2 questions about Kinesis Advantage

[aoeui]

Hello,

I am new to this forum.

My pinky finger started giving me some problems recently so I thought about getting an ergonomic keyboard. I am an avid Emacs user and Kinesis seems to be quite popular amongst Emacs users. I can touch type and I use Dvorak on a daily basis. I have 2 questions about Kinesis:

1) does the USB hub work reliably? Can you connect a pendrive or an external disk to it?
2) I read up on different MX Cherry switches and I think I would like Blue the best. Are there any plans to release Kinesis keyboard with Blue switches instead of Red/Brown?

EDIT:

Could somebody make a video presenting a difference in noise with a piezo buzzer turned on/off? I am not sure if an artificial sound emitter will make up for a lack of clicky switches. I am curious what sound does it make and how far different is it from the natural sound produced by Blue or other clicky switches.

[Input Nirvana]

Hi!

1-The usb ports are not powered so there are going to be some limitations with what you can plug in.
2-It's hard to tell what Cherry switch you will like until you actually type on, or at least press/feel/hear them....there's no other way. There is a 'switch tester' that Hashbaz has mailed around. It's a 10key keypad with red, black, blue, brown, clear, and a couple custom switches where different strength springs were swapped. In the U.S. it cost me about $5 to have it mailed and mail back. It was very helpful and was surprising to see how some switches felt compared to each other and what I thought they would feel like.

Do a search on Geekhack for the 'switch tester' and also for videos on sounds. I think it's here on the site. Also, there are some YouTube videos of the Kinesis being used....take a look and post again with questions or thoughts/

[vvp]

As for as usb: It is only 1.1 version (top speed is 12 Mb/s). I guess all USB keys are 2.0 at least so they should work but they will be slow. Hub is not powered, it consumes about 50mA and the keyboard consumes 65mA, so you have only about 385mA for additional devices. In my opinion the only thing it is useful for is to connect a low powered mouse/keyboard to it. I'm sure I have seen a keyboard which requested 500mA. Such a keyboard may not work.

My kinesis advantage is 10 years old but I doubt new keyboards have better hub now. Somebody who has a newer keyboard can tell whether it changed.

Also some kinesis advantage keyborads may not work with some BIOSes (they will work when OS boots though). This append to my brother who has a some new Asus MB.

Also my kinesis sometimes (about 1 in 80 cases) does not register with the OS. I need to unplug and plug it again to make it work.

If I would need a new keyboard I would still go for kinesis advantage or something like that. That is despite the fact that I never had any RSI problems. But there are some things I would want to be different. I'll probably build one sometimes

I tried to make the recordings but my microphone is not usable for this. If you bottom out then the difference between beep on and off is not really noticeable. And I'm obviously bottoming out the keys. I attached the files anyway. Not sure the OGG files will be actually attached :-/

[Findecanor]

Also some kinesis advantage keyborads may not work with some BIOSes (they will work when OS boots though). This append to my brother who has a some new Asus MB.

Many USB keyboards and adapters have this problem. It is usually solved by going into the BIOS (using a keyboard that works) and disable a feature called "Fast boot" or similar.

[aoeui]

2-It's hard to tell what Cherry switch you will like until you actually type on, or at least press/feel/hear them....there's no other way. There is a 'switch tester' that Hashbaz has mailed around. It's a 10key keypad with red, black, blue, brown, clear, and a couple custom switches where different strength springs were swapped. In the U.S. it cost me about $5 to have it mailed and mail back. It was very helpful and was surprising to see how some switches felt compared to each other and what I thought they would feel like.

Do a search on Geekhack for the 'switch tester' and also for videos on sounds. I think it's here on the site. Also, there are some YouTube videos of the Kinesis being used....take a look and post again with questions or thoughts/

AFAIK, Kinesis comes only in two variants: with MX Cherry Red and MX Cherry Brown switches. I tried Razer BlackWidow keyboard that has Blue switches in a local IT store and I liked it. I didn't try any other mechanical switches but I suppose that I will prefer a tactile feedback in a long run, this is why I'm going for Brown with Kinesis. However, a clear audible feedback would also be nice and this is why I am asking for Blue. As for the switch tester you mentioned, I found it here http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=39254.0 but it seems to be the US-only thing and I live in Europe.

As for as usb: It is only 1.1 version (top speed is 12 Mb/s). I guess all USB keys are 2.0 at least so they should work but they will be slow. Hub is not powered, it consumes about 50mA and the keyboard consumes 65mA, so you have only about 385mA for additional devices. In my opinion the only thing it is useful for is to connect a low powered mouse/keyboard to it. I'm sure I have seen a keyboard which requested 500mA. Such a keyboard may not work.

My kinesis advantage is 10 years old but I doubt new keyboards have better hub now. Somebody who has a newer keyboard can tell whether it changed.

Thank you for this info. It seems like the usability of the USB hub is questionable but that's not the major point.

I tried to make the recordings but my microphone is not usable for this. If you bottom out then the difference between beep on and off is not really noticeable. And I'm obviously bottoming out the keys. I attached the files anyway. Not sure the OGG files will be actually attached :-/

Thank you. You're right, I can't hear a real difference. It's hard for me to believe that a beep like this can successfully imitate clicky switches and I wonder why they put it there. For a while, I thought it's a joke or something.

[Input Nirvana]

There is a Europe tester that was circulated, if I remember correctly. Look here:

http://deskthority.net

[vvp]

Thank you. You're right, I can't hear a real difference. It's hard for me to believe that a beep like this can successfully imitate clicky switches and I wonder why they put it there. For a while, I thought it's a joke or something.

The problem is my bottoming down. That is the reason my microphone cannot capture the difference and my ears probably cannot do it either when I type normally (bottom down the keys). Do not put much faith in different sound of blue switches compared to brown ones when you bottom down. Check out this example where blue and brown switches are compared:

I do not hear that significant difference in the sound. I mean, I hear the difference but I cannot identify individual blue switch clicks in it. Definitely not without training. But I'm also a "musically deaf" person :-D

Ok, here I made a recording for you where first I write a line in my normal style (bottoming down) and then I press enter (loud click in the middle) and then I'm pressing only one key without bottoming it. This second line is not touch typing since I do not know how to do it without bottoming down the keys ... and I never tried to learn that either. I'm just pressing one key so that you can hear the internal buzzer.
Really, if you do bottom down keys then you do not need to care about click of blue switches or the internal buzzer. But you may want to have blues for their hysteresis (it is harder to do double tap with them - and you probably cannot ever do it by accident).

[aoeui]

The first part was music to my ears, but the second one - wtf is that? This buzzer sounds like ****, I will need to turn it off. They should remove it and install Blues instead Anyway, thank you very much for these recordings, it made me rethink my typing style. I think I hit keys with all the power, as if I had a hammer in my hands, I think this is what `bottoming down' is, plus mechanical keyboards are already louder than membrane ones so I think I won't be disappointed with how Brown keys work. Kinesis is definitely a way to go because of its ergonomic design. I will look around for keyboards with Brown switches in stores nearby just to make sure. I think that the reason they don't offer Blues is that many Kinesis users use this keyboard both at work and home and Blues are too noisy to be used in office environments.

[vvp]

Also some kinesis advantage keyborads may not work with some BIOSes (they will work when OS boots though). This append to my brother who has a some new Asus MB.

Many USB keyboards and adapters have this problem. It is usually solved by going into the BIOS (using a keyboard that works) and disable a feature called "Fast boot" or similar.

Thanks for the idea. Unfortunately it did not help (he tried it today). There must be some other issue too.

[vivalarevolución]

To answer your original questions, the USB hubs works for some things.  I hook up my trackball and it works fine, but other things like USB drives and iPods have been less reliable. 

I originally bought the Kinesis with Cherry Red but recently I bought replacement keys with Cherry Brown.  Ultimately, as a heavy typist, I found the tactile feedback of the Cherry Browns much better than the linear Cherry Reds. Also, the audible feedback is a nice feature that I have used, although it is not as loud as the click of Cherry MX Blue or other clicky switches.

You might be interested in directly contacting Kinesis with your questions because they have been helpful with any inquiries I have had.

I highly recommend this key board, and it has many advantages over other ergonomic mechanical boards.  The inboard programmability is a huge feature.  After using this board, I feel like normal flat, staggered boards are a thing of the past.

[natas206]

Looks like everything has been pretty much covered here so I'll just add a couple of quick points.

I agree that you really won't know what kind of switches you'd like until you try them (Kinesis offers a 60-day money back guarantee). However the audio click sound, with the Cherry brown's, will be similar to blues. There are two audio sounds that can be enabled/disabled by the keyboard - a soft "click" noise produced with any key, and a louder "buzz" sound produced when pressing Caps Lock/Num Lock/Scroll Lock and Keypad. Both can be individually enabled/disabled.

The reason for the soft audio click is to be an indicator that you do not need to press the key down any further (prevents bottoming out). Personally, I have it off as I've typed on the keyboard for 10 years and don't find the need for the click sound, however I do leave the louder "buzz" sound on as occasionally I might accidentally press Caps Lock and it's nice to hear the mistake.

Kinesis will not offer Cherry blues in the future as there simply isn't enough demand (most of our customers want quieter keys!). But if you truly want Blues, it's definitely possible and not that difficult if you have experience soldering, here is a great blog with instructions - http://www.gilesorr.com/misc/keyboards/kinesisblue.html (Kinesis can provide bare parts of the keywells (contact tech@kinesis.com)).

As stated the USB hub is mainly for basic USB devices such as a pointing devices. Other devices that require larger amounts of power may not work.

[Internetlad]

To answer your original questions, the USB hubs works for some things.  I hook up my trackball and it works fine, but other things like USB drives and iPods have been less reliable. 

A powered hub should help with that. IIRC the USB 2.0 standard has a 5V and .5A draw, although most ports can, in practice, provide much more than this. That's why most USB hard drives will have a split end, because you need the full 1A to power it.

I think the USB 3.0 standard improves on this by offering more power draw, but I can't recall specifically.

EDIT: USB 3.0 is 4.75-5.25V and .9A

[sordna]

While I like blue switches, I don't think they are a good fit for the Kinesis keyboard. With flat keyboards every key press feels the same, but with the contoured, for the top row keys you have to press by pushing your fingers forward, for the bottom row you have to pull them toward yourself, etc, so each row needs a slightly different kind of finger movement, and the significant tactile resistance of the blues would make it harder to type in my opinion. Browns are ok since their tactility is minimal, but I have found linear switches to be the best option for me. I love my Advantage LF with red switches. I have occasionally revisited my older keyboards with browns, and always go back to reds!

Anyway, this is personal preference; I'm pretty sure a small minority of users might prefer blues on it, but I agree with the demand would not be enough.

BTW I love the click sound, it really helps me avoid bottoming out so I always have it on.

Hmm, I'm wondering, now that the LF is mainstream and sold both direct and by retailers, what's the percentage of LF vs the base Advantage model sold these days ?