
A More Ergonomic Keyboard Strategy - hiattp
http://blog.paulrugelhiatt.com/hacks/keyboards/2015/06/15/a-more-ergonomic-keyboard-strategy.html
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ebbv
While this is pretty novel (I don't recall seeing anything exactly like this
in the past 25 years), I doubt that it's truly more ergonomic than a standard
keyboard on a desk that's at the right height and distance from you.

With the keyboards at angles like that your hands are going to be pulled by
gravity downward away from the keyboard at rest. Meaning you have to hold your
hands in typing position. Additionally, those keyboards don't seem to have a
lot of support and I foresee a bit of wobble, which is also not great.

When I was young (early teens) and a novice programmer/avid gamer I used to
have wrist pain. It turned out this was mainly due to two factors; bad
positioning of my arms and wrists while typing, and typing too hard. I
retrained myself to position my arms and wrists such that they are truly at
rest when typing (weigh resting on the heels of my palms) and to type gently,
only using the amount of force necessary, and never pushing against the key
while it is bottomed out, and in the following 25+ years of typing often >12
hours a day I never have wrist problems, despite a variety of keyboards.

Usually when I encounter people who are having wrist pain from typing, their
posture and typing too hard are the problem. Sometimes changing out the
keyboard helps induce a more mindful approach to typing and helps them relax,
or adjusts their position such that it fixes the problem. But often times it
doesn't, because the problem is their behavior, not the device.

Try typing more gently, and try adjusting your posture so you're not having to
use your fore arm muscles to hold your hands in position. Those may help you.

Obviously everybody should do whatever works for them, but this is my
experience. And I've typed a lot.

~~~
melling
If you use a mechanical keyboard, the keypress registers before bottoming out,
about halfway down. Here are some animations.

[http://superuser.com/a/366797/203540](http://superuser.com/a/366797/203540)

~~~
JoshTriplett
I've tried several different varieties of "mechanical" keyboards, including
buckling-spring keyboards, and I've come to the conclusion that I genuinely
_prefer_ laptop-style keyboards that have a hard stop for my fingers.
(Specifically, I type on ThinkPad keyboards, even on desktops and docked
systems; I use USB ThinkPad keyboards, complete with the mouse on home row.)

I don't type "through" the hard stop; my fingers know to stop right at the
hard stop, but I prefer a physical stop rather than just a change (subtle or
otherwise) in the amount of pressure I have to apply. I also like the very
small amount of travel in the key.

~~~
PebblesHD
I'd sort of agre with this, I find I type fastest these days on my bluetooth
apple keyboard but my personal favourite is still my TiBook semi-trsnaparent
keyboard, it had a comfortable amount of travel and great action.

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Expez
This recent kickstarter might be of interest to some of you:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/the-
model-01...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/the-model-01-an-
heirloom-grade-keyboard-for-seriou)

Discussed here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9719773](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9719773)

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jdietrich
The Ergodox split keyboard is designed for exactly this arrangement. Both the
hardware and firmware are freely licensed, allowing for easy customisation.
The design features a large cluster of keys under the thumb position, allowing
for ergonomic use of modifiers - no more emacs pinky.

The CAD files are available at Ergodox.org if you'd like to build your own, or
you can contribute to this crowdfunding campaign to receive a preassembled
keyboard:

[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ergodox-ez-an-
incredible-...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ergodox-ez-an-incredible-
mechanical-keyboard)

~~~
hiattp
Definitely interested in Ergodox, those things are sweet. If only it were
wireless :/

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noyesno
You're almost there, a few more iterations and you are ready for DataHand[0].

[0]
[http://octopup.org/computer/datahand](http://octopup.org/computer/datahand)

edit: yes, I'm joking - but at the same time, I wish I could afford a
DataHand...

~~~
hiattp
Ha, so awesome.

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troismph
Keyboard manufacturers must like this, double revenue!

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JonahBraun
I've done this and it works for normal typing. The downside is key
combinations do not work across the keyboards (at least on Mac OS X). Example,
pressing cmd on the left keyboard and p on the right keyboard will not trigger
cmd-p.

~~~
hiattp
Hmm that might be a configuration issue, my combinations work as expected. I'm
in Vim pretty much the entire day so if key combinations didn't work this
would be a non-starter

~~~
WildUtah
That might be a killer in EMCAS, but you can type in Vim all day without any
chords except the shift key. I don't understand the reference in op as if Vim
required tons of control keys like EMACS either.

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Joeri
I used to suffer from rsi issues due to keyboard usage and tried many things
to fix it. In the end, the solution turned out to be a curved keyboard. I use
a cheap Microsoft comfort curve keyboard nowadays, and have no issues anymore,
except when I go back to a straight keyboard for a while. Sometimes the simple
fixes are the best.

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agumonkey
I prefer the flatter, one handed spin on the idea.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=half+keyboard&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=half+keyboard&tbm=isch)

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SloopJon
Kind of a brute force hack, but why not? A Kinesis Freestyle2 with Bluetooth
and a 20" cable might work, except that you'd have to fiddle with the cable
across your lap every time you got out of the chair.

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__Joker
The only problem with ergonomic keyboards is hands fit so nicely in those
keyboards that I find it very uncomfortable to reach to mouse. A trackball in
the ergonomic keyboards will be really nice.

~~~
bryanlarsen
A few options: Some people mount trackballs in their ergo dox. Some keyboards
like the keyboard.io include mouse movement keys. You can also find desktop
keyboards that include a track point. No ergonomic ones as far as I can tell.

