I have always liked my Kinesis boards. I did not notice any reason why I would want a different switch other than browns. I thought I liked the tactile feel. Then came Sordna. What an ass. You see, I made the mistake of listening to him (I warned you earlier). He said this now famous line:"Go red Fred, red, red, RED! Brown is down!". So, like a good little minion, I followed his orders and did the deed by procuring red switch keywells for a couple of my Kinesis boards (I got a few of these bad boys), and promptly changed them out. Pretty nice stuff, I'll tell you. Smooth, silky, like typing on a cloud of bewbs (Sordna didn't tell me that part). I needed the audible click because after having only typed on tactile browns, I had virtually no reference point and was trying to force my fingertips directly to China the hard way (I live, work, party, eat, poop and kill in California, do the geography). So after initially freaking out and Sordna talking me off the ledge, a day or so later I was sliding along pretty well on these things, and after several days I was almost dialed in completely. Got tired of the click, I mean really...is it a hot girl click, or a disgusting street-creature click? I couldn't tell, so I shut the damn thing off. I went right back to giving Chairman Mao the finger. So this time it took a couple days to try and find the sweet spot again. I was in slippery bliss, I tell you, pure bliss. Not a care in the world. Then, one day, without warning, not so much as a peep, I was summoned to see the queen. "For why am I being summoned to see the queen?" I asked myself. No matter. I must go, so go I did. I grabbed a bottle of wine (in case I had to wait to see the queen), a toothbrush (hey, hygiene is where it's at, man), and a Kinesis board with brown switches (because it f-ing cool, that's why) and I hopped and skipped down the yellow brick road to see the queen. Along the way, I came upon a very sad little man. "What's up little dude?" I asked. "I'm lost and can't find my way." he lamented. "Well, I'm going to see the queen and you can tag along if you don't talk. You're kind of small and dirty and you really weird me out. Chop-chop little dude." So off we went to see the queen. As we approached the military complex, and the TSA did a body cavity search on little dude, I used the opportunity to slip away to see the queen. I hear she's quite the hottie. The last I saw of smelly, dirty little dude was the TSA shaking him upside down just because they could. Once in the gates and seated in the waiting que (glad I brought the wine), I used my Kinesis as a headrest. I was ball'in all the way. Pimp Daddy Nirvana tipping back the bottle, head on a Kinesis. Life was good. Finally, I was let in to see the queen. "This will be awesome." I thought to myself as I brushed my teeth (see, toothbrush...take notes here). I reclined with the queen at her World of Warcraft 70" LED terminal and gazed into her beautiful eyes. Things were really shaping up for me! She asked "Is that a Kinesis Advantage in your pants or are you very happy to see me?
<****>
Interrupted with an important phone call, and I don't remember where I was going with the story. I was going to get to the point that I really like both switches, and to this day I alternate every couple months, even though they are very different. I've found the people that love the reds wind up hating browns almost all saying they are 'gritty' feeling. And others that say they can't get used to no tactile feedback on the reds (it is a powerful feature of a mechanical switch). I strongly suggest you test the switch feel. The keyboards are fairly pricey and you need to compare them without buying/returning/shipping, etc.
P.S.- I apologize sincerely to Sordna for dragging his good name through the mud with my torrid tale, but he IS guilty of starting the whole red switch mess with Kinesis boards, so he needs to own it.
...Pimp Daddy Nirvana tipping back the bottle, head on a Kinesis. Life was good. Finally, I was let in to see the queen...
Hello,
I've been lurking around the forum for a while now, absorbing as much information as I could. I'm a graduate student in robotics (basically a programmer) which means that I'm at a computer 12-14 hours a day. I've been beginning to feel cramps and mild pain in my hands, wrists, and occasionally shoulders, which has prompted me to start looking into fixing my work environment. Sadly, I'm also a graduate student, so that started with free things such as a timer to remind me to take breaks, as well as remapping caps lock as a control key, and others. That said, I'm starting my career with a job in February. Because of the amount of typing I do, and the fact that I'm beginning to feel pain at the ripe old age of 23, I want to try a more ergonomic keyboard. After much research, it appears that a Kinesis Advantage may be quite excellent, as it remaps the (frequently used) keys normally on the finger with the most pain (the pinky) to one with none (the thumb). They don't call it emacs pinky for nothing!
Now that you know my situation, I have a couple of questions.
1) I've seen talk of a Kinesis Advantage LF. If I were going to pay for a keyboard such as the Kinesis, I want it to be perfect. Should I go for the LF or the regular version?
2) Is there anyone in the Philadelphia or Boston areas with a spare Kinesis I could try for a week or so?
3) Has anyone found compelling keymaps for an emacs user? I'll be relying heavily on ctrl and alt, so perhaps putting ctrl on the left thumb and alt on the right would be optimal?
I'll post more questions if I think of any.
Thanks,
Bradley Powers
On editing I'd actually recommend Sublime Text 2 instead, which supports Emacs bindings but learn a different set of bindings.
Red linear vs brown tactile- Both switches use the same spring so they both have the same force applied.
Corrected :)
Hmm, the force diagrams you added doesn't include red switches, the linear diagram is for the heavier black switches; here's the one for the reds, from the wiki:Show Image(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=11347&stc=1&d=1277344560)
BradPowers, Don't forget to consider your next purchase too! (Since you didn't listen to the parrot...) I hope you like the kinesis - I love mine.
Architect: The paint, do any of the boards have any scratching? I've never seen any scratched up and I'm curious since you have a couple with heavy use for years you're a good test guinea pig. :) Must be industrial paint applied overseas where that stuff is legal.
I've seen and read about the NASTIES that can be on keyboards. It's very interesting and quite sobering to think about before using one that is not yours. More gross than airplane toilets...can you believe that???
Sometimes the juice just ain't worth the squeeze, baby.
I don't have any used, sorry :) I'm thinking of the (now don't cry) scores of Kinesis (ok less than 10) that I threw in the garbage when a dept. shut down. I was looking for some used stuff to score, should have grabbed these but there was, to me, bad juju with taking the keyboard of a laid off engineer. And they each were so dirty and worn I didn't want the cooties.
I got that, I just don't know what "Don't forget to remember your next purchase too!" means.
I was suggesting that you might want to start looking for the keyboard you'll get afterwards - most of us started this way, looking for one keyboard.
Good point, be warned BradPowers. :D It didn't take me long to order a second Advantage to have one at work and one at home. Later I ordered a TrulyErgonomic to check it out. Then I got a third Advantage, LF model this time, liked it, and ordered red key wells for one of my non-LF Advantages. And recently found out about the ErgoDox...
boli: It's been nice know'in ya. The little woman in your life will kill you soon unless she's a GH'er too. :)
P.S.- Don't worry, I'll spread your ashes in a spectacular setting.
TWO KEYBOARDS?!?!?! Crap.
:)
Where do you store them? I would loose count with so many. I only have about 14 :-) But my 2 LF's are the ones seeing most of the use.
Anyone who uses a dirty keyboard all the time doesn't mind the dirt (assuming it's their dirt). You could have offered the boards to their previous owners. I'm sure they would have appreciated it.
The company policy is that they don't take anything with them and they got a GENEROUS package (nine months pay plus bonuses), I'm sure they didn't mind leaving it. Probably wanted to leave it behind anyhow (people never expect to get laid off)
input nirvana - yeah that looks like many a 'board I've seen, after an engineer has abused it for, say, a decade.
...queen...
BTW you can find erw's Kinesis Advantage love story in the Non-staggered keys AKA matrix or grid layout, especially the Kinesis (http://forum.colemak.com/viewtopic.php?id=371) thread at the Colemak forum. There's the pre-ownership period, the first use, the after 6 weeks experiences as well as my personal favorite: the after 6 months stage. :D
You need to repeat this mapping in the keypad layer as well, so you can toggle back to the regular layer with the same key.
i think input nirvana's avatar is a parrot (i don't remember i have avatars and sigs blocked).
So this was the magic step. I have mapped the pedal to a key before, but it would only get me into embedded mode, not out! Anyway I just tried to do it with a macro, but it doesn't work. I tried Progrm+Macro, AltGr++, Pedal, and Progrm+Macro (where AltGr++ is AltGr and plus, not the key following AltGr :-P ). Both pressing+releasing the pedal and pressing and holding the pedal result in the keypad LED flashing very briefly when triggering the macro.
I'd sure like to use part of a key as toggle switch, but I don't have a whole key to sacrifice :-/
I took a look at that thread and saw this: "You cannot move (remap) the keypad mode activation key"
Actually, it so happened that yesterday I discovered that you CAN map any key to keypad activation! It's in the manual. You need a footswitch (temporarily) to do the mapping. Basically, you enter remap mode, then you hit the footswitch (momentary keypad activation) then you hit the destination key you want to make a keypad toggle key! Unlike the footswitch, the new keypad key won't be momentary, it will be a toggle (works like the regular one however without the buzz sound) but still it's very welcome to be able to have it on any location! You need to repeat this mapping in the keypad layer as well, so you can toggle back to the regular layer with the same key.