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I was recently looking at another site linked from HN which had dozens of split keyboard designs. One of the ones that I really liked was the Matias Ergopro, w

I was recently looking at another site linked from HN which had dozens of split keyboard designs. One of the ones that I really liked was the Matias Ergopro, which has dedicated Cut/copy/paste/undo keys. That seems really convenient, made me wonder why more keyboards don't do this. Maybe it is a slippery slope, but those four shortcuts are so ubiquitous across so many pieces of software that I think it makes sense to have dedicated keys for them. As a Dvorak keyboard typist, the standard shortcuts become pretty annoying (no longer doable with one hand) so the thought of having a single key for those operations really appeals to me. But I would think it would also be something that would have caught on amongst the masses as well. I wonder, what percentage of computer users know the shortcuts for those operations, versus use menus or icons to perform copy and paste

corytheboyd 6y ago
Interesting point, I never think of the Dvorak people like yourself and I apologize for that :p Never really thought about how all the keyboard shortcuts the world accepted make zero sense outside of QWERTY Honestly, copy/cut/paste in today’s world warrants physical keys far more than insert/print screen/etc. Maybe someone will decide to challenge that one day, but I’m sure people will have a million reasons why it can’t happen. Everything is suboptimal for everyone and life goes on I guess lol
frou_dh 6y ago
Funny to hear this, because I have that Matias keyboard and never ever use those dedicated undo/cut/copy/paste keys, because I feel there's no point retraining myself to get used to their placement (in a column on the far left of the board) when they're never going to be on my laptop keyboards too. AFAIK those keys send the equivalent of the literal key chord (e.g. Cmd-Z) to the computer. I wish I could flip a switch and have them be considered keys in their own right, maybe F13-F16.
- uglycoyote 6y ago
  True.. at this point I have figured out how to remap the qwerty ctrl-c ctrl-v etc to work as cut paste under Dvorak so having dedicated keys might just involve too much retraining, so maybe it would not be worthwhile
jecel 6y ago
The pioneer was the keyboard for the Xerox Star in 1981 and it had the keys you want: https://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/keyboard/index.html https://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/keyboard/index....

corytheboyd 6y ago

Interesting point, I never think of the Dvorak people like yourself and I apologize for that :p Never really thought about how all the keyboard shortcuts the world accepted make zero sense outside of QWERTY Honestly, copy/cut/paste in today’s world warrants physical keys far more than insert/print screen/etc. Maybe someone will decide to challenge that one day, but I’m sure people will have a million reasons why it can’t happen. Everything is suboptimal for everyone and life goes on I guess lol

frou_dh 6y ago

Funny to hear this, because I have that Matias keyboard and never ever use those dedicated undo/cut/copy/paste keys, because I feel there's no point retraining myself to get used to their placement (in a column on the far left of the board) when they're never going to be on my laptop keyboards too. AFAIK those keys send the equivalent of the literal key chord (e.g. Cmd-Z) to the computer. I wish I could flip a switch and have them be considered keys in their own right, maybe F13-F16.

uglycoyote 6y ago
True.. at this point I have figured out how to remap the qwerty ctrl-c ctrl-v etc to work as cut paste under Dvorak so having dedicated keys might just involve too much retraining, so maybe it would not be worthwhile

jecel 6y ago

The pioneer was the keyboard for the Xerox Star in 1981 and it had the keys you want: https://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/keyboard/index.html https://www.digibarn.com/friends/curbow/star/keyboard/index....