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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Snarfangel on Mon, 27 February 2012, 12:47:27

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: Snarfangel on Mon, 27 February 2012, 12:47:27

I mentioned in the thread here (http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?27089-A-Kinesis-Advantage-fan-tries-the-TrulyErgonomic-keyboard/page2 (http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?27089-A-Kinesis-Advantage-fan-tries-the-TrulyErgonomic-keyboard/page2)) that I liked the Maltron idea of pushing the hands farther apart by splitting the letter keys and putting the number pad between them, so I played around with Qliner Hotkeys keyboard designer and came up with something ergonomic enough to surf the internet, and big enough to surf Maui.

My influences include the Maltron, the ErgoEmacs design by Xah Lee (http://xahlee.org/comp/ultimate_keyboard_layout.html (http://xahlee.org/comp/ultimate_keyboard_layout.html)), and my TypeMatrix 2020. Plus, I added a touchpad, because I really like them, and you can ditch the mouse. (To make the keyboard more reasonable in size -- but still big -- you can remove everything from the touchpad on up, and simply use the secondary number pad home/end/ins/del/pgup/pgdn functions.)

I decided to show the CarpalX QGMLWB layout (http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization (http://mkweb.bcgsc.ca/carpalx/?full_optimization)) and the MTGAP non-Kinesis layout (http://mathematicalmulticore.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/introducing-the-first-fully-optimized-shifted-layout/#comments (http://mathematicalmulticore.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/introducing-the-first-fully-optimized-shifted-layout/#comments)) with a four changes of varying significance. First, I moved one key (the backslash key in QWERTY) down next to the right shift. Second, I added a "Lock" key -- holding it down with caps makes capslock, with shift make shift lock, scroll makes scroll lock, and num makes numlock. You can even go into Alt and CTRL-lock (the former if you wanted a lot of alt-num codes, the latter for whatever). Third, I changed some of the keys on the number pad around -- added a delete, dropped the Enter since there was one an inch to the right, added a comma.

And finally, much more importantly, I flipped the numbers along the top row of the keyboard with the punctuation keys, since having numbers in the center makes it rather superfluous (you can still access the numbers like normal by hitting shift, while the punctuation is unshifted).

The top picture in the two following picture pairs shows the major unshifted keys, while the bottom shows the shifted version. And finally, the very bottom picture shows the punctuation I would prefer to keep together (MTGAP split apart some of them), but just to keep it confusing the bottom key is unshifted and the top key is shifted.

CarpalX QGMLWB:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]41958[/ATTACH]

MTGAP
[ATTACH=CONFIG]41986[/ATTACH]

Punctuation key pairs I like:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]41960[/ATTACH]

(Editing this produced additional thumbnails. Not sure why. I hope MTGAP is fixed. The attached thumbnail has an incorrect picture, but I'm not sure how to get rid of it completely.)

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: sordna on Mon, 27 February 2012, 12:57:26

Cool, but perhaps you should consider making the keyboard 2, 3 or more individually moving components so you can move them around.

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: boli on Mon, 27 February 2012, 13:46:10

I like it because it's matrix layout. :)

There's a typo in the MTGAP layout on the right letter area in the home row, that should be a T rather than an X.

Speaking of MTGAP, he just posted Introducing the Thumb Keys (http://mathematicalmulticore.wordpress.com/2012/02/27/introducing-the-thumb-keys/) - that is, his keyboard layout analyzer now includes thumb keys.

BTW does anyone know how his layout compares to the CarPalx layouts?

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: Snarfangel on Mon, 27 February 2012, 13:50:52

Quote from: boli;528265

I like it because it's matrix layout. :)

There's a typo in the MTGAP layout on the right letter area in the home row, that should be a T rather than an X.

Thanks. Let me see if it's a quick edit. :)

I deleted the old picture and threw in a quick edit, but the old picture is still showing up as a thumbnail. Not sure how to remove it completely.

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: Snarfangel on Tue, 28 February 2012, 09:24:03

Quote from: sordna;528197

Cool, but perhaps you should consider making the keyboard 2, 3 or more individually moving components so you can move them around.

That is a good idea. Here is the MTGAP keyboard in lower case, minus the touchpad area (You could stick the touchpad part on either side). I'm not sure about keeping the Print Screen/SysRq and Pause/Break keys in the upper right (it's rare that I hit them, except by accident), but I'm keeping it for backwards compatibility.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]42048[/ATTACH]

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: boli on Tue, 28 February 2012, 15:23:17

Quote from: Snarfangel;529323

That is a good idea. Here is the MTGAP keyboard in lower case, minus the touchpad area (You could stick the touchpad part on either side). I'm not sure about keeping the Print Screen/SysRq and Pause/Break keys in the upper right (it's rare that I hit them, except by accident), but I'm keeping it for backwards compatibility.

Show Image

(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=42048&d=1330442617)

That looks pretty neat!

Staring at it for some reason I felt like comparing MTGAP to the Malt layout, and noticed a few similarities with the off-home columns (V, D and B).

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/KB_Maltron_3D_US.svg/1337px-KB_Maltron_3D_US.svg.png)

Also Malt has the extra letter F in the home row, while E moved to the left thumb.

And now I'm wondering how a normal keyboard layout can be modified to make use of an extra letter on a thumb (whichever thumb isn't pressing space). :)

The idea of using the thumb sounds fascinating, however changing keyboard layouts again doesn't sound so appealing. If Colemak (or other layouts) could be modified to make good use of a thumb by swapping just a few keys, that'd be quite intriguing.

Update: Sorry for the slightly off topic post BTW. Found Optimizing the Maltron layout (http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=994) over at the Colemak forums, where he attempts some Colemak Malt-ification. ;)

Title: Ergonomic keyboard the size of an aircraft carrier {First Draft}
Post by: Input Nirvana on Mon, 05 March 2012, 20:05:17

I don't have specifics to add right now (time constraints) but I like the work, ideas, and links and see merit in the couple directions this thread is going. Progressive work on specific Kinesis layouts using a letter on the thumb keys is a big game changer. AND, if a couple keys are added in the thumb region, it becomes even more "do-able" :)