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Triumph-Adler SE 1040 & 1041 Ergo Study keyboard review (Cherry M9)

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chyros:
You ask, I provide! Today we're not just looking at a vintage keyboard, but a prototype one! This is the first in the series of ergonomic keyboards I have planned. Hope you enjoy the video! :)

jacobolus:
What an awesome keyboard!

The key tops with a consistent slight slant was pretty common in older keyboards, and has the advantage of letting further keys be more easily pressed down without running the fingers into the closer keys. It's marginally better than a uniform profile on a flat keyboard lacking such a tilt.

"I already type ergonomically" – This seems like rationalization. Touch typing is not inherently more dangerous than a hunt-and-peck method, but it is true that many touch typists type in a way that is not very good for their joints / can lead to strain or RSI. To avoid strain, touch typists should have their hands "floating" above the keyboard, not resting on any surface or fixed in place (the fingertips can rest lightly on the key tops if desired, or when not typing the palms, forearms, elbows, etc. can be set down). Ideally the upper arms should be hanging loosely at the sides, with the shoulders relaxed: the elbows should be near the hips, not sticking out to the side or forward.

The most serious problem that many touch typists put themselves into (which can also affect other kinds of typing methods) is arranging their torsos / arms / keyboards such that their wrists are flexed downward or extended upward ("pitched"). From such a position, the tendons are already stretched and can't comfortably extend or flex the fingers, respectively. This can be fixed by adjusting the height of the chair, height of the table, or tilting the keyboard the appropriate amount. My conclusion after thinking about this a lot is that the plane of the keys of a standard keyboard (e.g. the plane of the switch plate, etc.) should be nearly parallel to the forearms. So if the keyboard is placed high relative to the torso, then the keyboard top must me tilted upward at the back, whereas if the keyboard is placed low (e.g. on an under-desk pull-out tray) then the keyboard top should be flat or even slightly negatively tilted.

Other kinds of non-neutral positions of wrists/arms can also cause issues: trying to touch type sometimes encourages typists to turn the right-hand wrist outward to keep the hand straighter to the keyboard ("yawed"). But this is not a requirement, and is in my opinion a bad idea. It is entirely possible to touch type (on a standard keyboard) with both wrists close to straight.

One of the less serious but harder to work-around features is the lack of upward "tent" toward the center on a standard keyboard: this causes the wrists to be rotated inward from a neutral position ("rolled"). In a trade-off, typists sometimes lift their elbows out to the side to spread some of the tilt between forearms and upper arms, but doing this more than minimally makes matters worse. Luckily the forefinger and middle finger are longer than the pinky finger, so typists can slightly compensate by just letting their wrists be a bit "tented", at the expense of having the forefingers sometimes stretch out sideways a bit more than ideal.

Even a bit of relaxation of the standard keyboard design makes a big improvement, irrespective of your typing style. Adding separation between two sides of the keyboard allows the forearms to be closer to straight, which gives a bit more freedom to make other position adjustments for comfort. Turning the keyboard halves and tenting them, even slightly, to be more aligned with the hand orientation makes it much easier to keep wrists straight while comfortably typing. Making a columnar stagger to the keys, instead of a row-based stagger, makes it much easier to fit keys in such a way that they are easily reached by all of the fingers, which reduces the amount of awkward reaching and/or hand movement required.

The keyboard under review doesn't fix all problems with a standard keyboard, but the separation, rotation, and columnar stagger should still be a significant improvement, given some retraining. "Tenting" it would be a further improvement. With practice you (chyros) could learn to type on this keyboard more quickly and comfortably than you can type on a standard keyboard.

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