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Comment by alanbernstein | Hacker News Reader

Like a compromise between an ergo board and a data hand.

The motivation for this sounds convincing. My problem is that I’m not willing or able to put the time into learning a new layout, with or without a chording aspect.

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I tried it to a lesser extent (Keyboardio 100) and stuck with it just long enough to determine it would be great if I never used any other computers with a standard keyboard. After 2 weeks I could barely even type on my laptop anymore - I just couldn't hold both layouts in my head. Numbers, punctuation, and special keys were completely different; even though letters were "the same" they moved enough I was making a ton of typos.

I came to the conclusion I wasn't willing to buy an additional keyboard for my work computer and give up my laptop so I ended up selling it.

I had a similar experience after switching to DVORAK as a nerdy teenager, however I found by just leaving my smartphone on QWERTY, I'm able to switch and still type 40 - 50wpm with minimal practice on a real keyboard. I'm more like 100wpm on DVORAK.

Practicing both layouts a little may make it possible to keep both modes in your head, but I don't know if a completely different input mode would make this harder.

I did not have the same experience with the keyboardio (model 01 in my case).

Not only did I not have trouble going back to a standard keyboard, but even after not touching the keyboardio for months, my muscle memory remained intact. Even the custom shortcuts I had set up remained in my memory. I was really impressed by that.

The only reason I'm not using that keyboard fulltime is that the keys kindof "stuck" where they become hard to press down. It's too bad because I really like the keyboard a lot! Unfortunately the model 01 does not have hot swappable switches.

I did switch out my switches for something clackier, and when I did I ended up pulling up some traces on the PCB. I was able to patch it with some jumper wire, but really don't want to risk it again to take the switches off and lube them. Bummer, because it's a fantastic keyboard otherwise.

From what I hear the first step is learning the new layout and the next step is being able to switch between the two.

Though... how often are you using other peoples keyboards? I hear this complaint a lot and I wonder about it.

I never use other people's computers (think about where their fingers have been), so this would never be a concern for me. I use an Ergodox and it's a little rough switching to the laptop (how can people hold their hands so close together?), but I can do it. I still use QWERTY though, with a bunch of local tweaks for non-letter characters.

I would say that if you type fast enough for as long as you desire without pain, the cost of learning a new keyboard layout is a questionable investment. But, if you have hand pain, you should probably work on resolving that immediately, or pain may become a disability. (I followed my own advice, my right pinky used to hurt after a day of work. Moving all the important symbols away from that pinky key, probably most notably backspace, cleared everything up. Many more years of typing stuff into a computer in my future.)

There are 4 keyboards I use regularly:

1) Home desktop 2) Work laptop (docked in my office) 3) Work laptop (actual keyboard) 4) Personal laptop

There's nothing I could do about either laptop. I could have spent another $300 to get another keyboardio for my office, but that seemed like a waste of money when I wasn't sure about it.

I help my significant other and family with their computers enough for it to be a problem.

My wife uses a mac, she's on her own.

Interesting. I switched to a custom ergo layout (ZSA Moonlander) but my traditional QWERTY laptops are sufficiently different that I have no problems going back and forth between that and my desktops.

Take look at KMonad. It may give "normal keyboards" some of the ergonomic aspects, like chords, IR modifiers on the home row.

A couple of years ago I wanted to switch to an Ortholiner. I used magic keyboards until then. During the first weeks I actually realized that I never used my ten fingers. I was reasonable fast but my hands where more moving over the keyboard like a piano player. So I went one step back and bought a normal Lay-out mechanical keyboard and started to learn the proper 10 finger touch typing through several websites. I‘m still not mega fast but depending on the things I write I can be quite fast. While learning this and also tinkering with my keyboard firmware to add more comfortable shortcuts etc I lost the ability to write fast on my macbook keyboard. Every now and then when I have to use it, I slip into the old typing style. But it doesn’t feel as good anymore. I‘m on the same side here and would be very conservative with my time to spend it on this very special gear. And I only spend time and money on the normal QWERTY board :)

I think this is a super cool keyboard, but if I were going to learn a chorded keyboard, I'd probably go all in on the type steganographers use to type 300 WPM

Stenography is pretty difficult. It's more complicated than simply "chorded keyboard" might imply.

Going "all in" on stenography is a very significant time investment. Much more than what you'd think.

It's not like a normal keyboard where when you start you're just slow, but you know how to type every word. You won't even know how to type syllables/words that you haven't learned yet.

I've had a couple of tries but never got past the beginner stage, and there's many, many words that I have no idea how to type.

You could always use a "normal" (QWERTY) keyboard for steno if you'd like, some people had success with Plover (http://www.openstenoproject.org/) for doing this. You can even try it in the browser: http://www.openstenoproject.org/demo/

What would be really interesting would be a keyboard specifically for programming. Chords that can be customized to fit your language, would make a lot of sense. Integrate some ideas from things like Paraedit et al, and you could probably get up to crazy speeds in editing and writing really quickly.

I tried this, but honestly the keyswitches are awfully heavy when you are pressing more than 2 of them at once. I ended up half-building a steno keyboard with lighter switches for this reason... half-building because I started during the pandemic, no microcontrollers I wanted were available, and then I forgot about the project until ... just now. Someday though.

I have seen people refit the Uni steno keyboards with lighter springs, it looks like the easiest way to get started.

Ergodox is actually a very usable design for steno.

I don't really think it's fair to call it a chorded keyboard. It does have chords, but they are mostly optional and there for convenience.

Every alpha letter has it's own key. Some are on a second layer, but that layer is also "one-shot" so you don't even need to chord to use it, like you do with typing capital letters with shift, for instance.

> if I were going to learn a chorded keyboard

I'd want it to be one handed so I could do something else (turn pages, move mouse) with the other hand.

also, it would have to promise longevity and ubiquity, if I'm going to learn it, I want it to pay off in extended usage

How do you access the alpha2 layer?

Edit: looks like you toggle it with your right thumb? That seems like a lot of thumb presses or more key strokes per word. How do you know which layer is active when you return between sessions?

yeah the right thumb is a "one-shot" key to go to the second layer. So you press it, and then only whatever key you press next is on the second layer. So you're always on the fist layer unless you just pressed that key.

It does end up being (slightly) more keypresses, but it's built on the idea that 1.) two comfortable keypresses are easier than one uncomfortable keypress and 2.) our thumbs are already absurdly under-utilized on current keyboards.

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