“Cowboys in the western United States leave their horses when they die. But never leave their saddles, regardless of how long they need to walk in the desert. Saddles are interfaces that are deeply adapted to our bodies whereas horses are consumable items. It should not be forgotten that computers are consumables nowadays, but keyboards are interfaces that we can use through our lives.”
This resonates with me because I decided that I’d use a laptop-sized keyboard and trackpad for all my computing, even at my desk (which is 95% of the time nowadays.)
The apple magic keyboard 2 (I think?) is nearly exactly the same size, layout, and key throw as the pre-2016 MacBook Pro scissor keyboards… and the Magic Trackpad does all the same gestures, etc.
Which means I can switch to my laptop at any time and not have to re-adjust to different ergonomics, everything’s more or less the same. I just can’t wait for my M1 pro max to ship, because I can’t stand the butterfly keyboard having such a different key throw and I’ll be back to more or less parity again.
Interesting - I actually switched to a small keyboard about a year ago because I was getting shoulder pain from my right arm hanging so far to the side so I could work the mouse. The smaller keyboard forces both of my arms closer to my body, and the chronic pain I had in my shoulder for a year or two has disappeared.
I was also hoping the switch would help balance out my shoulders after years of right-hand mousing. It took a few days to get used to, but now I'm basically mouse/trackpad ambidextrous. I'm not sure if it helped my shoulder; I think maybe it did, but too many confounding factors.
I guess it just goes to show our bodies are different and there’s no universal ergonomically optimal solution.
When you had your shoulder pain, was it primarily at the very base of the shoulder blade? That's where it was for me before I moved to a vertical mouse.
() in some store I think it's the "GB international". Also, it's such as shame all layouts aren't available from all countries, when in practice ordering a laptop means having it shipped from China anyway.
On the confusion part, I once went through phone support back and forth to get a BTO with a different keyboard. It didn't work, and I didn't get much info beyond shrugs. They basically tried to pass the order to the JP branch and it didn't pan out.
The British, Irish and especially the "International" layout are close to the US layout.
Remnants from a time where my iBook g3 keyboard was US, and the Portuguese layout cost extra. I never got used to the Mac Portuguese layout either. Shortcut issues and some symbols in wrong places.
Makes computers easier to resell locally when I upgrade.
It becomes second nature after awhile. If you can shift+1 to type !, you can spacebar+w to go up a line.
It's a feature of a font, it simply has ¥ glyph for the reverse solidus character. You should be able to get it back by using a different font.
This article brought back two memories:
1. Learning how to code on a Japanese keyboard, where some of the symbols were in different locations, and where I needed to get used to having two small space bars instead of one single, long space bar. Eventually one of my coworkers introduced me to the Happy Hacking Keyboard (https://happyhackingkb.com), which is popular among programmers in Japan due to its typing feel and the fact it has a version with a US-style keyboard layout. I stuck with that keyboard for the rest of my internship.
2. Seeing ¥n in my code instead of \n.
Eventually I ended up installing a Linux virtual machine on my workstation that was localized to American English, though a big reason for this was because my internship project was writing a Linux kernel module. But I still needed to use my Japanese knowledge to use Microsoft Office and other programs on Windows.
My eight months in Kawasaki were among the best in my life. Since then I've been to Japan six more times, and I'm looking forward to visiting Japan again once it's reopen to tourism.