No.62
>>58Speaking of layouts, I don't get why keyboard fetishists get so invested in the hardware but stick with qwerty. Colemak and Dvorak are so much better. I grew up with mechanical keyboard, but the difference between an efficient layout vs qwerty is much more noticeable than having to type on a chiclet keyboard.
No.66
>>62that's a matter of compatibility, i think. the same is true of the layout above, to an extent, but when all the letters on your board are arranged differently, one basically loses the ability to type at anyone else's computer.
there's also a compatibility issue with software that follow nearly universal positional bindings which make sense for a qwerty layout but are awkward to type on other layouts. and there's the problem of creating a layout which is optimised both for typing text and programming as well.
basically, a given layout needs to be optimised in three divergent directions, and any changes made make the user less-compatible with everybody else.
not to say that i haven't tried; just never gotten anywhere with a new layout that was all-around more usable
No.67
>>66Suppose so, but I haven't really had a lot of trouble typing on other people's keyboards. Somehow my fingers know when I'm on my keyboard vs another one, and just snap into using that layout. But maybe that's just because I have to switch keyboards a lot. The only time I get tripped up is when I have to use qwerty at home for whatever reason.
As far as the second point, Colemak is much more conservative than Dvorak. I'm always surprised how well hotkey stuff works out. It's pretty nice. But if you're using hjkl in vim for navigation, it'd be pretty terrible.
No.73
>>62i constantly have to work with other peoples grubby keyboards, so swapping to dvorak or others would be a waste of time.
No.74
>>58I dunno, maybe not everyone else has a problem with where those keys are placed? I mean that's not say I don't think people shouldn't make alternate layouts (otherwise the tada68 I'm so lovingly banging away on wouldn't exist).
Variety is good.
Never had any issues with topre's. Just not my kettle of fish I suppose.
No.84
>>74it's a matter of people not having a problem with them because nobody uses them.
there are a few things in an hhkb layout that are optimised for certain things (editing text) over others (playing games), but when it comes to control, esc, and backspace, buttons pretty much anybody anywhere is going to be using, having them in those positions Just Makes Sense for anybody universally. they were only moved from those positions to the weird awkward spots most boards have today because the model M moved them there, ruining it for everybody since.
see formats pre model M:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/IBM_Model_F_XT.pngvs the board itself:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/IBM_Model_M.pngdespite carrying so much "nerd cred", it's pretty much the worst thing that's happened to keyboards since qwerty itself.
No.85
>>84those two boards really aren't that radically different, the only big major thing that stands out to me is banishing capslock to the pits of hell and putting control there instead. I mean I'm okay with that, but your description made it sound more significant than it looks to my eyes. In terms of hand movement yes control would sit under the pinky finger more often but that's about all I can really identify.
Function keys in a bank all on the left is nice though.
No.92
>>85esc is moved to a useless position far away from the rest of the keys as well, and its insertion of [| \] beneath backspace has also stuck around.
and then there's the huge amount of wasted space in general, setting off the non-compact trend, to the detriment of wrists everywhere.
No.95
>>92the model M kinda exaggerates a lot of the white space compared to most modern keyboards (such as the modern lenovo rubber dome keyboard I normally use at work if I haven't brought my tada with me). But yeah, I'm with you on the wasted space. I hate it. Any wasted space is space that keys could be put.
See to me even the HHKB's waste too much space. Sure those bottom left and right hand corners are awkward but any wasted space is a sin in my book. Probably why I love my TADA so much. Esc straight up top left where tilde normally sits, and moved over to the right with del/pgup/pgdwn in a column. With my regular sized hands i can touch both thumbs together and both pinkies can reach every corner of the keyboard.
No.728
>>92didnt even notice the escape placement there, but I do notice it when I use boards like that. blec.
>>95have you looked at hhkb jp?
in generall I use weird layouts both as far as letter positioning and as far as far as mod-key-ness. But I use other peoples boards enough to get really confused and a little angry sometimes.
I retained enough qwerty-skills so that that actually isnt always the worst bit, given a few seconds can get in the mode. But the modifiers through me off, which is probably both a tiling wm thing as well as just, hitting that darned capslock key.
>>66as far as compatibility that makes sense, some things seem to make it really hard to reconfigure them. In my case I have a lot of things re-bound to make sense in an alt. layout, which means that they are totally different from ''defaults'' both as far as letter and as far as placement. I am totally inept when trying to use some software without my configurations and my keyboards. 'tradeoffs' I suppose, but its comfortable. so, ehh.
No.736
>>728Oooh now that is a pretty layout!
But yeah, the thing I like about layouts like the SABER/TADA68 that I have is that I get all the benefits of a smaller footprint without compromising my muscle memory. I have to operate a
lot of machines every day and for better or worse, they're all using the 'modern' IBM layout.
No.1127
>>55I got tired of dsa but that's a really nice board. How light are mod-l? I assembled a gh60 with gat clears and well, not the best idea
No.1130
>>736Couldn't you just carry it around with you? I've been using an hhkbp2 that way for several years now.
As for the initial transition, it really only takes a few days until you're more productive than you were before.
No.1144
>>1130I go to customers sites and I work on their equipment, carrying around a keyboard just to plug into their 'ish is a little bit silly and a lot of stuffing about. That being said I do take my TADA68 to work on occasion if I know I'm going to be stuck at my desk for a particularly long time.
To be honest though, if we're talking about productivity; the keyboard is simply a matter of comfort; the problems I have to solve at work and what I have to do to solve them don't revolve around the keyboard quite as much as other fields. It's just a comfort thing for me.
I suppose the major thing though is that I don't really find anything personally wrong with the typical modern IBM layout, and the cut down layout of the TADA68 has so-far over the past few months just fit me like a glove.
>>1127I honestly don't find them to be appreciably different than the Cherry red's in the old Corsair board I was driving before this. I tend to type hard and bottom out keys as though my life depends on it, so a lot of the stuff regarding key weight tends to be a moot point for me; it really just comes down to whether I want a keyboard to be obnoxiously loud or not.
I have been thinking about SA key sets a lot as I sometimes think that maybe DSA wasn't the best choice but to be honest I probably don't need to spend anymore money on keyboards for a little while.
No.1789
>>1788looks good my man
when i first decided to buy a mechanical keyboard, i just went to steelseries site and looked up most basic keyboard with zero unnecessary soykaf.
so i ended up getting steelseries 6gv2, i remember it has some metal extra support or some soykaf, anyways i thought i was cool as it now was a bit more rage-proof
sadly on that keyboard a wire died out some years later, so i dont use it.
cant justify getting another mechanical keyboard cause im fucking international, man, laptops are all i use, sometimes cant justify even carrying a normal mouse and using it, not the inbuilt trackpad soykaf
but yeah anyways 6gv2 is golden, maybe if it had some lights in it, i mean like the keys were glowing. had numpad too
if i was looking into mechanical keyboards now would probably get some cheap chinese stuff from their chinese ebay
No.1842
I use a pristine Model F; but I almost prefer the NMB keyboard my T60 has. It sucks that Lenovo dropped all keyboard manufacturers besides Chicony.
On a different note, do any of you guys use alternate keyboard layouts?
No.1844
>>1820This ebin-retro design looks tacky and untasteful. I remember reading steampunk forums and seeing keyboard mods "dude we took keycaps from underwood or some soykaf and slapped them onto 10-dollar keyboard from store, painted it with silver spray and glued some gears here and there" 10 years ago. If you want real typewriter feel and looks, just make a typewriter conversion, not this abomination.
NumPad is totally not minimalist at all, what are you, a secretary? So is F-key row for some edgy folks or vim users, but it depends.
>>1842Using ЙЦУКЕН is being sure your layout wasn't created at the dawn of mechanical writing times and has an established culture with proper research put up into it. Poor anglos have to chose between 4 different layouts, one inaner than the other, often starting with unoptimized QWERTY then switching to Dvorak and Colemak while suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome and emacs fingers at the same time, Russians learn ЙЦУКЕН with mother's milk and become aspiring 1С programmers at age of 6.
No.1849
>>1844You're forgetting you can replace the keycaps to whatever you want. I like it as it is, idc if it's cyberpunk.
No.1887
>>1842>do any of you guys use alternate keyboard layouts?Programmer Dvorak is the one true layout.
No.1895
>Who here likes to express their rampant consumerism and technical elitism with expensive custom mechanical keyboards? I do!
should i be glad you are conscious of it?
should i not be glad you are apathetic?
No.1900
>not rearranging your keys into a completely random layout you generated on random.org every week (physical keys and layout as well)
No.1936
When will the Topre meme die? BTC dome with slider and Alps cream damped switches feel just as good (or better).
No.1937
>>58>HHKB>not a BTC 5100CSwapping caps lock with control is idiotic; there's a reason why modern keyboards have two ctrl/alt keys - it's more ergonomic. Caps lock should be swapped with backspace, and backspace should be swapped with escape.
No.1939
>all these monolingual plebeians who don't use caps lock for layout switching
G-d dammit, I want Americans off the Internets.
No.1940
>>1939there are so many other keys on the board my friend. I dont switch llanguages and charsets mid sentance all the time. I do use control combinations for everything, and that merits the preferential position that I give it.
No.1961
Has anyone here tried those chink Hall Effect keyboards out? I really want one; linears are my favorite switch type.
No.1970
>>55I don't understand the point of keyboards that do not have a numpad or a function row. Those two features are vital for so much of what I need that I cannot comprehend purchasing a keyboard without them. Why do people like getting rid of them? I'm genuinely curious. It really just seems like a huge pain. I guess I understand it somewhat on a laptop, but on a desktop, size is not an excuse. So why?
No.1971
>>1970Some of us move our desktops often, so first there's that.
I've used a HHKB for several years now as my primarykeyboard. I never made extensive use of a tenkey–its handy I am sure, but mostly for applications that I dont acutally use. When I type numbers, I use the number row. If I cared that much, I'd either get a tenkey or setup some means to have a numpad mode on my keboard.
Fn keys are handy. I'll grant you that. Its a minorly increased hassel to have to depress also another button before accessing them, but not that much.
Often I've heard of people using macros on Fn keys. If you're into that maybe I have some sympathy. Then agin handling those on a small keyboard is simply a matter of adding other key combinations. The board is pretty big, you are unlikely to exhaust even all of the really convenient combinations.
There's also the whole issue of convenience. Without really moving my arms I can easiy reach the entiery of my HHKB. I cant do this with a departed tenkey, escape key, function keys. All of the things I have to reach I reach comfortably and easily, and all that I can reach is all that I need.
No.2260
>>1970>I don't understand the point of keyboards that do not have a numpad or a function row.i'm the opposite. the only time I have ever used those keys was when I had a data entry job.
I have a tenkeyless keyboard at the moment. I would use a 60% keyboard but I use Cyrillic and having Esc sharing a key with a letter (Ё) is annoying.
No.2268
i cant deal with super clanky mechanical keyboards as i see them as a big distraction from whatever im focusing on, which is why i have a nice, flat, not too clanky and not too quiet keyboard
but damn sometimes they look cool as fuck
No.2272
>>2268I had never tried a mech keyboard before and was worried about the sound, so I got the Silent Red Switches plus Silencer O-Rings, and now it really isn't louder than any other normal keyboard. You don''t have to go full typewriter if you don't want to.
No.2281
thought my keyboard was broken today but flashed it again and it seems to work fine now
