Submitted by bigjerfystyle t3_y23b06 in MechanicalKeyboards
How did you get there? What were the boards you went through? What were the pitfalls, the friends you made along the way? Stories of endgames (even the “for now” ones) welcome.
I know, I know, there is no endgame…
FYI I have not. I love my Drop Alt with Drop INVYR Holy Pandas, Everglide Panda Stabilizers, and GMK Redacted Keycaps. It’s fiesty and I would say it goes hard. I upgraded it with GMK a few months back which I enjoy thoroughly. Before that was the stabs which vastly improved the big keys. Pandas have always been exceptional.
I was perfectly content with the non-programmable 100% I owned, with Cherry Reds in it, for the better part of a decade, until one game wouldn't let me bind NumEnter to the Jump function.
I bought a programmable HHKB-layout 60%, and hand-built a programmable numpad/arrow/nav block macropad around an Elite-C controller, for gaming.
That put me at endgame at home.
After that, the non-programmable 100% I was using at work became an absolute annoyance.
I kept trying to use my shortcuts from the 60% on it, which obviously didn't work, so I bought a Drop Shift for work, but just couldn't get used to the 1u Num0 on it.
I took the Drop Shift home, where I have less use for the Num0 key, and brought my former home endgame setup to work, making me reach endgame at work.
I still wasn't satisfied with the Drop Shift, so I bought a Wind X, and hit endgame at home.
I was perfectly happy with both those setups, until I won a Dilly at a local meetup, and started playing around with that a bit.
I was doing that just for fun...which turned out to be kind of a gateway drug.
I am very prone to seeking better ways to do things, in all aspects of my life, so that keyboard triggered my mind to start asking, "What if...?"
That dropped me headfirst down the mineshaft of the "Hey, I bet I could design a perfect keyboard for me" rabbit hole.
Fast-forward to today, and I now have a 69-key, split spacebar, ortho layout, with all the functionality of my 1800s, including a full numpad, stuffed into the previously mentioned HHKB-style case, as my "new" work endgame.
I like that one so much, I just ordered a standard 60% case last night, and plan on creating a sister board to that one, for home use.
My needs at home are slightly different than my needs at work, because I don't game at work.
My plan is to tweak my existing work layout, to match my needs at home, which should bring me back to endgame at both places...in theory.
We'll have to wait and see what actually happens...in reality.
Thanks for sharing this!
Interesting that two of your major jumps were from a NumPad issue.
And the jump to ortho interests me. As someone who worries about RSI, as I type a shit ton, I am on the fence about Coleman-DH and ortho, or just a column-staggered QWERTY. For now, I’m super fast on the 65 row staggered, so I’m just leaving it at that. Did you switch key layouts?
There's no such thing.
Hopefully when I finally finish my project keeb.
It'll come complete with a custom pcb layout with totally unnecessary bells and whistles, like wired and dedicated 2.4ghz receiver mode, RGB, oled panel, rotary knobs. Hopefully topped off with some extravagant case material and keycaps, I'm thinking maybe marble for the case and aluminium for the keycaps. Although metal keycaps will result in me having to buy new switches, as the fierce girls switches I use rn would be too light.
As of now I'm still in the pcb planning phase but that should be the bottleneck, I hope, I've some experience in 3d modelling but not so much in PCB design and electrical engineering. I'm hoping to make some progress by early next year, been a little busy recently.
The numpad is my number one must-have on a keyboard.
I do graphic design and typesetting at work, which requires a lot of number entry.
On the home side of things, I game with the mouse in my left hand, and use the numpad/arrows/nav cluster for the button inputs, so it's equally important there.
My switch to ortho was dictated by my desire to have a properly laid out numpad in the middle of my keyboard, rather than off to the side.
I tried that with a staggered layout, and it worked, but wasn't ideal.
The ortho layout makes it feel much more natural to me, and I can swap back and forth, from alpha entry, to arrows, to nav cluster keys, to numpad entry, seamlessly.
As far as injuries go, I don't know how much a specific layout, keycap height or keyboard size, factor into that.
I've managed 30+ years as a graphic designer/typesetter, and 40+ years as a heavy gamer, with no issues at all so far.
I attribute that to a conscious effort on my part to always keep my wrists straight, rather than any of the above factors.
My theory is that the tendons are designed to go through the carpal tunnels straight, and should have no problems with doing that, unless there are other, underlying medical conditions.
Where I think the problems arise, is when the tendons have to make a turn, while going through the carpal tunnels.
Think of a piece of barbed wire, running straight through a ring of wood.
As long as the barbed wire is pulled straight through it, there's no contact, and no problems.
If you alter that path, the barbed wire will make contact with the wood, and start sawing at it.
This is what your tendons do to the bones in your wrist, if you don't have your wrists straight, while putting stress on them.
That sawing action creates swelling in the tendons, and the swelling causes the tendons to press against the nerves, which causes intense pain.
Lol, I know, I know. I imagine some have experienced the illusion of it though.
Hoping to get my hands on a Singa Unikorn. I would type on that until keyboards were obsolete.
What’s your favorite aspect?
Yeah, I’m finding it hard to get 65, RGB, Hotswap, USB-C, BT, Copper Bottom.
Keychron hits everything but Copper though unfortunately their case mount kinda feels like crap even with Aluminum.
Mode Keyboards have great materials, but miss on RGB and BT.
🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
This is a great metaphor for the tendons. I’m noticing that having a comfortable prone position (straight with a slight natural curve) is useful for damn near every hand task, including typing.
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