Ergonomic mechanical keyboard

[Arcanius]

Maybe.... hope for the Truly Ergonomic? You never know...

[Input Nirvana]

Maybe.... hope for the Truly Ergonomic? You never know...

You are sooo silly!!  lol


Yes, the F-keys are one of the few drawbacks. I replaced one with cherry browns and keycaps (in my sig!!), and it's absolutely perfect.

[Arcanius]

I said hope, not wait.
How hard is it to pull out the Fkeys and add in Cherry switches?

[Input Nirvana]

I said hope, not wait.
How hard is it to pull out the Fkeys and add in Cherry switches?

Ok, good. I was about to ask if you were TE's brother. lol


I think it is overall medium, but involved:

1-remove existing keys. Easy.
2-measure and cut holes for 12 of 18 switches. Medium.
3-insert switches and hot glue for security. Easy.
4- replace ans hot glue for security. Easy.
5-hand wire switches to main pcb. Medium and involved.
6-remaining 6 switches need to be placed elsewhere. Medium/hard and involved.

You will retain all Kinesis functionality. It's slick.

[sordna]

I actually ordered a Kinesis Contoured at the beginning of this thread and found that it was unacceptable for my job.  I'm a programmer, and we work with a proprietary programming language.  The IDE requires the heavy use of F-keys with multiple modifiers (Ctrl/Shift/Alt combinations) and the F-keys on this keyboard are just plain horrible (in my opinion).  They are rubberized chicklets and I could not do my job adequately with the keyboard.  For normal word processing, it was great, though.

You can use the 2nd layer on the kinesis to remap the regular number keys as function keys. += and _- can be F11, F12.
A footswitch works very nice for reaching the 2nd layer momentarily.
Also, avoid one-handed key combos.  Once you start using both hands, you'll see it's actually comfortable and fast!

[Lanx]

Oh, I'm still here all right

I appreciate the suggestion -- it just seems like a bit of an unstable setup (that takes a lot of desk space).

Have there been any other new keyboards released that have the layout of the MS Natural 4000 but with mechanical switches?

only privately
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:12439&do=comments

that's still unfinished btw, the working beta version is really ugly but works like a charm.

[Input Nirvana]

You can use the 2nd layer on the kinesis to remap the regular number keys as function keys. += and _- can be F11, F12.
A footswitch works very nice for reaching the 2nd layer momentarily.
Also, avoid one-handed key combos.  Once you start using both hands, you'll see it's actually comfortable and fast!

And with the macros that are available, a lot can be made simpler. Even short key combinations can often be made into easier combinations.

[jumpfroggy]

only privately
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:12439&do=comments
that's still unfinished btw, the working beta version is really ugly but works like a charm.

I was actually just searching for that to post it.  Seems like for typists that need a completely standard layout but with an ergonomic twist, the ergo4k is just about perfect.  Except for the incredibly awful switches.  The mechanical conversion mod on that board seems like a perfect solution - I've wanted to do that since I first tried the board years & years ago, and I actually have a NIB one sitting in my closet, waiting.  I just have to find a donor board, but I'm waiting to see if I want blues or browns more.

[Lanx]

i detailed as much as i could in that mod, truthfully it could be "completed" in a day if i took out "ALOT" of extras (which i want to keep) heck, half of the mods is "making it look pretty" which i didn't care for but ppl really said my current ergo 4k mod v1 is so damned ugly they shamed me. You do learn a lot of "skills" lol if you don't have em already. Check out the cherry board i got for donor boards, i got the same exact model and they were like 25ish, not bad for 120ish cherry browns just put in g80-8200 into your ebay search and have them mail you updates. IDK what blues are cheap donor boards, maybe horrible iscopus or those other badly soldered boards for 50bucks.

oh and don't forget about the controller, i really couldn't figure out a way to solder leads to the microsoft 4k controller since it was like only circuit boarded connected and had that layer of like wax or enamel over it, teensy woulda been cool.

[jumpfroggy]

i detailed as much as i could in that mod, truthfully it could be "completed" in a day if i took out "ALOT" of extras (which i want to keep) heck, half of the mods is "making it look pretty" which i didn't care for but ppl really said my current ergo 4k mod v1 is so damned ugly they shamed me. You do learn a lot of "skills" lol if you don't have em already. Check out the cherry board i got for donor boards, i got the same exact model and they were like 25ish, not bad for 120ish cherry browns just put in g80-8200 into your ebay search and have them mail you updates. IDK what blues are cheap donor boards, maybe horrible iscopus or those other badly soldered boards for 50bucks.

oh and don't forget about the controller, i really couldn't figure out a way to solder leads to the microsoft 4k controller since it was like only circuit boarded connected and had that layer of like wax or enamel over it, teensy woulda been cool.

Interesting!  How would you have done the quick & ugly version?  IIRC, you did custom PCB's for the switches to get a grid-style layout.  If you didn't care about the grid style, would you have been able to just cut a circuit board in half and mount them on the ergo4k's inclined halves?  Just curious.

[Lanx]

yup, here's the link to my first (and current) mod, basically just cut a pcb board in half lol
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:10510

it's not as detailed as the v2 mod, but it doesn't really have to be since everything is done just to fully replace the keys with browns, so it really is ugly but 100% functionally perfect (if you like the microsoft 4k layout).