This is really cool! Although a little disappointed that it punished me for using an emdash instead of a dash when an emdash would've been syntactically correct :)
As noted in the default test, this site is by ZSA, a keyboard company. Their boards are pricey, but excellent. I have both their Moonlander, which sits on my desk at home, and their Voyager, which I went with quieter key switches (brown rather than blue) for taking on the go. Their boards are very comfortable; I highly recommend considering split, columnar keyboards like what they offer if you spend most of your day at a computer.
As a side, I switched to Dvorak when I first bought my Moonlander about 6 years ago. I have only used split keyboards with Dvorak, and I have only used traditional staggered keyboards with QWERTY. My muscle memory is well isolated between the two, and I have no trouble switching between them (though as it has now been many years since I regularly used a physical QWERTY keyboard, my WPM on one is definitely lower than it used to be).
I went with quieter key switches (brown rather than blue)
If you like tactile switches, try the Golden Kiwi from MoErgo [1] (also Choc v1, so fits the Voyager). It pulled of the near-impossible combination of a profound tactile bump, with only 42gf tactile force, while being much smoother and silent than Browns or Sunsets.
Only disclaimer I should add is that I was one of the beta testers for the switch. But I can't go back to anything else.
I've had dozens of keyboards in my PC life, so far. The earliest examples were Chicony clicky-mechanical boards in the late nineteen-eighties. Those were pretty cool (and they're very much NLA).
I've had innumerable membrane keyboards. Some were more useful than others. I had a very long and pleasant run of membrane boards made by NMB, which were good while they lasted.
Over the past 5 years or so, I've been mostly using boards with Cherry MX Blue switches -- assembled by whomever. Those worked fine, too.
And lately, in the past month or two, I replaced the one at home with a keyboard that uses Hall effect sensors for each key in place of any kind of conventional electrical switch. It's been fine; in fact, it's been quite lovely so far. It's a joy to type with.
---
I haven't named any keyboard makers here except for 1980s-era Chicony and PS/2 era NMB. Some of my keyboards have been good, some have been great, and some others have been trash.
That's my background.
What's yours?
What makes ZSA deserve "so much love"? Can you elaborate?
So straight-and-narrow columns of keys are what they're into, and that's a big push that is an important part of what they're doing?
(I did look at their website earlier and the details of what I found seemed to get wrapped up in the tiny details of some low-profile keyswitch or other. It's also possible that I am unobservant, stupid, or otherwise inept and that I missed the main concept, but that's what I found and I didn't think it was very interesting.)
- Generally high quality boards. I expect to be using my ZSA boards for decades.
- Uses open, standard, programmable firmware (qmk).
- They have fostered a community around their boards (importantly making it easy to share and discover layouts and promoting 3D printable accessories).
- I have found their live support team to be very accessible and knowledgable.
It's hard not to be biased having spent >$700 on keyboards from them, feeling the need to justify my purchases a bit. At their prices it's easy to find high quality boards elsewhere or build your own board on open tech, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find similar offerings both with such excellent support from the company and such a vibrant community.
I second the recommendation. I use the Voyager, and it's a delight! I switched when I was suffering from a lot of wrist pain, and it's never come back. I only wish they offered a wireless version for a cleaner desk.
Yes. Was my first ortho and I went full blanks and yeah didn't work out. Went back to normal keycaps to get to grips with it.
Now I'm on a Halcyon Elora but still use the Moonlander at home
Maybe it's harder at that size where you have to move your hands, but I use a 3x5 split, and my eyes never leave the screen, so printed keycaps are just pointless.
Yes! I did this and love it. My layouts are heavily customized so no standard painted keycaps would do me any good anyway. I use a coherent set of key colors on various layers to provide reminders of what various key clusters are about. Looks great too.
If you care about the ergonomics of the thumb cluster, the Ergodox and others like it have a bad one. It sticks out too far. For a more modern and ergonomic thumb cluster, check out Pinky4, Iris, or Corne. I've been using a Pinky4 for years and all the thumb keys are easy to reach and comfortable. I haven't used the Ergodox EZ, but I did borrow an Infinity Ergodox for a few months once.
Thanks! I'll take a look at those. I'm coming from an Advantage 2 (that they discontinued a few months ago) and wasn't sure about the Advantage 360's increased price.. So I have been shopping around.
I love my ZSA Voyager, but after getting into the split keyboard space and having wrist/finger issues, I ended up needing to go with something that supported a concave well, and built in/better tenting.
I've been using my Glove 80 ever since. But the Voyager was a nice step and I still keep it on my desk.
The Glove80 looks close to what I want, but that thumb cluster looks basically as bad as the Ergodox one. Too many keys overall, especially pinky ones.
You don't really have to use them all. Realistically on each side I use ~3-4 of the thumb keys consistently and I have the others bound to just things I rarely do.
I also completely unbound the outermost row of keys on both sides. i.e. far left and far right. Since I found one of the biggest issues I had that aggravated my issues were stretching the pinky.
I also have a Kinesis Advantage 360 pro but I think its better suited for people with bigger hands than me. I do prefer its tenting setup though since its much quicker/easier to use. The Glove80's is a bit more custom but I think I'd have preferred if there was like a good mix of the two.
That does look very nice. My mentor at my first job was actually the one who got me interested in split keyboards. His was a Kineses Advantage 2, which is also concave.
> I have only used split keyboards with Dvorak, and I have only used traditional staggered keyboards with QWERTY. My muscle memory is well isolated between the two, and I have no trouble switching between them
Mostly similar for me, but I never considered that the fact that I’m able to pretty comfortably switch between using my laptop keyboard which is QWERTY, and my external USB keyboard which is Dvorak based, even when not having used one or the other for quite some time might actually be helped by as you say that they are two different kinds of keyboards with different feel.
I also picked up and heavily customized a minimal (3x5+3 or 3x4+2) columnar split and a novel keyboard layout during Lockdown, and now can type faster with it than I could originally with greater comfort and accuracy. The high number of rolls actually felt pleasurable to type on compared to the scattered movements of QWERTY; at higher speeds, though, it's more demanding as the movements are so minimal and the sequences are more intricate. On long sessions, I can feel some strain on the tendons on the back of my hands; a keyboard with wells or something to grip like a Twiddler could help. Over time, I expect my speed to continue to advance as I sync my keystrokes faster; there is just substantially less finger travel from home row.
I also retained my ability and speed typing QWERTY by continuing to use it on a standard keyboard the majority of the time. Really, I just kept practicing the alt layout by typing out articles and books on the ortho and a laptop. At this point I think I'll maintain muscle memory for vi/emacs in QWERTY and switch on the fly to the alt layout for long entries.
I use Miryoku style meta keys, and layers for arrows, home-page(up/down)-end, mouse-keys, scroll-wheel, numpad, symbols, media, and F-keys. I'm thinking of adding combos for international letters and symbols next. backspace-delete and enter-space+tab are under thumbs like a Kinesis. Escape is a left hand combo. I also set a lock function for the layers with tap+hold and release with a designated key -- it works great with numpad, scroll, mouse, and arrows. I'd like to add a rotory dial.
For switches, I enjoy the light action Kailh box whites that came with my split, but I'd like to try out some silent low-pro ones for travel and more comfort. I have a second ortho with a number row and much heavier linear ones that I'm getting used to; so far it works great and I have more planned for it.
On a regular keyboard I've found mapping the capslock key to be a second backspace is much more ergonomic. I use it in conjunction with Ctrl to delete the previous word and then retype.
Graphite[0] is my keyboard layout of choice for anyone looking to switch. Huge fan! Had previously used QWERTY and Colemak. These types of sites help tremendously when learning a new layout.
I also use Graphite and previously learned colemak-dh. I love it. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to others because it’s harder to install on Windows and Linux. Also, the symbol placement takes a while to get used to. The best time to switch if you’re courageous enough is after obtaining a split keyboard and during the holidays when you’ll have the spare time to learn a new layout.
I loved it! As soon as I start to do these things, I get stressed and become much worse! Anyone remember the car game where you raced against others by typing? That was fun but forgotten the link.
I had some typing classes in middle school but they never stuck. The only reason I became a reasonably fast and confident typer—which ended up being amazing for everything from work (emails and Slack more than code!) to HN to writing a lot on Quora—was Type Racer :P
It's amazing how much easier gamification can make it for me to stick with something.
Two things I'd love: to try out this keyboard before buying it (I keep repeating myself, but I'd love a retail keyboard trying out store in NYC - Micro Center isn't cutting it)
And two - does anyone know of a keyboard that has some-trackpad-like (or pure scrolling..?) device pretty much where the trackpad would be on a laptop?
I spend time working on my laptop, get used to scrolling / moving the mouse "under" the keyboard (ie closer to me) using the trackpad, and when I go back to my desk with my full sized keyboard, I see myself reaching for a phantom trackpad.
It does some, uh, interesting things with the Dark Reader extension, though, at least with the default light theme darkened by Dark Reader. Errors are displayed. Corrections are highlighted. But there's no cursor shown, and no progress displayed for completed input.
It felt very strange typing like that. I somehow managed to get 65 wpm in that mode, but it was weird the whole time -- like my eye/brain combo had to focus on only one word at a time, without any lookahead, since I was typing into the void. It felt arduous in ways that are otherwise difficult to describe.
Switching to the site's dark theme and turning off Dark Reader seemed so much better, and was much faster. I got a fairly-lazy 88 wpm on the first go with it running with its intended level of feedback.
But the interesting part is that I was able to notice that my eyes wander all over the place while typing. I found that I looking several words ahead, and scanning the context, and watching the progress, and that my eyes don't move linearly at all.
I suppose that's a thing that I've been doing for decades. But I definitely never noticed it until Dark Reader made this website unintentionally run on hard mode and thereby provided a contrasting experience.
Weird stuff. I'm reluctant to call it a bug; instead, it seems like maybe it is a feature that could be further developed. It might also help to train for accurately entering long arbitrary phrases (like passphrases, license keys, and credit card numbers) where visual feedback is deliberately limited.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. The biggest hits to typing speed are usually typos or fixing typos. If you slow down and try harder to hit the right key the first time, I'd bet you can hit 20wpm at least.
124 comments
[ 110 ms ] story [ 2066 ms ] threadEdit: found that functionality. Nice!
As a side, I switched to Dvorak when I first bought my Moonlander about 6 years ago. I have only used split keyboards with Dvorak, and I have only used traditional staggered keyboards with QWERTY. My muscle memory is well isolated between the two, and I have no trouble switching between them (though as it has now been many years since I regularly used a physical QWERTY keyboard, my WPM on one is definitely lower than it used to be).
If you like tactile switches, try the Golden Kiwi from MoErgo [1] (also Choc v1, so fits the Voyager). It pulled of the near-impossible combination of a profound tactile bump, with only 42gf tactile force, while being much smoother and silent than Browns or Sunsets.
Only disclaimer I should add is that I was one of the beta testers for the switch. But I can't go back to anything else.
[1] https://www.moergo.com/pages/go60-key-switches
https://www.moergo.com/products/pre-order-ships-from-usa-kai...
I've had dozens of keyboards in my PC life, so far. The earliest examples were Chicony clicky-mechanical boards in the late nineteen-eighties. Those were pretty cool (and they're very much NLA).
I've had innumerable membrane keyboards. Some were more useful than others. I had a very long and pleasant run of membrane boards made by NMB, which were good while they lasted.
Over the past 5 years or so, I've been mostly using boards with Cherry MX Blue switches -- assembled by whomever. Those worked fine, too.
And lately, in the past month or two, I replaced the one at home with a keyboard that uses Hall effect sensors for each key in place of any kind of conventional electrical switch. It's been fine; in fact, it's been quite lovely so far. It's a joy to type with.
---
I haven't named any keyboard makers here except for 1980s-era Chicony and PS/2 era NMB. Some of my keyboards have been good, some have been great, and some others have been trash.
That's my background.
What's yours?
What makes ZSA deserve "so much love"? Can you elaborate?
(I did look at their website earlier and the details of what I found seemed to get wrapped up in the tiny details of some low-profile keyswitch or other. It's also possible that I am unobservant, stupid, or otherwise inept and that I missed the main concept, but that's what I found and I didn't think it was very interesting.)
- Generally high quality boards. I expect to be using my ZSA boards for decades. - Uses open, standard, programmable firmware (qmk). - They have fostered a community around their boards (importantly making it easy to share and discover layouts and promoting 3D printable accessories). - I have found their live support team to be very accessible and knowledgable.
It's hard not to be biased having spent >$700 on keyboards from them, feeling the need to justify my purchases a bit. At their prices it's easy to find high quality boards elsewhere or build your own board on open tech, but I think you'll be hard pressed to find similar offerings both with such excellent support from the company and such a vibrant community.
I landed on the Ambients Twilight silent switches https://lowprokb.ca/collections/switches/products/ambients-s...
[1] https://imgur.com/a/zsa-moonlander-2ACNkDc
I've been using my Glove 80 ever since. But the Voyager was a nice step and I still keep it on my desk.
They also have self-assembly kits where you solder it together yourself. That’s what I did, the instructions were great!
I also completely unbound the outermost row of keys on both sides. i.e. far left and far right. Since I found one of the biggest issues I had that aggravated my issues were stretching the pinky.
I also have a Kinesis Advantage 360 pro but I think its better suited for people with bigger hands than me. I do prefer its tenting setup though since its much quicker/easier to use. The Glove80's is a bit more custom but I think I'd have preferred if there was like a good mix of the two.
Hoping and praying for columnar laptops one of these days
Mostly similar for me, but I never considered that the fact that I’m able to pretty comfortably switch between using my laptop keyboard which is QWERTY, and my external USB keyboard which is Dvorak based, even when not having used one or the other for quite some time might actually be helped by as you say that they are two different kinds of keyboards with different feel.
I also retained my ability and speed typing QWERTY by continuing to use it on a standard keyboard the majority of the time. Really, I just kept practicing the alt layout by typing out articles and books on the ortho and a laptop. At this point I think I'll maintain muscle memory for vi/emacs in QWERTY and switch on the fly to the alt layout for long entries.
I use Miryoku style meta keys, and layers for arrows, home-page(up/down)-end, mouse-keys, scroll-wheel, numpad, symbols, media, and F-keys. I'm thinking of adding combos for international letters and symbols next. backspace-delete and enter-space+tab are under thumbs like a Kinesis. Escape is a left hand combo. I also set a lock function for the layers with tap+hold and release with a designated key -- it works great with numpad, scroll, mouse, and arrows. I'd like to add a rotory dial.
For switches, I enjoy the light action Kailh box whites that came with my split, but I'd like to try out some silent low-pro ones for travel and more comfort. I have a second ortho with a number row and much heavier linear ones that I'm getting used to; so far it works great and I have more planned for it.
On a regular keyboard I've found mapping the capslock key to be a second backspace is much more ergonomic. I use it in conjunction with Ctrl to delete the previous word and then retype.
We can adapt (steal) this idea (thanks vibe coding) and practice our own topcis of interest and learning daily!
https://monkeytype.com/
[0] - https://github.com/rdavison/graphite-layout
I used to feel so smug about using Dvorak. Now it feels so outdated.
It's amazing how much easier gamification can make it for me to stick with something.
And two - does anyone know of a keyboard that has some-trackpad-like (or pure scrolling..?) device pretty much where the trackpad would be on a laptop?
I spend time working on my laptop, get used to scrolling / moving the mouse "under" the keyboard (ie closer to me) using the trackpad, and when I go back to my desk with my full sized keyboard, I see myself reaching for a phantom trackpad.
Thanks!
It does some, uh, interesting things with the Dark Reader extension, though, at least with the default light theme darkened by Dark Reader. Errors are displayed. Corrections are highlighted. But there's no cursor shown, and no progress displayed for completed input.
It felt very strange typing like that. I somehow managed to get 65 wpm in that mode, but it was weird the whole time -- like my eye/brain combo had to focus on only one word at a time, without any lookahead, since I was typing into the void. It felt arduous in ways that are otherwise difficult to describe.
Switching to the site's dark theme and turning off Dark Reader seemed so much better, and was much faster. I got a fairly-lazy 88 wpm on the first go with it running with its intended level of feedback.
But the interesting part is that I was able to notice that my eyes wander all over the place while typing. I found that I looking several words ahead, and scanning the context, and watching the progress, and that my eyes don't move linearly at all.
I suppose that's a thing that I've been doing for decades. But I definitely never noticed it until Dark Reader made this website unintentionally run on hard mode and thereby provided a contrasting experience.
Weird stuff. I'm reluctant to call it a bug; instead, it seems like maybe it is a feature that could be further developed. It might also help to train for accurately entering long arbitrary phrases (like passphrases, license keys, and credit card numbers) where visual feedback is deliberately limited.
19.80% Accuracy
320 Errors
Thinkpad keyboard.
it’s been a while since I used it but I recall it being good at targeting certain patterns that you struggled with.
It has worked really well for me