I have been using 2 mechanical keyboard for about a year now: a Das Ultimate and a Filco Ninja Majestouch-2 (104 keys), both Cherry MX Browns. One of these has been dedicated to work, and the other for home. I am a full time programmer, and I have come to understand the importance to own a quality keyboard when most of your waking hours, and your career, involves using a keyboard.
Lately, I have I started experiencing hand fatigue using the stock caps/switches from my keyboards, especially toward the end of the week, so I have started to search for something new. Throughout my quest, geekhack.org continually came up in my google results, and this site has now become my go-to place for keyboard advice/ideas.
Over the past month, I learned much about switches, o-rings, and keycaps. I have replaced both of the keycaps for my keyboards with pbt caps and have added 40A-R o-rings. I also purchased a thick pbt sub dye set from feng on his ebay site (before I knew he was a geekhack vendor) and a regular pbt side-printed set from qtan on his ebay site. Since then, I have grown to love pbt caps, and I don't think I could ever go back to using abs on a regular basis. I have also recently participated in an open group buy started by IvanIvanovich for a pbt sub dye black on black keycap set.
Although my keyboard modifications have practically eliminated my hand fatigue, I have recently become very aware that I exhibit way too much hand movement back and forth between the mouse and the keyboard (I use a macro enabled mouse to handle most of the frequently needed hot key combos in my IDE). So, I started looking for a compact keyboard. I recently purchased a Poker II brown switch from an ebay seller, but even though I have not received this yet, I am now seriously considering getting a Happy Hacking Professional 2 and returning or selling the Poker. I have a hunch that the HHKB may be the keyboard I have been searching for. As I mentioned earlier, I am a full time programmer, and I do not game at all, so it looks like the HHKB 2 is going to fit the bill. If so, I may be selling my other boards, as I feel as though switching back and forth between HHKB hotkey layout, as well as continually adjusting to the Topre to Cherry switches, would be difficult.
Anyway, I hope that my quest is going to be complete soon, as my wallet starting to get rather unhappy, but I know that once I find what I have been looking for, the time and money spent looking will still be well worth it! Even still, sooner is definitely better than later!
Glad to be a part of this community!
