Re:28-Key Mechanical Keyboard
by jrockway on Wednesday January 22, 2020 @01:47AM
(#22115201)
I built a 107 key ergonomic keyboard last week. Still writing up the details, but trust me, you are not the only one that wants a lot of keys ;) This is the layout: http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/#/gists/f903ee27a11bcb... (The legends as shown are not what the keys actually do; when I was designing the layout I was trying very carefully to use keycaps that come with a default GMK group buy set... this was how I kept track.)
I think the obsession with small keyboards is manyfold:
1) Large keyboards get in the way of the mouse.
2) People have noticed that they have to move strangely to press keys the farther away they are from home row. 1 is a stretch for most people, F5 is probably impossible. So why include them?
3) It's easier. After laying out 107 keys in CAD, waiting for an 18"x9" keyboard to print in three pieces, soldering 107 diodes, soldering 27 wires to my microcontroller, and reading the entire STM32F103 reference manual to figure out why one row didn't work... I can tell you that a 28 key keyboard seems a lot easier to build ;)
4) They use the same keyboard for home and work, and want something easier to carry around. When I switched to an Ergodox a couple years ago, I managed this for about 3 days before buying another one. To me $600 on keyboards is nothing, but to a lot of people, that's unimaginable.
Personally, I see the advantages with both approaches. I don't actually have ({}) keys on my keyboard; they're on a layer and under the jkl; fingers, because that's easier to type than moving my pinky to some weird place to jab them with my weakest finger hundreds of times a day. So using a Planck or a 28 key keyboard wouldn't feel all that different to me when programming or writing prose.
But what people don't consider are all the cases where you aren't touch typing but are instead issuing high-level commands to the computer. Some people frequently use mouse-driven software (CAD, video editing, etc.) and have the option to either pick a command out of the menu, or press a key on the keyboard. With a 28 key keyboard, the typing route means taking your hands off the mouse and pressing at least three keys at the same time. So you pick it out of the menu. With a full keyboard, you can use the "wrong hand" to press F12 or something, and not break your flow by navigating through 8 layers of menus.
(Even with all this in mind, a split 107 key keyboard doesn't help every use case. Some games really want you to type right hand keys with your left hand, and a split keyboard makes that difficult. I don't play any of those games, though ;)
I think the obsession with small keyboards is manyfold:
1) Large keyboards get in the way of the mouse.
2) People have noticed that they have to move strangely to press keys the farther away they are from home row. 1 is a stretch for most people, F5 is probably impossible. So why include them?
3) It's easier. After laying out 107 keys in CAD, waiting for an 18"x9" keyboard to print in three pieces, soldering 107 diodes, soldering 27 wires to my microcontroller, and reading the entire STM32F103 reference manual to figure out why one row didn't work... I can tell you that a 28 key keyboard seems a lot easier to build ;)
4) They use the same keyboard for home and work, and want something easier to carry around. When I switched to an Ergodox a couple years ago, I managed this for about 3 days before buying another one. To me $600 on keyboards is nothing, but to a lot of people, that's unimaginable.
Personally, I see the advantages with both approaches. I don't actually have ({}) keys on my keyboard; they're on a layer and under the jkl; fingers, because that's easier to type than moving my pinky to some weird place to jab them with my weakest finger hundreds of times a day. So using a Planck or a 28 key keyboard wouldn't feel all that different to me when programming or writing prose.
But what people don't consider are all the cases where you aren't touch typing but are instead issuing high-level commands to the computer. Some people frequently use mouse-driven software (CAD, video editing, etc.) and have the option to either pick a command out of the menu, or press a key on the keyboard. With a 28 key keyboard, the typing route means taking your hands off the mouse and pressing at least three keys at the same time. So you pick it out of the menu. With a full keyboard, you can use the "wrong hand" to press F12 or something, and not break your flow by navigating through 8 layers of menus.
(Even with all this in mind, a split 107 key keyboard doesn't help every use case. Some games really want you to type right hand keys with your left hand, and a split keyboard makes that difficult. I don't play any of those games, though ;)