I’m just a newb when it comes to high grade keyboards, but these things look wild, and I kind of want to try one.
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Prefer column staggered, but yes they really make you wonder how we got stuck with the dominant keyboard configurations. Typing with linear columns feels way more natural.
Typewriters.
They had bars that needed to physically move, and so staggering them helped them not collide and get jammed.
If you imagine a bar coming from the center of each key towards your screen, you can see how the staggering was helpful. For instance, M misses J and K above it, naturally, but it also slightly misses I and the 8 above that.
It’s a great solution for a nonexistent problem in keyboards.
Wasn’t the whole idea to minimize the amount of times your typewriter seized up? Happened often enough with QWERTY keyboards when it came to the cheap typewriters. Yes, I’m old.
This is what I use every day
Is that your own layout, or is it a scheme like QWERTY or DVORAK that I haven’t heard about?
Colemak is an alternative keyboard created by Shai Coleman, named as a portmanteau of Dvorak and Coleman. Its design goals consist of easy transition from QWERTY due to repositioning only 17 letter keys. Additionally the AZXCV shortcuts are in the same location perhaps allowing an easier time switching from QWERTY.
It also claims greater efficiency than Dvorak. Furthermore it places complete emphasis on the home-row: the ten most-common characters in English are on the ten home-row keys.
Source: Wikipedia
I type in dvorak and actually love it. It just feels comfortable when I type.
just to chime in on alternative keyboard layouts:
I’m german and can’t recommend the neo2 family of layouts enough.
I currently am using the “noted” layout and it feels absolutely amazing.The different layer approach makes it easy to write all the symbols for programming I need, or if you are a writer, all the »correct« „quotation“ marks.
there’s even support for all the greek letters used in math equations: ℤℵ×∀ℂΣ∫∃∇ℕℝ∂ΛΦΨYou can learn more about the layout here (site is in german):
https://www.neo-layout.org/
That’s a columnar stagger, not ortholinear.
I was kinda disappointed that this article didn’t explain columnar stagger.
I daily drive an iris by keebio.
sweet
My fingers are crooked and better suited to a normal keyboard lol
even with crooked fingers, unless your fingers are crooked in opposite directions an ortholinear one is still better
Have you ever used an ortholinear one?
No.
Glove 80 keyboard:
There’s also a wide world of alt letter layouts.
I love my Glove80, had it for about a year now and couldn’t be happier.
For anyone interested in alt layouts, https://getreuer.info/posts/keyboards/alt-layouts/index.html is one of the best introductions out there. Also https://lemmy.world/c/ergomechkeyboards is a nice resource on fancy keyboards.
I hate it because I love the way it looks, but I could never use one.
I can’t use a split keyboard because of the way I’ve taught myself to touch-type. My fingers move around too much. On the other hand, I type around ~90 wpm (mostly using two fingers) so I win something or other.
I had the same problem, and never cracked touch typing, because my brain kept going back to the old, faster way.
I finally cracked it by learning a different layout while only touch typing. Maybe that’s a way to go if you want to get there?
You can re-teach yourself.
Touch typing is like learning different languages. Just because you learn a new one doesn’t mean you forget the first.
This is true. I’ve gotten to the point where I can now type QWERTY and Colemak-dh on a standard, ortholinear or ortho columnar keyboards with no issues.
I’m of the firm opinion that the best keyboard layout and type is the one you feel most comfortable with.
But then I’m also of that opinion when it comes to things like desktop OSes, phone brands, etc.
It’s not a popular opinion.
That sometimes works, but sometimes the right way is not immediately comfortable so people so stuff that seems right and hurt themselves. Sometimes the thing that seemed correct initially was only because of a lack of deeper understanding and an ignorance of the knowledge of those who have already made the mistakes.
I dance, play instruments, drive cars, and do a whole lot of other things where the immediately comfortable thing is so often one of the best ways to develop a massively limiting habit that is a huge pain to get away from once you realize how badly it’s holding you back.
It’s a case-by-case basis, of course, but simply “the best is what you’re most comfortable with” does not have near the nuance it needs to not be abused. It is great advice for people once they have built up a strong base of knowledge, and until then they need to get over it and try things.
I have a planck at work and a preonic at home. It takes some time to get used to but now that I have switched I will never go back. I might try something split like a corne next but I’m kind of waiting for something that matches my olkb boards a bit better. Ortholinear would be the new standard if I had my way. I’m also eyeing that MNT Reform pocket pretty hard for that awesome keyboard but I really want them to release a tactile switch option for it.
I understood some of those words.
Olkb.com can probably answer most questions you have. They where one of the first to bring ortholinear keyboards to the market. Planck and Preonic are models they make. Preonic has a number row, planck doesn’t. MNT is a company making open and hackable devices like laptops, they aren’t making devices for the masses, instead trying to make something that is longer lasting and repairable. Their ‘pocket’ model has an ortholinear keyboard built in, and I just think that’s neat.
I sense I’m about to fall into a deep, deep rabbit hole 😄
