Truly Ergenomic

[FunkTrooper]

So, what does geekhack think of this: http://www.trulyergonomic.com/

I think it looks rather nice. It'll have some sort of Cherry Switch, and the layout looks nice. I'd like to see more emphasis on not having to leave the home row though, like more modifier keys, and embedder arrow keys and page up/down etc. (like Happy Hacking, but with better key placement)

[ch_123]

The staggering of the keys is interesting. I assume this is to accomodate the different lengths of the fingers you are meant to use the particular column of keys with... but I thought that it was good ergonomic practice to type with your fingers angled downwards, which somewhat negates the fact that your fingers are of a different length, and would probably just be confusing to use.



That said, ergonomics is not something that I read into much asides from the basics.

Oh, and get ready for the standard Webwit "It's not ergonomic unless you can adjust the angle of the keyboard" rant.

[Mental Hobbit]

Keys for the longest fingers elevated, keys for the shortest fingers recessed?
I don't get that.

[didjamatic]

I like the copy/cut/paste keys.  At a glance I don't like the / \ key locations, but maybe I could get used to it.  The home/end/pgup/pgdn location is interesting.

I think this layout would be pretty easy to learn

Can't do 1 handed ctrl alt del so that's a negative for me

[quadibloc]

Adjusting the staggering of the keys for the lengths of the fingers has happened before. The Palantype keyboard - which is the layout normally used in Britain for syllable chord typing for court reporting and closed captioning, the way Stenotype is used in America - was laid out in that fashion.

[ricercar]

I hope the US doesn't continue with Palintype politicking.

[spolia optima]

I hope they change the legends to Palatino Linotype.

[djones]

Unless the split is adjustable, it's not 'truly ergonomic' to anyone but the few people who happen to anatomically match the angel of the split.

[JasonFruit]

"Angel of the split" calls up so many mental pictures . . .

[itlnstln]

I don't like where the page nav and arrow keys are.  I think I would be accidently pressing them quite often.

[Rajagra]

I don't like where the page nav and arrow keys are.  I think I would be accidently pressing them quite often.

That's exactly what I thought when I first saw it. Those keys could be moved down a little to separate them from the main typing keys.

But the more I think about it, the more I suspect it wouldn't be a problem. You never hit space when you aim for C or V on a standard keyboard, do you? Maybe with practice, those keys would be in the ideal place - very easy to reach.  I really want to try one of these out.

[itlnstln]

I'm a palm rester, though.  It's not that I think I am going to hit them with a finger but with my palm.

[hyperlinked]

I'm a palm rester, though.  It's not that I think I am going to hit them with a finger but with my palm.

So.... I don't know what your hands look like, but it seems to me that even as a palm rester that it might not be all that easy to accidentally hit those keys with your palm. I find the diamond arrow keys shape to be more of an issue. I have a hell of a time with anything that's not an inverted T.

Looks like an interesting idea for a keyboard though... kinda like a poor man's Maltron.

[hyperlinked]

Just noticed that Rajagra spotted this keyboard a few weeks ago:
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=8245#5

[hoggy]

There's a survey on the site so we can give feedback, but they don't have the courage or decency to invite feedback about features we don't like.

It's close - having features I like, but has lots of minor issues that I don't - most of which are listed above.

[trulyhealthy]

Poll results are tabulated by Nigerians.

Why the obsession with Nigerians?? Something to do with District 9?
:alien:

There's a survey on the site so we can give feedback, but they don't have the courage or decency to invite feedback about features we don't like.

It might just be me, but they DO have the question “Features you would like to see added or don't like?” a good place to provide insight and features we wish for.
:ohwell:

.

As a remark, the directional arrow keys in diamond arrangement as per this keyboard (3 columns, 2 rows) is better than an inverted T; will just have to fine-tune some muscle memory. Not to be confused with the awful diamond arrangement used in the Natural Elite (2 columns, 3 rows).

[lal]

Why the obsession with Nigerians?? Something to do with District 9?

No.

[trievalot]

anyone done the 7 minute survey?
i only did the 2 min (took 1.5)

and it needs a giant trackball built in.

[Sam]

I'm a new member here because I found the website for this keyboard and googling for more info on it found this thread.

Anyone have any feeling for how real / serious this company is?  They list August 12, 2010 as the pre-release order date.  I had my heart set on the Miniguru, but with that project canceled, this one looks interesting.  From earlier comments in this thread and a few other threads, seems they've made some changes based on feedback.  They say there will be a limited run of 1,000 keyboards made.

Makes me wonder why if they think they can be successful with only 1,000 units, why couldn't Miniguru be successful at 1,000 units.  I doubt the additional components amounted to that much of a difference in production costs.

I still would have preferred the Miniguru, though this keyboard's ergonomic concept is enticing.  I do like their idea of not having staggered keys, but rather having them placed in a row at the angle your hands/fingers are pointed.  I'm a pretty fast touch-typist, but it is definitely less natural for me to hit the keys off the home row using my left hand, being my fingers need to move off the the left/right rather than straight in the same direction my fingers are pointed.

[Forsaken]

Seems they're not stating a price.... I do really like the design though.

[Henry]

Pre-orders have started. $199 + shipping.

[chongyixiong]

Wow I like how you are able to customise your order to exactly your liking.

Key options:
Blank Keys
Lettered Keys (recommended)

Haha.

[Konrad]

I just happen to live in North Vancouver, BC, Canada.
 
Yep, we have a silicon valley.  2+ universities reknowned for engineering and compsci; about 2-3 dozen little software companies (including HQs for EA and Radical games); and hordes and hordes of genius cyborgs imported (sometimes illegally) from various parts of Asia and India.  Seems Canada is perceived as a sunny magical land of wealth, prosperity, and happiness to the rest of the world - though why they'd pick Vancouver is beyond me.  Plus our wimpy dollar and easily bribed political leaders make business in Canada a very attractive option for US investors.  Same reason we have "Hollywood North", also located in/around Vancouver.

[mr_a500]

I just happen to live in North Vancouver, BC, Canada.
 
Yep, we have a silicon valley.  2+ universities reknowned for engineering and compsci; about 2-3 dozen little software companies (including HQs for EA and Radical games); and hordes and hordes of genius cyborgs imported (sometimes illegally) from various parts of Asia and India.  Seems Canada is perceived as a sunny magical land of wealth, prosperity, and happiness to the rest of the world - though why they'd pick Vancouver is beyond me.  Plus our wimpy dollar and easily bribed political leaders make business in Canada a very attractive option for US investors.  Same reason we have "Hollywood North", also located in/around Vancouver.

That's funny. Apparently, we have two of each. "Hollywood North" also refers to Toronto - and "Canada's silicon valley" usually refers to Markham, Ontario. That's where ATI headquarters are (I've been there), IBM Canada, Digital/Compaq (before mergers), etc..

IBM headquarters even has it's own bridge ramps coming off the public streets! That's the only time I've ever seen a tech company with that kind of power to modify public roadwork.

[Konrad]

:smow: Great White North, tyvm

[rantenki]

I did chat with them briefly over email. Very "form-lettery" response, but they mentioned that they will soon have a better deal on Canadian shipping.

I am going to ask if they can do a video of their prototype being typed on; to get a feel for the sound etc.

They clearly have a decent prototype made up...

[IndesisiveAvocaodes]

Useless post but I like how the Model M is all sepia'd out with the legendary and not so legendary keyboards.

[shrap]

Anyone else notice they dropped red Cherrys from their list of switches?

[lmnop]

it's because Cherry MX Red are in short supply.

[rantenki]

A bit more heckling leads to a bit more information. I asked the TE people if they had photos of an actual physical prototype...





So, I think the first image shows that they actually HAVE one, but no video of operation or anything, so it may be a mockup dummy board.

Also, the fact that they poured text all over it to cover it up makes me a touch suspicious. I think what is really going on here is that they don't have a production quality prototype, and they are hoping to pre-order and get a batch built in order to finance the next production run.

Also, I think they are pretty bad at marketing. I mean, look at their blog page. Reads like an email from Nigeria. Sheesh.

That said, I am still considering order one just because they have dropped the price into "speculative toy purchase territory".

[rantenki]

I see photoshop.

Look at the edges of the shadow.  The Nigerians are getting good at PhotoShop.

Yeah; there is definitely some shooping going on there, the question is whether they shooped a rough prototype to make it look passable, or if they created it from a variety of M$ and Filco keyboards all mashed together.

I wonder if there is a 90 day refund window on Paypal, or some other reason they have that delay between payment and delivery...

[JBert]

Also, the fact that they poured text all over it to cover it up makes me a touch suspicious. I think what is really going on here is that they don't have a production quality prototype, and they are hoping to pre-order and get a batch built in order to finance the next production run.

I think this is higly likely.

I can understand though why they would be paranoid about their pictures: lowpoly posted the layout, and some chinese guy blatantly mashed it up to pimp his own layout.

[washuai]

Hiding the loss of red switches as a choice to black switches, by referring to it as the linear model is sneaky.

[Konrad]

Hmphf, I don't see photoshop.  I see 3D modeling.
Maybe that means the same things these days, unlike those sadly maligned Nigerians I have no clue what half the icons in photoshop are for.
 
Either way, it's still vapourware.  I would never buy a product whose existence hasn't been proven.  (And yeah, I don't invest in insurance, either, except as required by law, lol.)

[itlnstln]

I hated that movie.  Then again, I'm not much into Sci-Fi.

[Daniel Beaver]

Much Maligned Nigerians Preying On Illegal Aliens

I thought it was interesting that a movie with an anti-discrimination theme portrayed Nigerians as all being criminals and low-lifes..

[Konrad]

lmao, I was immediately struck by the appearance of the wooden keyboard.  "Hmmm, that doesn't look quite right.  Weird, it looks more like a C64.  Almost." ... then looking left, for a standard keyboard to compare against ... aha, well look, a C64.
 
Too early in the morning for your mindgames, rip.

[chrs]

After some email back and forth, asking for either switch type or switch force specs, I got this:

Pre-load:  7-20 grams
Peak Force (Pf):  63gf +/- 10gf
Peak Travel (Ps):  1.1mm +/- 0.3mm
Total Travel (Ts):  3.0mm +/- 0.3mm
Contact Travel (Cs):  1.9mm +/- 0.3mm
Return Force (Rf):  >20gf
Bounce:  5ms

The 3 mm travel sounds like a Cherry ML...but the details don't match this Cherry spec page...  and the front page at http://www.trulyergonomic.com/index.html says Cherry MX and shows browns.

[Rajagra]

I thought it was interesting that a movie with an anti-discrimination theme portrayed Nigerians as all being criminals and low-lifes..

I don't think it was really intended to have an anti-discrimination theme (other than there being bad guys in the plot.) Critics just seized on the South Africa location and assumed it was making a political point. I thought the choice of location was just clever in that it made the plot more credible (the government having the infrastructure in place to act that way.) I expected worse from the movie but ended up liking it. Good acting by the main character, started off being laughably pathetic but got serious as the plot thickened.

I was more forgiving of plot holes* than I was for Star Trek because ST had a reputation to hold up.

Besides, name any other movie that made you curious to know what cat food tasted like!

*Like why did none of the aliens use their weapons at any point?

[Sam]

I just got an email a few minutes ago saying they're now accepting pre-orders.  I was under the impression that they already were, but maybe I was mistaken.  I'm quite interested in this board due to their ergonomic concept of angling the keys for your left hand in that way.  I'd like to give that layout a try and see if I prefer it to a standard keyboard layout.  But a lack of confidence in their company and if they'll ever deliver what they promise is holding me back.

[Lanx]

this pretty much looks like the ergo4k/browncherry/tenless i just built, (though this wasn't in my mind when i made it) if it actually comes out of vaporware, i might be interested cuz i sure as heck ain't never gonna mod another keyboard.

[Sam]

But the problem for me is that yours and most other "ergonomic" boards make you angle your left fingers to the left when moving to strike keys above/below the home row.  These Truly Ergonomic guys big advantage in my view is that you can direct your left hand fingers straight in the same way as you do your right hand fingers.  As they say on their website, the standard layout is based on problems with making one of the old mechanical typewriters (along with the QWERY layout).  It's a very antiquated design in my opinion, so I'd be very interested in trying out their concept to see if I like it or not.

I've tried several of the other boards and none of them did anything for me.  I suppose a Kinesis might be good, but never tried one of them.

I much prefer IBM Model F keys though to Cherrys.  So if I like the concept enough, I might have to build my own ergonomic keyboard.  Not a trivial task at all, but might be a good project for me.

[Rajagra]

But the problem for me is that yours and most other "ergonomic" boards make you angle your left fingers to the left when moving to strike keys above/below the home row.

Try doing the "ISO shuffle" / comfort layout:


I.e. use a European/ISO keyboard with the extra key between left shift and Z, then shift ZXCVB to the left via software. Any other moves are optional. The way the QWERTY row is only 1/4 key width to the left of the ASDF row means the change of the top row I've put in that picture doesn't work so well.

On a U.S./ANSI board you could just change the bottom row to be XCVBZ.

[Phaedrus2129]

I've asked for a review sample. We'll see what they say.

[Sam]

Try doing the "ISO shuffle" / comfort layout:

Show Image

I.e. use a European/ISO keyboard with the extra key between left shift and Z, then shift ZXCVB to the left via software. Any other moves are optional. The way the QWERTY row is only 1/4 key width to the left of the ASDF row means the change of the top row I've put in that picture doesn't work so well.

On a U.S./ANSI board you could just change the bottom row to be XCVBZ.

Interesting, that's the first I've heard of that layout.  The first thing though that strikes me as being strange is that the number keys require changing which finger strikes which key.  I think that would take a lot of getting used to.

The one thing about the existing standard layout that bothers me is all the keys on the far right that you're expected to use your right pinky for.  There's simply too many there for my liking.  I think I'd prefer having another shifted layer to access the symbols and do away with so many keys there.  The layout you show reduces them in that location, but adds them in the middle and far right.  Hmmm, gotta think about this layout a bit more.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[Lanx]

hmmm never noticed left hand issues, if anything i have issues with my right hand, but that could be b/c i'm right handed, or it's also my mouse hand (moving to use mouse) so idk, but the readjusting of the home row looks cool, and pretty easy to do just like raj said, just shift everything over to the right. (for me i'd have to mod my keyboard and add another switch right next to the "t" in order to shift, but there's actually room to do that too)

[Sam]

Just tried that layout.  Unfortunately it's horrible for me.  The primary reason is the spacing up/down from the home row is all wrong.  The left hand fingers have to angle much more from row-to-row than the right hand does.  As soon as I felt that issue, I realized I'd already tried something similar years ago and had that same problem.  For me, the angles your fingers are at should be exactly a mirror image between the left and right hands.

[Konrad]

I understand that each individual requires unique distinctions to get best typing ... I'm assuming that (given a choice) people would select whatever keyboard works best for their peculiar ergonomics.
 
But these details you're discussing seem too minute to be meaningful.  Wouldn't just laying the keyboard flat (ie, folding the standoffs) change everything?  Or - in the traditional spirit of un-ergonomics - just forcing the user to adapt to the keyboard's physical requirements?  (This is going to happen as long as there is any sort of "standard" keyboard arrangement.  Maybe one day everybody will be able to conjure up a perfectly optimized "natural" and efficient individual key-interface.)

[rantenki]

Try doing the "ISO shuffle" / comfort layout:

Show Image

.... Well, now I feel retarded.
/me off to by a HHKB2^H^H^H^H^H cheap iso cherry

[Rajagra]

Interesting, that's the first I've heard of that layout.

That's just a rather extreme example I made for another discussion. The "comfort" layout idea / naming came here via Dreymar, I believe, and when applied to the QWERTY layout results in this:



The name "ISO shuffle" only just occurred to me, I think it sounds appropriate!