to brag; there are many better than I in both categories. The reason I bring these up is to demonstrate that something being the convention doesn't automatically make it better and something being unfit for your preferences doesn't make it inferior.
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Where's the rest of the keys? Also these things give off Nintendo Power Glove vibes.
It uses layers, the same way a phone keyboard has a separate layer for numbers and symbols. Holding down one of the three thumb keys on either side activates a new layer. Since you can use your thumb and fingers at the same time, there’s no lose in typing speed. Indeed, the layout puts numbers and symbols closer to the home row on a layer than using a physical number number.
For all symbols, you would have needed a shift-modifier to access those before. With this design, the symbols are closer but use a layer switch key instead of a shift key to access them.
Everyone who uses a phone keyboard has learned a new compact keyboard layout. It’s not so hard.
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When I was a kid, I got my hands on a PS/2 Y-adapter and so typed on two keyboards - left hand on one in my desk, left hand on one on a keyboard tray. I don't know what my typing speed and accuracy were then, but a few years back an entire office of people tried to beat me in a typing test and couldn't. Since then I've taken a typing test on a laptop while sitting in a hotel bed and gotten a score of 158 with, IIRC, 98.2% accuracy. (This was my best score but even since then all of my typing evaluations have gone well.)
I also use a trackball as exclusively as my environment allows, including while gaming (other than Minecraft). I'm not remotely a pro, but among my peers I tend to score highly in, for example, FPS'.
I'm not trying to brag; there are many better than I in both categories. The reason I bring these up is to demonstrate that something being the convention doesn't automatically make it better and something being unfit for your preferences doesn't make it inferior.
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Imagine having a keyboard like this, and still needing to be guided through a system settings menu.
I mean yes but no. Back at some old job all the devs had the local admin password so we could do things like install drivers for bluetooth dongles on our own (I said "old job", didn't I) and usually everything was fine but at some point my machine just barfed, it would neither install nor uninstall drivers. I called an admin because I have no idea about windows internals. They were ecstatic, finally, an actual problem, and not walking someone in marketing through how to write an email. Some regedit magic later the problem was solved, and yes I had layout switching ready on the taskbar.
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I don't have this experience, I am briefly confused for a second and then it's fine, are you sure this lasts more than like 30 seconds?
When I'm forced into a qwerty situation it's not just 30 seconds, I simply can't touch-type qwerty and my current qwerty skills are way slower than 25 years ago where I had reached peak seven-and-a-half-fingers hunt-and-peck performance. In principle I should know where all the keys are, still, I can't find them without looking.
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When I'm forced into a qwerty situation it's not just 30 seconds, I simply can't touch-type qwerty and my current qwerty skills are way slower than 25 years ago where I had reached peak seven-and-a-half-fingers hunt-and-peck performance. In principle I should know where all the keys are, still, I can't find them without looking.
ah, i was already a ~120wpm typist on qwerty when i switched to dvorak, so, that might have something to do with it.
