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Comment by w4rh4wk5 | Hacker News Reader

Great work. Something I'd definitely want would I still be using the Sculpt.

Like others have mentioned here, the Sculpt suffers from other issues apart from being wireless:

My biggest issue is the small, poorly constructed F-keys. Switching to regular sized keys on the Microsoft Surface Ergonomic shows how bad they actually are.

Anyway, is there a way we could get Microsoft to build a Sculpt v2 which fixes the shortcomings of the original one?! I still think it's one of the best ergonomic keyboards, even with issues it has.

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Yeah the function keys getting stuck is poor form, but once you notice it a few times it's easy to prevent.

I'm still using it, and the mod I dream about is inserting my kensington trackball into the gap in the middle .. it's the perfect position for it!

Agreed, we sorely need a Sculpt mk II. It is one of my favorite keyboards too, I had big plans to incorporate a trackball into the empty space in the middle [1] (somehow make the split spacebar act as mouse buttons). But the terrible Esc & F-keys has put me off so far.

[1] https://i.imgur.com/ld4cgVc.jpg

Indeed, the Sculpt is my favorite keyboard so far. Despite being a mac-only user, I have several for them (work, home...). The biggest complaint I have is the small function button/escape row. If that was full sized, the keyboard would be close to perfect. A nice addition would be Bluetooth support, so you don't need the dongle for the keyboard any more.

They have another firmware bug that has been going on for years and years and was never fixed.

If you type quickly, it can lose the case of the characters in combination with the shift key.

Hold down the left shift and type CSMSDC. One of them will be lowercase (from memory it's the S). If it doesn't happen for you, either it's not a Sculpt, or you don't type fast enough. Once you can do it it'll happen every time.

I use dvorak as my primary layout and hadn't observed any ghosting, but I can reproduce your CSMSDC case!

Interestingly, I tried it on my modded keyboard and it works properly. :) QMK must correctly handle the lack of NKRO diodes on the matrix.

It’s not a firmware issue, it’s n-key rollover with poor matrix choice. There’s no fixing it short of replacing the controller with one that can handle more keys.

Would you recommend upgrading from the Sculpt to the Surface Ergonomic? I'm also not a fan of the poor F keys, and want to scrap the dongle as well. Any reason not to pull the trigger on the Surface Ergonomic keyboard?

The main reason I decided against the Surface Ergonomic and got another Sculpt is the fixed numpad on the Surface - I used my old Apple wired keyboard for a little bit while my old Sculpt was broken and realised that I actually find having the Magic Trackpad next to the Sculpt with no numpad very ergonomic, and having to move my right hand further to reach the trackpad is a bit annoying. Maybe a non issue for you.

I find I'm significantly slower with a trackpad so I'm still using a mouse, but one thing I have been considering is grabbing a trackpad and putting it to the left of the keyboard (as a right-hander) and using it for general scrolling and pointing, then using a mouse on the right for when more accurate mousing is required.

That'd mostly solve the mouse being too far away issue if I were to use the Microsoft Surface Ergo. Do you have any issues with the trackpad that you haven't had with a mouse in the past?

My other option would be just to give up and get an apple keyboard. When you were using it, did you miss the keyboard being split - any RSI or comfort issues?

>My other option would be just to give up and get an apple keyboard. When you were using it, did you miss the keyboard being split - any RSI or comfort issues?

Yep, I started using an ergonomic keyboard because I was having RSI issues with a regular layout so try to avoid using one for any great length of time these days!

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