Kinesis Advantage Pro and normal layout keyboard

[liuw]

For those who own both Advantage Pro and normal layout keyboards, do you have any difficulty switching between two layouts after long time use? Or you just build two suits of muscle memories and everything goes fine?

Thanks

[Lanx]

never

[oneproduct]

I don't even find it that different at all really and moving between them is super easy. The truly ergonomic on the other hand always takes me some getting use to when switching to it after using something else.

[Gerk]

I did fine for the most part on all the regular alpha-numeric keys but never got comfortable with the changeup of all the "other" keys (like []{};:'".>/?) and never grew much of a liking for all the thumb keys.

[thebeargentile]

I use an Advantage Pro as my daily driver at work, I would recommend using your Advantage exclusively for a couple of weeks until you get used to it, then you can go back and forth as you please.  For the first couple weeks after I because proficient with my Advantage, I found myself occasionally hitting the spacebar with my left thumb to try and backspace when using a normally layout, but that was a pretty easy habit to break, and I can now go back and forth between layouts fluidly. 

[vivalarevolución]

I have a Kinesis Advantage that I use at home and a Noppoo Choc Mini I use at work.

I don't have much trouble switching between the two, except the the backspace button. When I am using the Choc Mini, I attempt to backspace with the spacebar a lot. Then my hand drifts back towards the backspace in the upper right.  The rest of the keys don't give me any trouble, but hands like the Kinesis Advantage a lot better.

I guess that I have built two sets of muscle memory.  But I want the Ergodox to happen so I can have a programmable split keyboard both at home and at work.

[hoggy]

I frequently swap between layouts - you won't lose the ability to type on a standard keyboard.  Buy the kinesis!

[islisis]

Considering that most people own laptops in addition, there is no opportunity to ever forget the standard key layout :/

[liuw]

Thanks all. ;-)

[sordna]

Bit late to the party, but I'll report that I'm switching from Kinesis Advantage (dvorak layout) to regular computer and laptop keyboards (qwerty layout) without any problem at all. However, I took the time to fully master the Advantage and Dvorak, and then re-trained myself on regular keyboards and QWERTY.
If you plan to use the same layout on both an Advantage and a regular keyboard, it will be much easier, just keep using both types of keyboards regularly and you'll be fine. It's like buying a 2nd car, you need a few days to get used to it, but after that, if you regularly drive both, switching back and forth is totally natural and painless.

[rationull]

I realize I'm resurrecting this thread but another vote with the crowd. I use an Advantage as well as a "normal" keyboard and a few different laptops and switching is seamless. While I was ramping up on the Kinesis I was using it exclusively at work and laptops at home and while it took me a while to get back up to speed, I didn't have any problems switching between the two.

I would recommend going over the typing exercises that come with the Advantage at least a couple times though, since the Advantage strongly encourages you to use the "correct" finger to hit each key whereas you can fudge it with a conventional layout. I've had some friends who had issues with this particularly with keys near the middle of the board (5 vs 6, T vs Y, etc.). Those "lessons" may or may not end up affecting how you type on a conventional keyboard, depending on how deeply your typing muscle memory is already set in.

[vvp]

Yep, I use a common ANSI keyboard and (much more often) Kinesis Advantage. I sometimes miss numbers on an ANSI keyboard (they are shifted by one). I do not have problems with any other keys though.
I never tried to train well on any keyboard. One can learn while doing a real job. Although it probably takes longer this way. I started to do the kinesis exercises when I bought it ... and did not finish them ... too boring