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Comment by Splendor | Hacker News Reader

I would really love a mechanical keyboard in the split ergonomic layout of a Microsoft Natural Ergonomic keyboard. Something about that shape feels right to me, but most mechanical keyboard either use a standard layout or something radically different (I'm looking at you Ergodox).

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What about using two full keyboards, one for each hand? The question is, will they cooperate? I.e. holding a modifier key one one keyboard affects keys pressed on the other keyboard? If so, I think I would like using two small separate keyboards.

If I understand correctly, I think that's kind of the idea behind keyboards like the ErgoDox and Atreus. They have multiple "layers" that you can map.

You should look at the Kensis Advantage, though it may border on too "radically different" for you. It takes a bit of getting used to, but everyone I know who has one swears by it (myself included).

Thanks for the suggestion. The design does seem fairly radical, but I think the price is also too high for me to justify giving that one a try.

And the Kinesis Advantage is programmable as well, so you can redefine keys as you please. For example I moved arrow keys to one side, remapped Delete to Ctrl and changed some alt/cmd keys configuration in thumb cluster.

How well can you switch to a "normal" keyboard? I worry that with some of the more extraordinary designs switching between them and my laptop or a random keyboard at university would be annoying.

I haven't owned a Kinesis but I've owned and used Japanese keyboards (which have a different layout for many of the symbol keys) and various ergonomic keyboards and found being able to switch between them isn't such a big deal.

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