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I recently bought an ultra-minimalist ergo keyboard that is designed to minimize hand movement, and that seems to be how it is working out for me, too. Keeping

I recently bought an ultra-minimalist ergo keyboard that is designed to minimize hand movement, and that seems to be how it is working out for me, too. Keeping my hands in one place all the time is actually more tiring, and all the extra chording I have to do on a keyboard with so few keys is increasing the number of weird positions I put my hands into. I'm hoping that that it's just that I'm using different muscles, and I need to get used to it. But I'm also becoming increasingly prepared to face the possibility that this keyboard is harder on my hands, because it takes work away from my elbows and shoulders, and gives it to my wrists and fingers.

CarVac 6y ago
Which keyboard is that? I find that my Mitosis, which has tons of thumb selection, really alleviates the load on my fingers because the chords only ever involve two digits per hand at the very most. Also I use Dvorak so my fingers move exceedingly little compared to QWERTY; when I first tried to learn to touch-type QWERTY the "right way" with leaving my hands on the home row, my wrists started hurting so I got angry and switched to Dvorak. Using QWERTY but leaving your hands stationary is going to require your fingers to be doing a ton of reaching and increase the strain.
- helmholtz 6y ago
  Not GP, but I've got the Keyboardio Atreus. And I've even modified that to have ctrl, shift, alt etc on the home row. So keeping 'A' depressed triggers Shift, for instance, but a quick tap is just A. Combined with a Programmer's Dvorak layout. Home row ftw!
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    Atreus here too. It's a very nice keyboard, and scratches my itch for trying out a compact, minimalist, hackable keyboard without going to something that looks like it would be utterly wrist-destroying like the Planck. I also do find it to be more comfortable than a standard keyboard, but, given the nature of my comfort issues, I think I would find that to be the case for any split keyboard. I don't find it to be more comfortable than my more standard split keyboard, but my more standard split keyboard is a (relatively) large beast that dominates my desk.

CarVac 6y ago

Which keyboard is that? I find that my Mitosis, which has tons of thumb selection, really alleviates the load on my fingers because the chords only ever involve two digits per hand at the very most. Also I use Dvorak so my fingers move exceedingly little compared to QWERTY; when I first tried to learn to touch-type QWERTY the "right way" with leaving my hands on the home row, my wrists started hurting so I got angry and switched to Dvorak. Using QWERTY but leaving your hands stationary is going to require your fingers to be doing a ton of reaching and increase the strain.

helmholtz 6y ago
Not GP, but I've got the Keyboardio Atreus. And I've even modified that to have ctrl, shift, alt etc on the home row. So keeping 'A' depressed triggers Shift, for instance, but a quick tap is just A. Combined with a Programmer's Dvorak layout. Home row ftw!
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Atreus here too. It's a very nice keyboard, and scratches my itch for trying out a compact, minimalist, hackable keyboard without going to something that looks like it would be utterly wrist-destroying like the Planck. I also do find it to be more comfortable than a standard keyboard, but, given the nature of my comfort issues, I think I would find that to be the case for any split keyboard. I don't find it to be more comfortable than my more standard split keyboard, but my more standard split keyboard is a (relatively) large beast that dominates my desk.