input nirvana: Thanks! As you've probably gathered, I'm also a big Kinesis Contoured fan, and this board is pretty close to a mini kinesis. If I could make more, I'm sure with a can of Krylon we could come up with a lime green that would suit you
Oqsy: Twenty minutes is a pretty short time to try to get used to a new layout. Which keyboard did you try?
I think that a matrix layout really starts to be an advantage with increased hand separation. I can see how it might cause pain if you tried a matrix board with the standard hand placement - especially for the right hand, since the stagger on a normal keyboard leans left, your right wrist, which is used to stretching to the left, would be twisting uncomfortably to the right to compensate. Kind of like constantly reaching for the backspace. Alternately, the left hand would be
less twisted. When I type on a staggered board, I actually turn the keyboard to make it more comfortable.
The humble hacker keyboard eliminates a lot of this. It has ample hand separation. There is zero twist in my wrist while I'm typing this, unlike my experience on normal staggered keyboards. And all the difficult reaches on the right side of the keyboard have been eliminated.
If you hold out your hands flat in front of you as if on a keyboard and twist your wrists right and left, you'll notice that you have less range of motion when twisting away from the center of your body, and more range of motion when twisting toward the center. On this keyboard, there is almost zero twisting away from center, and minimal twisting toward the center. This makes for very comfortable typing.
I wish I could make a bunch of these just to have people try them out.
