4 ms·

I have an original Topre Realforce and an HHKB. They’re both reliable, no-nonsense keyboards.

chaps 5y ago
Hah, I have the same two and I agree. Realforce for the office since it's quieter and HHKB for home and games. My only complaint about the HHKB is the arrow and page up/down keys are in really strange places that took forever to build into muscle memory.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
I have a couple of HHKBs and fully agree. They’ve seen a ridiculous amount of use in the past 5 years and show no signs of giving in any time soon. Expect that if any part of it fails, it’ll be the USB mini-B connector.
- darkr 5y ago
  I have an 11 year old and a 4 year old [HHKB]. Used/abused for 8+ hours/day, 5+ days/week. For the first 7 years of its life the first HHKB was transported to and from work every day, which can’t have helped it’s lifespan. Regardless they are still both going strong, though the keys on the older board are noticeably softer.
fdgsdfogijq 5y ago
HHKB is amazing for vim programming.
- petepete 5y ago
  I wish it was easier to buy keyboards with a correctly-positioned control key.
  - jagger27 5y ago
    That’s the beauty of custom keycaps and boards with customizable firmware! Almost every premium GMK, ePBT, etc. keycap set will come with a Caps Lock replacement key labeled Control. It’s lovely.
    - petepete 5y ago
      So I just googled to see if my keyboard (Realforce 88u) has customisable firmware and apparently it has internal dip switches to configure the behaviour of ctrl and Windows keys!
      - jagger27 5y ago
        The Realforce 88u I had came with alternate Caps Lock / Control keycaps in the box.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - diffeomorphism 5y ago
    Why bother? It is one checkbox in the settings and then every keyboard has caps as control. If you customize lots of things and carry your keyboard to many different computers, I guess doing it in hardware is marginally "better" than just using software, but ctrlcaps is common enough that the software is just there by default.

Hah, I have the same two and I agree. Realforce for the office since it's quieter and HHKB for home and games. My only complaint about the HHKB is the arrow and page up/down keys are in really strange places that took forever to build into muscle memory.

kitsunesoba 5y ago

I have a couple of HHKBs and fully agree. They’ve seen a ridiculous amount of use in the past 5 years and show no signs of giving in any time soon. Expect that if any part of it fails, it’ll be the USB mini-B connector.

darkr 5y ago
I have an 11 year old and a 4 year old [HHKB]. Used/abused for 8+ hours/day, 5+ days/week. For the first 7 years of its life the first HHKB was transported to and from work every day, which can’t have helped it’s lifespan. Regardless they are still both going strong, though the keys on the older board are noticeably softer.

fdgsdfogijq 5y ago

HHKB is amazing for vim programming.

petepete 5y ago
I wish it was easier to buy keyboards with a correctly-positioned control key.
- jagger27 5y ago
  That’s the beauty of custom keycaps and boards with customizable firmware! Almost every premium GMK, ePBT, etc. keycap set will come with a Caps Lock replacement key labeled Control. It’s lovely.
  - petepete 5y ago
    So I just googled to see if my keyboard (Realforce 88u) has customisable firmware and apparently it has internal dip switches to configure the behaviour of ctrl and Windows keys!
    - jagger27 5y ago
      The Realforce 88u I had came with alternate Caps Lock / Control keycaps in the box.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  Why bother? It is one checkbox in the settings and then every keyboard has caps as control. If you customize lots of things and carry your keyboard to many different computers, I guess doing it in hardware is marginally "better" than just using software, but ctrlcaps is common enough that the software is just there by default.