The computer kind. Not the musical kind.
I must confess I'm kind of a junkie. I have amassed an embarrassing pile of them over the years as I've chased different trends.
There's a drawer here with a bunch of very nice keyboards in it now. For the past few years I've mainly been using an 87-key CODE keyboard with cherry MX clear switches. Simple. Elegant. Didn't take up too much deskspace. If I needed a number pad, I'd pull out my latest gen Apple wireless keyboard for a time and use that.
I found the mx clears had a nice balance between sound and feel for typing.
I was not very strict with myself about my touch typing habits on the CODE. I would cross the horizontal plane with my left and right hands all the time. And with all the time I spend at a keyboard for my job, there was some bad wrist and shoulder pain developing at the end of long weeks.
Work sent us all Das keyboards earlier this year which are 104-key and a little bigger. Super nice and well put together keyboards but I didn't like the metal edge, the ruler-for-tilt thing and the ultra soft keys on it. So it's in the drawer.
I've been kicking around going ortholinear and split keyboard for a few months. Doing the research. And three weeks ago I finally ordered a new keyboard: a ZSA Moonlander.
It's two weeks in and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm not hobbled anymore.
It's been a real trip getting used to it. The split-ness of it was immediately comfortable. That part of it's design has been no problem at all to acclimate to. The ortholinear part has been much trickier. And the new locations on the keyboard for a lot of symbol and modifier keys I use frequently in my job have taken a lot of getting used to.
I'm running the default layout for the most part. I like to resist customizing things until I feel like I have a good understanding of how they work for me.
My speed is coming back up though. And I can vim again -- relearning a lot of muscle memory chords in vim was super hard to do. I find myself saying out loud vim chords so I think about the actual keys I need to hit and not just using finger position memory to do things.
My colleagues who use the Moonlander say it's about a month and you'll have your speed back and maybe then some.
The ortholinear key alignment really does highlight how bad my finger motion habits have gotten over the decades.
It looks super cool though. I haven't even delved into tilting it yet. ZSA suggests leaving it lie flat for a month before you do that.
I went with the super quiet cherry mx reds and I'm not sure I'll stay with them. There's just no real feedback on when you've actuated the key on press. But the Moonlander is kind of cool in that you can swap the switches out -- they're socketed. The CODE doesn't let you do a switch swap like that. Might try the ZEALIOS switches in it.
Any other keyboard collectors out there? Got a favorite switch?
I must confess I'm kind of a junkie. I have amassed an embarrassing pile of them over the years as I've chased different trends.
There's a drawer here with a bunch of very nice keyboards in it now. For the past few years I've mainly been using an 87-key CODE keyboard with cherry MX clear switches. Simple. Elegant. Didn't take up too much deskspace. If I needed a number pad, I'd pull out my latest gen Apple wireless keyboard for a time and use that.
I found the mx clears had a nice balance between sound and feel for typing.
I was not very strict with myself about my touch typing habits on the CODE. I would cross the horizontal plane with my left and right hands all the time. And with all the time I spend at a keyboard for my job, there was some bad wrist and shoulder pain developing at the end of long weeks.
Work sent us all Das keyboards earlier this year which are 104-key and a little bigger. Super nice and well put together keyboards but I didn't like the metal edge, the ruler-for-tilt thing and the ultra soft keys on it. So it's in the drawer.
I've been kicking around going ortholinear and split keyboard for a few months. Doing the research. And three weeks ago I finally ordered a new keyboard: a ZSA Moonlander.
It's two weeks in and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm not hobbled anymore.
It's been a real trip getting used to it. The split-ness of it was immediately comfortable. That part of it's design has been no problem at all to acclimate to. The ortholinear part has been much trickier. And the new locations on the keyboard for a lot of symbol and modifier keys I use frequently in my job have taken a lot of getting used to.I'm running the default layout for the most part. I like to resist customizing things until I feel like I have a good understanding of how they work for me.
My speed is coming back up though. And I can vim again -- relearning a lot of muscle memory chords in vim was super hard to do. I find myself saying out loud vim chords so I think about the actual keys I need to hit and not just using finger position memory to do things.
My colleagues who use the Moonlander say it's about a month and you'll have your speed back and maybe then some.
The ortholinear key alignment really does highlight how bad my finger motion habits have gotten over the decades.
It looks super cool though. I haven't even delved into tilting it yet. ZSA suggests leaving it lie flat for a month before you do that.
I went with the super quiet cherry mx reds and I'm not sure I'll stay with them. There's just no real feedback on when you've actuated the key on press. But the Moonlander is kind of cool in that you can swap the switches out -- they're socketed. The CODE doesn't let you do a switch swap like that. Might try the ZEALIOS switches in it.
Any other keyboard collectors out there? Got a favorite switch?
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