I work with the author at Nuon. He initially used a Kinesis like some coworkers, but refined it to a minimalist setup with an open-source Korne keyboard, that sits on top of his Macbook keyboard.
When I first saw it, he initially had rubber bands holding it down. Now it's on a secure plate with even a company-coordinated color scheme for the keys.
Interesting how his gaming experience led to a custom layer setup.
For anyone looking into this who doesn't want to design their own layout from scratch, a well maintained layout for small keyboards is Miryoku. Worked very well for me (in qwerty base + vim directional keys mode) on a keyboardio atreus
It's not super complex. I ended up just modifying the locations of the layer toggle keys. In the default Miryoku layout, in order to switch the keys to a different layer on the right hand you need to hold a button on the left hand. I found this to be annoying since some actions like entering and using a navigation layer can be done on 1 hand.
I use this on my 42-key Corne: https://mark.stosberg.com/markstos-corne-3x5-1-keyboard-layo...
It's a sensible starting layout that I've made very few changes to. I added a mousekeys/macro layer, moved single quote to put semicolon on pinky, added print screen bind, and added a homerow combo J+K for esc.
What started as a joke a few years ago has actually turned into really good signal. I've found that the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and are extremely productive.
> To promote balanced usage, ... equal distribution eliminates the strain of overextending the right fingers
What overextension? You don't even type them frequently enough for your index/middle finger on the home row to notice anything, and "cognitive overhead" is lower if they're paired together.
And neither is this strategy
> we reach up for numbers,..This strategic approach ensures that my layout and daily typing tasks never overwhelm my cognitive load.
The default numbers are so inconveniently placed that you don't really get much proficiency in using them, so you'll not lose much if you switch from some great numpad layout back to horizontal line just like using regular numpad has no effect on your ability to use the horizontal row
And numpad can't overwhelm anything since is extremely common
This is just bad strategy, using superficial logic to hurt ergonomics.
The familiarity with more rarely used symbols might add overhead if broken, but maybe if symbols are mapped to the same numbers it won't be much? (this is at least plausible unlike with the numbers themselves)
I often read about all those RSI problems and then how pinky fingers have a lot of duties. I find it strange. I type at decent speed and I barely use my pinky fingers at all. I press Caps-Lock, Tab, Shift and Enter with them as well as | and }. Pinkies are small and weak, why use them so much? That's surely neither ergonomic nor the fastest way to type.
It also means I don't like the idea of a split keyboard. I reach across quite often. I've never recorded myself to be 100% sure about all the keys but I am regularly reaching for b and y with both hands depending on the word. This way "typo" is just two quick "progressing" taps - "ty" with the left hand and "po" with the right. Of course "po" is way more comfortable with a ring-middle finger instead of a pinky/ring finger.
The whole idea of assigning keys to fingers doesn't sound too smart to me. Why would you type "ce" with the same finger? It's neither fast nor ergonomic.
Why do it to yourself?
>Home row mods live in the base layer. In my opinion, home row mods are nearly essential to make a layout this small work well. The idea is simple: your home row keys act as normal keys when tapped, but double as modifiers when held.
I feel this is underexplored idea. After remapping my CapsLock to tap=Esc, hold=ctrl it went from the least used key on my keyboard to the most used one. I really like the idea of also doing it with home row keys, that must be very convenient after getting used to. That also seems completely free as you never (I think) hold those keys during normal computer use.
Only issue with home row key combos is the letter comes out delayed since it’s now waiting for keyup event to register single press vs keydown for a combo. You don’t notice that with caps lock remapping because caps lock doesn’t output anything.
13 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] threadWhen I first saw it, he initially had rubber bands holding it down. Now it's on a secure plate with even a company-coordinated color scheme for the keys.
Interesting how his gaming experience led to a custom layer setup.
I ended up making the layer activations happen on the same hand to allow 1 handed use.
What started as a joke a few years ago has actually turned into really good signal. I've found that the engineers who care enough to invest in keyboards like this spend a lot of time investing in their tooling and are extremely productive.
Causation or correlation?
> To promote balanced usage, ... equal distribution eliminates the strain of overextending the right fingers
What overextension? You don't even type them frequently enough for your index/middle finger on the home row to notice anything, and "cognitive overhead" is lower if they're paired together.
And neither is this strategy
> we reach up for numbers,..This strategic approach ensures that my layout and daily typing tasks never overwhelm my cognitive load.
The default numbers are so inconveniently placed that you don't really get much proficiency in using them, so you'll not lose much if you switch from some great numpad layout back to horizontal line just like using regular numpad has no effect on your ability to use the horizontal row And numpad can't overwhelm anything since is extremely common
This is just bad strategy, using superficial logic to hurt ergonomics.
The familiarity with more rarely used symbols might add overhead if broken, but maybe if symbols are mapped to the same numbers it won't be much? (this is at least plausible unlike with the numbers themselves)
The whole idea of assigning keys to fingers doesn't sound too smart to me. Why would you type "ce" with the same finger? It's neither fast nor ergonomic. Why do it to yourself?
>Home row mods live in the base layer. In my opinion, home row mods are nearly essential to make a layout this small work well. The idea is simple: your home row keys act as normal keys when tapped, but double as modifiers when held.
I feel this is underexplored idea. After remapping my CapsLock to tap=Esc, hold=ctrl it went from the least used key on my keyboard to the most used one. I really like the idea of also doing it with home row keys, that must be very convenient after getting used to. That also seems completely free as you never (I think) hold those keys during normal computer use.
Ask me how I know :)