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The idea is, as you unbend your finger (extend the two distal joints) to reach further-away rows, the fingertip naturally travels in a direction upward and outward. Therefore, having the further keys be at the same height as the home row keys requires you to reach down by either moving your hand or flexing your first finger joint, the former of which is slow especially if you need to type keys on different rows with the same hand and the latter of which reduces the strength available for pressing the key and I suspect increases fatigue for keys with long travel. (It would be nice to actually have some proper scientific evidence here, unfortunately all the studies I’ve seen on related subjects are pretty crappy.)
Anyway, by raising the height of the further away keys, you make them easier to reach. The closer rows, by contrast, are reached by flexing mainly the second finger joint, and I don’t think they benefit much from being lower. (Though again it would be nice to see some comprehensive empirical testing.)
You can do this by changing the angle of the board, raising the back.No, that’s counterproductive, because it changes the orientation of the switches, forcing you to press outward as well as down. Also, it makes the closer letter row and the modifier/spacebar row too short.
Ideally we want the keyboard at a proper height such that we can have a slight *negative* board angle ...
... and a keyboard construction method which raises the height of the further away rows of switches ...
Aren't you in conflict with yourself?No. To see why requires thinking about / inspecting your hands and the way your fingers move, paying close attention to which joints you flex/extend to locate key tops and which joints you flex to actuate the keys.
The only way how you can make sense is you actually caring about the exact angle your finger has (when pressing a key) to the switch axe.Yep, that’s right. I think the switch axis is important.
In my opinion:QuoteThe only way how you can make sense is you actually caring about the exact angle your finger has (when pressing a key) to the switch axe.Yep, that’s right. I think the switch axis is important.
Only if the difference is big, like significantly more than 5°. Maybe, it can make sense to consider it above 15° (force difference more than ~ 5%), but probably only at about 25° (force difference more than ~ 10%). Try to measure it before you invest in 5° tilt compensated with keycaps. Let us know the result if you do measure it.The issue is not really amount of force required. It’s about the finger motions needed. I’ve never used a Kinesis Advantage for more than a few hours, but the handful of times I tried one I found the top row keys – and especially the keys in the top corners – incredibly awkward. Their spatial position is fine, but their axis of motion makes pressing them very uncomfortable (for me). Also, I don’t think the Kinesis Advantage properly positions the home row to align to the finger positions of a relaxed hand. Both the relative height (off the table) and the depth (distance away from the body) of various columns is in my opinion quite suboptimal.
That is the reason I'm trying to build Katy (http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=61323.0).As far as I can tell you are designing the finger section basically by starting from the Kinesis Advantage, rather than reasoning from first principles about the mechanics of the hand. As a result, I suspect that I would find your design just as awkward/uncomfortable as the Kinesis Advantage, with the one benefit that you can independently move and orient the two hand pieces. I have basically the same criticism of your thumb section: it’s not positioned or oriented starting from a consideration of human hand mechanics.
... I think it’s possible though to reach two rows of keys beyond the "home row" for each finger, if necessary...
But more rows aren’t strictly necessary, and a keyboard with only 3 rows of finger keys is very usable.
- remove the Esc and Backspace and put them in an extra column in the middle (= more hand separation within the same 60% border).Note that backspace in my board would be on one of the 1.5u thumb keys. The blank keys at the right and left are shift keys, and the key in the top right corner is return.
- what key rows/profiles would be best for the hands, and which for the thumbs?I recommend getting a bunch of keycaps and testing it out. It’s hard to come up with a perfect setup in the abstract, without putting your hands on it.
- if I put it on 60% groundplate, what would you put in the middle? I'd love some dedicated keys for much used functions, such as ctrl-a, ctrl-x, ctrl-v, ctrl-z, ctrl-z etc...
- Question for Oobly: I suppose you have to keep thumb keys pushed down, for the layers to work. Suppose you have to inputs lots of numbers, doesn't that get old?In practice this is really no big deal. If you need to do data entry or something, add a locking layer. Otherwise, I don’t think it’s worth it.
Finally: for a 3 row setups would this workI think the jump from row 2/3 to row 5 might be slightly severe, but test it out! I suspect that you might prefer DCS row 1, row 2, and row 4 on a 3-row board.
DCS row5 for the Q row
DCS row 2 or row 3 for the A row (=home row),
DCS row 4 for the Z row
Also, you want to test out the amount of stagger to use between columns. That rectangular board of mine has stagger reduced relative to the optimum amount, to help it fit within the available space.Interesting, the stagger you already have there looks like a big one to me.
We’re talking about this one:Also, you want to test out the amount of stagger to use between columns. That rectangular board of mine has stagger reduced relative to the optimum amount, to help it fit within the available space.Interesting, the stagger you already have there looks like a big one to me.
We’re talking about this one:Show Image(http://i.imgur.com/Ucj8Fog.jpg)
We’re talking about this one:(http://i.imgur.com/Ucj8Fog.jpg)
Is this a layout-only test version or are there actually no dedicated 5 and 0 keys?
interisting its like Rivertron (http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/the-rivertron-keyboard-t1111.html?hilit=rivertron)Huh, I hadn’t seen that one before. I wonder if it ever got wired together.Show Image(http://i.imgur.com/yQ2Mlwy.jpg)