Hack Chat Transcript, Page 1

kristina panos 2:52 PM

Ahoy!

Dan Maloney 2:52 PM

Howdy!

kristina panos 2:53 PM

How's everything going in here?

Dan Maloney 2:53 PM

Looking good, we'll get started officially in a few

kristina panos 2:53 PM

Okay! I'll be here

Dan Maloney 2:54 PM

And apologies in advance for my typing -- ironically, I'm still having trouble getting used to my not-so-new keyboard

kristina panos 2:55 PM

Oh dear. Remind me what you ended up getting?

Nicolas Tremblay 2:56 PM

Good, Kiristina is here, won't be like last week

kristina panos 2:56 PM

Dan Maloney 2:57 PM

I was afraid you'd ask -- flips keyboard over -- Logitech K845CH. Off the shelf, boring, but at least it has really Cherry switches

kristina panos 2:58 PM

That looks like it clacks nicely

Nicolas Tremblay 2:58 PM

Better than the Dell I'm using

kristina panos 2:58 PM

What flavor of Cherry?

kristina panos 2:58 PM

@Nicolas Tremblay I used a Dell QuietKey many years ago that was non-terrible

kristina panos 2:59 PM

I might think it more terrible now, though

Dan Maloney 2:59 PM

I had one of the super cheap ones that was so light I chased it around my desk from just using it. This one at least has some heft to it -- aluminum chassis

kristina panos 2:59 PM

@Dan Maloney that is the worst, and my biggest fear with a true split keyboard -- that they would be all over the place

Dan Maloney 3:00 PM

Cherry MX Red

kristina panos 3:01 PM

Not my taste, but the people who like them love them, it seems

Dan Maloney 3:01 PM

Whoop -- here we go. Welcome aboard everyone, I'm Dan and I'll be modding today along with Dusan as we welcome our own Kristina Panos to the chat!

kristina panos 3:01 PM

Howdy, everyone!

Dan Maloney 3:01 PM

Hello Kristina, thanks for agreeing to come out and play with us! What are you typing on today?

Dusan Petrovic 3:02 PM

Hello and welcome everyone!

kristina panos 3:02 PM

You're quite welcome. And ha! My trusty Kinesis Advantage.

foamyguy 3:04 PM

+1 in the Kinesis Krew. I was converted by our host.

kristina panos 3:04 PM

I truly would not be here today without it (or something like it).

kristina panos 3:04 PM

I bring up my surgery pretty often, and that's because RSIs are no joke. I know this now.

Dan Maloney 3:05 PM

As a non-touch typist, is there any point in a split keyboard like that?

kristina panos 3:05 PM

For those that don't know, I had cubital tunnel surgery in 2017. That's basically carpal tunnel in the elbow.

kristina panos 3:05 PM

@Dan I say everyone can benefit from a split keyboard

kristina panos 3:06 PM

Woops, I atted the wrong Dan.

kristina panos 3:06 PM

Sorry, other Dan!

Dan Maloney 3:06 PM

He won't mind...

kristina panos 3:06 PM

Splits are great because they separate everything into a more natural position.

Nicolas Tremblay 3:07 PM

Staggered or ortho?

kristina panos 3:08 PM

I love ortho now, though I do switch back and forth a lot because I use typewriters frequently

kristina panos 3:08 PM

And that's a little weird. Mostly I just end up typing 'c' with my index finger on the ortho, and of course it comes out 'v'.

Dan Maloney 3:09 PM

I just don't know if I can train my brain to keep the two hands on their own side of the keyboard. I tend to cross over -- in fact, I just typed "V" and "F" with my right, and used both right and left to type successive "T"s

kristina panos 3:09 PM

Depending on the keyboard, it can be *really* hard to type 'c' with your middle finger, which you have to do on an ortho.

kristina panos 3:09 PM

Yeah, it definitely helps to be a home row typist going in, that is for sure.

foamyguy 3:09 PM

I wonder if there are laptops with ortho keys. I find it harder each time I go back to staggered and usually it's because of being on the laptop.

kristina panos 3:10 PM

I would definitely use one

deʃhipu 3:10 PM

there is mnt pocket

foamyguy 3:11 PM

interesting, I hadn't seen that before. Thank you!

kristina panos 3:11 PM

I thought that sounded a bit familiar -- https://hackaday.com/2023/04/11/a-miniature-mnt-for-every-pocket/

deʃhipu 3:11 PM

it also has a trackball, for extra relief to your hands

kelvinA 3:12 PM

I sometimes wonder why staggered keyboards never became hexagonal-grid like as they became implemented in technology.

foamyguy 3:12 PM

I was just admiring the trackball

deʃhipu 3:12 PM

hex kyeboards do exist, there are even keycaps like that

kjansky1 3:12 PM

I knew someone that was a double arm amputee that typed on a wireless keyboard on the floor with his toes.

deʃhipu 3:12 PM

I mean keycaps you can buy separately

Dan Maloney 3:12 PM

I moved to a trackball ages ago because I could feel the strain mounting up in my right hand from mousing. Cured the problem

kristina panos 3:13 PM

I feel like I covered a hex-keycap keyboard once

kristina panos 3:13 PM

@Dan Maloney same, same. Ugh, that feeling.

deʃhipu 3:13 PM

https://fkcaps.com/keycaps/hex

deʃhipu 3:13 PM

0xc.pad maybe?

deʃhipu 3:14 PM

https://d37dh9tfveh1m1.cloudfront.net/products/0xcpad/003.jpg

kristina panos 3:14 PM

That is lovely! But it doesn't look like I covered it. Boo.

deʃhipu 3:15 PM

there is recently a project for a piano keyboard with those keycaps

deʃhipu 3:16 PM

https://hackaday.com/2019/07/13/isomorphic-keyboards-with-cv-out/

kelvinA 3:16 PM

Not hex keycaps necessarily, but just having the stagger so that each key is offset as to make an equilateral triangle. (For example, the A-Z-S keys on QWERTY are almost there.)

deʃhipu 3:17 PM

personally I would prefer vertical stagger, horizontal stagger is just poor man's angled halves

Thomas Shaddack 3:17 PM

for laptops, you can sit a conventional short keyboard on printed spacers over the laptop's lousy original one. crude hack but works.

Thomas Shaddack 3:17 PM

have to take it off before closing the lid. but if you never close the lid, it is easy for you.

deʃhipu 3:17 PM

there are even special extra-thin keyboards designed to sit on laptops

kristina panos 3:18 PM

https://hackaday.com/2021/05/04/typematrix-ez-reach-2030-is-better-than-your-laptop-keyboard/

foamyguy 3:18 PM

Oh yeah, that thing.

kristina panos 3:18 PM

@deʃhipu vertical stagger is nice

Thomas Shaddack 3:19 PM

Oh! Didn't know it exists. Using ordinary Oryx-class short mechanical gaming keyboard.

kristina panos 3:19 PM

I was just going to ask what everyone is typing on

kristina panos 3:19 PM

If you care to share, that is

kristina panos 3:20 PM

I didn't specify that mine has Cherry Browns, but it does. *steels self against haters* :)

Dan Maloney 3:21 PM

Anyone on a Model 33 teletype wins the internet...

Thomas Shaddack 3:21 PM

I think it is Niceboy K500x. with the function key pads stripped off and not-replaced-with-flatter-ones-yet because they were in the way to see the bottommost line of the screen, where the terminal prompt is.

deʃhipu 3:22 PM

@kristina panos are they as scratchy as they say?

fid 3:22 PM

When I am doing a lot of typing (laptop) my wrists get tired after a while. I break away and do some practice on fiddle to get a difference. I am going to look into a different keyboard.

deʃhipu 3:23 PM

@fid I had that, and I switched to a low-profile keyboard with 1ufh philosophy, and now I never move my wrists when typing, only my fingers

kristina panos 3:23 PM

@deʃhipu I don't find them scratchy, but maybe I am just too accustomed to it if so. But I've never disliked them, so there's that

kelvinA 3:23 PM

@kristina panos My (not-so-temporary) tempory keyboard E-Yooso Z88 (circular key version). I'm in the process of getting Taipo set up on my Let's Split.

Thomas Shaddack 3:23 PM

Temporary solutions usually last for no more than one forever.

kristina panos 3:24 PM

Ha!

Nicolas Tremblay 3:25 PM

16 year old Dell SK-8135

kristina panos 3:25 PM

@kelvinA Let's Split looks nice and tidy. I personally need more keys than that! Layers are kind of strange to me. I guess I used full-sizers for too long?

foamyguy 3:26 PM

Does anyone know of a board that is wireless (BLE or otherwise) and well suited to being a media controller for a computer that across the room displaying on a TV?

Thomas Shaddack 3:27 PM

Could something be rigged around a nRF52840, or does it have to be off the shelf?

deʃhipu 3:27 PM

@kristina panos have you seen the Voyager by ZSA?

deʃhipu 3:28 PM

it's the same company that made ergodox and moonlander

foamyguy 3:28 PM

I'm open to either route, off the shelf or DIY or kits or anything inbetween really.

kristina panos 3:29 PM

@deʃhipu nice that they made something for smaller hands!

Thomas Shaddack 3:29 PM

Or get a keyboard you like, and reverse-engineer the switching matrix and wire a controller in. That way you can even reuse something old you used to love.

kristina panos 3:29 PM

I was sad that the ErgoDox was too big for me

deʃhipu 3:30 PM

yeah, what's with all those "ergonomic" keyboards with too many keys

Thomas Shaddack 3:30 PM

There's nothing like too many keys. There is not enough keys and better-but-still-not-enough keys.

kristina panos 3:31 PM

I just felt like my thumbs were too short for the thing

kristina panos 3:31 PM

@Thomas Shaddack lol

kristina panos 3:32 PM

https://hackaday.com/2020/09/19/a-big-computer-needs-a-big-keyboard/

Dan Maloney 3:32 PM

Perfect for those two-hacker sessions

deʃhipu 3:32 PM

one key from home position, that's all

deʃhipu 3:33 PM

anything else is not ergonomic

Thomas Shaddack 3:33 PM

I am tempted to add strips of mouse-class little buttons to the front and over and under the function keys, where there is free space. then because putting in a whole new controller would be too hard, rig up a second keyboard from atmega32u4 and put a usb hub into the original "host" keyboard to run both.

fid 3:33 PM

That's like going from standard calculator to scientific.

Thomas Shaddack 3:33 PM

Too uniform squary keyboard. No haptic finding out what is where.

kristina panos 3:33 PM

@Thomas Shaddack I dig it

Thomas Shaddack 3:34 PM

Trick. Glue haptic strips to the keys. Satin, coarseish sandpaper, things that won't wear easy and provide feel for specific keys.

kristina panos 3:35 PM

Finger treads!

Thomas Shaddack 3:35 PM

...similar haptic strips work on the backsides of computers to mark which side of a connector is which, for eyes-free plugging.

deʃhipu 3:35 PM

@Thomas Shaddack you type letters by pressing the shape of the letter on the key matrix, in pixels

kristina panos 3:35 PM

Or print textured keycaps

Thomas Shaddack 3:35 PM

Braille keycaps.

deʃhipu 3:36 PM

whatever innovation about keycaps you can think about, it has been done

Nicolas Tremblay 3:36 PM

How about a split desk to go with the keyboard?

deʃhipu 3:36 PM

it's a very active area of experimentation

Thomas Shaddack 3:36 PM

It's not important to be the first. It's important to remix it with what you got into what you need/want.

kristina panos 3:37 PM

@Nicolas Tremblay I think I would lose things in the crevasse. How about mounted to the arms of the chair?

deʃhipu 3:37 PM

@Nicolas Tremblay it's common to have the halves attached to your arm rests

kristina panos 3:37 PM

jinx

kelvinA 3:37 PM

There are even solar cell keycaps?

deʃhipu 3:38 PM

I'm still waiting for a clicky mechanical keyboard but with built-in active noise cancellation

Thomas Shaddack 3:38 PM

Random thought. Raspberry pi with camera. Cheapo projector. Project arbitrary images onto the keys from the ceiling or from the laptop lid top.

Nicolas Tremblay 3:38 PM

@kristina panos OOH! full on battle chair, with overhead displays, strap the box in the back. Who care about "laptops"

deʃhipu 3:38 PM

@Thomas Shaddack exists

deʃhipu 3:39 PM

I think it was even a hackaday.io project

deʃhipu 3:39 PM

wasn't Ted Yapo working on something like that?

Dan Maloney 3:39 PM

https://www.amazon.com/AGS-Wireless-Projection-Bluetooth-Smartphone/dp/B00MR26TUO/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=laser+keyboard&qid=1695843551&sr=8-3

Thomas Shaddack 3:39 PM

Unsurprising. Could also work for training of piano or guitar, just project whatever has to be pressed to the surface.

Hack Chat Transcript, Page 2

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