3 ms·

The Ergo 4000 is the keyboard that made me rage quit Microsoft keyboards. As far as I'm concerned it's the inflection point of the race to the bottom in the MS

by kabdib 11y ago

The Ergo 4000 is the keyboard that made me rage quit Microsoft keyboards. As far as I'm concerned it's the inflection point of the race to the bottom in the MS keyboard group. Bad key travel, bad decisions about keyboard layout, generally crappy build quality. MS keyboards are frustrating. Their latest attempt at an ergo had a lot of promise, but they nerfed the function and escape keys to the point of unusabiity. (I know that F-keys are awful, but all of the software I use is addicted to them, so...) I would pay quite a bit of money for a keyboard that didn't suck. I just want a vanilla split keyboard with decent key travel. And it looks like I'm going to have to start building keyboards myself to get one.

novaleaf 11y ago
I have a few ergo 4000's and the build quality is most certainly not crappy, this makes me skeptical about your other grivences. However, I have found that people not used to the tilted + split-key design style find it weird. And it is a big keyboard. My personal issue with the 4000 is the worthless "zoom" toggle in the middle. It would be much better as a vertical scroll, or even better as a trackball/nub. Whatever Msft design committee who put the Zoom+Back/Forward buttons should be shot.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Same, I've had two of them in use over a year and other some fading on the key letters they are exactly as good as the they where new and I replaced MX Blue mechanicals with them so it's not like I was coming from a bad keyboard. I use the for/back buttons to bind all sorts of things (currently "build JS" and "build CSS" on front end side of project), The toggle in the middle I've never found a use for, I played with using it to tab through windows but honestly it's slower to move hands of keys than it is to just map the same functions to keyboard shortcuts. On linux I have mapped the zoom to scroll/up down in the past but I'm so used to hitting pgup/pgdn it never stuck.
- eertami 11y ago
  >I have a few ergo 4000's and the build quality is most certainly not crappy, this makes me skeptical about your other grivences. Do you have the experience to say things like this? If you've used good keyboards the Ergo 4000 is just like every other crappy plastic rubber dome keyboard you can buy. Compare the build quality of the 4000 against say, an ErgoDox (http://jjt.io/assets/media/jjt-ergodox.jpg http://jjt.io/assets/media/jjt-ergodox.jpg)
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    I do, prior to using the 4000's I was using mechanicals for a significant period of time (back to Model M's). Yeah the key-feel on the 4000 isn't as good as a MX Blue or equiv but it's not significant enough to actually matter and in every other way they are a more comfortable experience. The ErgoDox costs at least 5 times what a 4000 does so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison you are comparing a VW Polo to a Audi A7.
  - novaleaf 11y ago
    Perhaps I should quantify: "not crappy for the price". Sure you can get some snazzy stuff, but bang-for-the-buck I've found the 4000's have been a good price point.
- kabdib 11y ago
  Agreed about the zoom knob :-) I probably have high standards. I really tried to use the 4000, on several occasions, but it just felt horrible every time. I had high hopes for it, but something about the key travel kept tripping me up. Best keyboard I ever used: Knight keyboard on the Lisp Machine. Xerox Alto a very close second (it had some bad layout issues, but the keys were wonderful). And pretty much nothing has captured the feel of IBM Selectric, which is probably good because your office mates would kill you. But none of those are split. Sigh. Runner-up: The original Microsoft Ergo keyboard. I know some people who still use these. They usually have them in reserve, in closets. On mine I rewired caps-lock to be another control key (well, you have to muck with conductive traces on the plastic membrane, but it's not hard). Microsoft hasn't made a great keyboard in over a decade. They're "meh, yeah I can type on that if I have to" and I'll use an Apple chicklet style keyboard over one of them. The Kenesis Freestyle is pretty decent, though they decided to spend real-estate on some useless special keys for "web" and cut/paste, etc. -- if these had been programmable (or even absent) it would have been a better keyboard. I just did a quick summary of all the keyboards I've spent significant amounts of time on (probably missed a few), and here they are in decreasing order: Knight (Lisp Machine); Xerox Alto; Digital Group (capacitive, N-key rollover); Microsoft Ergo; Kenesis Freestyle 2; IBM-PC original clacky keyboard; Apple Ergo; VT100; Microsoft Wireless Multimedia; Atari Mega ST (prototype); Apple ADB (several types); ADM-3A; Ohio Scientific; Macbook Pro; LA36; IBM Thinkpad; Data General MV/8000 terminal; Atari ST; Atari Mega ST (production); Kenesis "scooped" keyboard (hands did not fit); Atari 800; Apple II; Apple "chicklet"; VT220 (ick); Microsoft 4000; Many laptop keyboards of no special distinction (Apple / Dell / Asus / ...); IBM 3270 terminal circa 1980; AT&T 3B-1; Various VT100 clones; Dell, Gateway, etc. white-box PC keyboards; TRS-80; Omron (forgot model); Fingerworks (capacitive); Teletype; Atari 400 (membrane); a nameless graphics workstation I will never forget (and wish I could); IBM PC-JR; Vanilla Keypunch (ugh).
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    My favourite keyboard of all time was a variant of an IBM Model-M which was awesome, the nearest I've gotten to it in type feel was the Cherry G-80 which is somewhat strangely one of the cheapest mechanicals out there that has MX Blues, build quality is merely adequate and it lacks the "In the event of Zombie Apocalpyse use as club" steel backplate but it was a joy to type on but it was those I ended up replacing with 4000's because of postural issues.
noir_lord 11y ago
Of course liking a keyboard is subjective but your description was absolutely not my experience and I've probably put 4000 hours on my pair in the last year and other than faded keycaps they look like new. Not sure how you think they nerfed the F keys they are all there and in a reasonable position, the F-Lock stuff took a bit of getting used to as I kept hitting it instead of F12 but after a week or so that stopped and now I just don't use it. Prior to using the Ergo's I was using MX Blue mechanicals so it's not like I came to them from bad keyboards, I had excellent mechanicals but the typing position was just untenable.
- kabdib 11y ago
  The F-keys are sunk with respect to the other keytops. Reaching them quickly and reliably is hard. And as an Emacs user, the escape key is out in comic relief territory. Considering how often F-keys are used in Windows applications, I really wonder how much user testing the keyboard group did past "does this look cool?"
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Interesting, I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out but they are indeed further out than normal. I don't actually use them that much beyond Alt-F2 for synapse and Alt-F6 for rename which I've had no issues with. The escape key is out the way but I can it reliably without thinking, I have large hands so I wonder how people with smaller ones would deal with that, I can hit escape without moving from the default position.

by kabdib 11y ago

novaleaf 11y ago

I have a few ergo 4000's and the build quality is most certainly not crappy, this makes me skeptical about your other grivences. However, I have found that people not used to the tilted + split-key design style find it weird. And it is a big keyboard. My personal issue with the 4000 is the worthless "zoom" toggle in the middle. It would be much better as a vertical scroll, or even better as a trackball/nub. Whatever Msft design committee who put the Zoom+Back/Forward buttons should be shot.

noir_lord 11y ago
Same, I've had two of them in use over a year and other some fading on the key letters they are exactly as good as the they where new and I replaced MX Blue mechanicals with them so it's not like I was coming from a bad keyboard. I use the for/back buttons to bind all sorts of things (currently "build JS" and "build CSS" on front end side of project), The toggle in the middle I've never found a use for, I played with using it to tab through windows but honestly it's slower to move hands of keys than it is to just map the same functions to keyboard shortcuts. On linux I have mapped the zoom to scroll/up down in the past but I'm so used to hitting pgup/pgdn it never stuck.
eertami 11y ago
>I have a few ergo 4000's and the build quality is most certainly not crappy, this makes me skeptical about your other grivences. Do you have the experience to say things like this? If you've used good keyboards the Ergo 4000 is just like every other crappy plastic rubber dome keyboard you can buy. Compare the build quality of the 4000 against say, an ErgoDox (http://jjt.io/assets/media/jjt-ergodox.jpg http://jjt.io/assets/media/jjt-ergodox.jpg)
- noir_lord 11y ago
  I do, prior to using the 4000's I was using mechanicals for a significant period of time (back to Model M's). Yeah the key-feel on the 4000 isn't as good as a MX Blue or equiv but it's not significant enough to actually matter and in every other way they are a more comfortable experience. The ErgoDox costs at least 5 times what a 4000 does so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison you are comparing a VW Polo to a Audi A7.
- novaleaf 11y ago
  Perhaps I should quantify: "not crappy for the price". Sure you can get some snazzy stuff, but bang-for-the-buck I've found the 4000's have been a good price point.
kabdib 11y ago
Agreed about the zoom knob :-) I probably have high standards. I really tried to use the 4000, on several occasions, but it just felt horrible every time. I had high hopes for it, but something about the key travel kept tripping me up. Best keyboard I ever used: Knight keyboard on the Lisp Machine. Xerox Alto a very close second (it had some bad layout issues, but the keys were wonderful). And pretty much nothing has captured the feel of IBM Selectric, which is probably good because your office mates would kill you. But none of those are split. Sigh. Runner-up: The original Microsoft Ergo keyboard. I know some people who still use these. They usually have them in reserve, in closets. On mine I rewired caps-lock to be another control key (well, you have to muck with conductive traces on the plastic membrane, but it's not hard). Microsoft hasn't made a great keyboard in over a decade. They're "meh, yeah I can type on that if I have to" and I'll use an Apple chicklet style keyboard over one of them. The Kenesis Freestyle is pretty decent, though they decided to spend real-estate on some useless special keys for "web" and cut/paste, etc. -- if these had been programmable (or even absent) it would have been a better keyboard. I just did a quick summary of all the keyboards I've spent significant amounts of time on (probably missed a few), and here they are in decreasing order: Knight (Lisp Machine); Xerox Alto; Digital Group (capacitive, N-key rollover); Microsoft Ergo; Kenesis Freestyle 2; IBM-PC original clacky keyboard; Apple Ergo; VT100; Microsoft Wireless Multimedia; Atari Mega ST (prototype); Apple ADB (several types); ADM-3A; Ohio Scientific; Macbook Pro; LA36; IBM Thinkpad; Data General MV/8000 terminal; Atari ST; Atari Mega ST (production); Kenesis "scooped" keyboard (hands did not fit); Atari 800; Apple II; Apple "chicklet"; VT220 (ick); Microsoft 4000; Many laptop keyboards of no special distinction (Apple / Dell / Asus / ...); IBM 3270 terminal circa 1980; AT&T 3B-1; Various VT100 clones; Dell, Gateway, etc. white-box PC keyboards; TRS-80; Omron (forgot model); Fingerworks (capacitive); Teletype; Atari 400 (membrane); a nameless graphics workstation I will never forget (and wish I could); IBM PC-JR; Vanilla Keypunch (ugh).
- noir_lord 11y ago
  My favourite keyboard of all time was a variant of an IBM Model-M which was awesome, the nearest I've gotten to it in type feel was the Cherry G-80 which is somewhat strangely one of the cheapest mechanicals out there that has MX Blues, build quality is merely adequate and it lacks the "In the event of Zombie Apocalpyse use as club" steel backplate but it was a joy to type on but it was those I ended up replacing with 4000's because of postural issues.

noir_lord 11y ago

Of course liking a keyboard is subjective but your description was absolutely not my experience and I've probably put 4000 hours on my pair in the last year and other than faded keycaps they look like new. Not sure how you think they nerfed the F keys they are all there and in a reasonable position, the F-Lock stuff took a bit of getting used to as I kept hitting it instead of F12 but after a week or so that stopped and now I just don't use it. Prior to using the Ergo's I was using MX Blue mechanicals so it's not like I came to them from bad keyboards, I had excellent mechanicals but the typing position was just untenable.

kabdib 11y ago
The F-keys are sunk with respect to the other keytops. Reaching them quickly and reliably is hard. And as an Emacs user, the escape key is out in comic relief territory. Considering how often F-keys are used in Windows applications, I really wonder how much user testing the keyboard group did past "does this look cool?"
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Interesting, I hadn't noticed that until you pointed it out but they are indeed further out than normal. I don't actually use them that much beyond Alt-F2 for synapse and Alt-F6 for rename which I've had no issues with. The escape key is out the way but I can it reliably without thinking, I have large hands so I wonder how people with smaller ones would deal with that, I can hit escape without moving from the default position.