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Comment by alschwalm | Hacker News Reader

The keyboardio is the only keyboard I know of that has the palm keys, but I've been interested in buying or making a keyboard that has them. Any writup on your build?

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I use the left control key on a full sized desktop keyboard as my "palm" key (I press it with the heel of my left hand). Being an Emacs user, it made my left pinky so much happier.

This doesn't work on laptops because of the low profile keys, so I stack some 3M "dual lock" squares on the control key to raise the profile. They can be removed (except for the one glued to key) when I need to close the laptop.

Similarly, I use the same bindings I mentioned above on my laptop keyboard, and there I have the right command key bound to control. Since it's right next to the spacebar I can easily hold it down with my thumb while using other keys to move around.

The Emacs keyboard chords were worked out on keyboards that had the Control keys nearest the Space bar - the intention was that you would use your thumbs to press the Control and Meta keys. Turns out this is really useful not just for Emacs but for any program that uses Control modifier shortcuts. I have not had any hand pain after doing this key remapping on my systems:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14985932

Here's my write up: http://thume.ca/2014/09/08/creating-a-keyboard-1-hardware/

Wow this is really detailed. Thanks!

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