deskthority

Muirium wrote: ↑There was a thread some time ago when we discussed when various things, like the move from spherical to cylindrical caps, began. It devolved into a fire fight between Webwit and I, if I remember. He was determined that sphericals just remind old gits of their youth. But I grew up with cylindricals and prefer spherical, and I'm not the only one. Neither is truly better, only different.

I think I was involved in that fire fight. I'm one of the old gits. I grew up with sphericals and I say... cylindrical keycaps can go to hell!

Actually, cylindrical keycaps are more comfortable when sliding fingers from key to key - and they make more sense from a practical point of view. But they're just so damn boring. Yes, that's it - they bore the hell out of me. They're painfully boring. I'm getting bored just talking about them.

I hope I can try sphericals some day without buying a set first. I'm just too happy with Cherry DS to try something else. And those use scooped F and J keys as well, which is very nice compared to other markers.

My argument was that sphericals were just leftovers from a time when you needed to hit the typewriter key in the center, and cylindricals were an improvement in comfort and going from one key to another. Daedalus provided the most interesting counter argument, which was that IBM might have done it to lower costs of printing, which is more complex on sphericals. Although there's no definite evidence I think that was a great theory. However, just recently I compared a Signature Plastics spherical to a cylindrical, and the surface of the spherical is quite smaller. Which sways me more to my 'center hitting' theory.

What do you make of different kinds of sphericals, Webwit? I prefer Topre's shape to IBM's. An NMB space invader board I got recently has an especially pronounced lean to its cylinders… something I need to photograph rather than describe. I'd say that NMB (and the Topres that I've briefly used) have a more optimised profile to them than IBM or modern OEM cylindricals. They fall away differently at the front and sides.

webwit wrote: ↑My argument was that sphericals were just leftovers from a time when you needed to hit the typewriter key in the center, and cylindricals were an improvement in comfort and going from one key to another. Daedalus provided the most interesting counter argument, which was that IBM might have done it to lower costs of printing, which is more complex on sphericals. Although there's no definite evidence I think that was a great theory. However, just recently I compared a Signature Plastics spherical to a cylindrical, and the surface of the spherical is quite smaller. Which sways me more to my 'center hitting' theory.

Did someone mention realforce hipro marketing strategy:
"Employee Hi-pro keycaps which designed for professional data entry typist."
in http://www.topre.co.jp/en/products/elec ... index.html

and
"This specialty Realforce has the same layout as the standard 104U (XF11T0), but implements high-profile cupped keycaps and a uniform 45 gram weighted layout. The High-Profile Realforce's specially designed high-profile cupped keycaps complement professional data-entry applications by preventing finger slips and reducing hand travel away from the home row."
in http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php? ... pid=yk2100

I do prefer SA sphericals for touch typing even as all Row 3 SP caps.

Preventing finger slips my ass. Marketing rap aimed at freaks like us who pay lots of money for pieces of plastic, pining for retro quality
Hyperbolically, to move a finger from hitting one spherical key to another, you need to lift it, move it over, and lower it. Your hands are less relaxed, and in a position like you want to grab something or scratch a window. Your fingers will hit more edges while moving around. Edges which are there so you hit the key in the center, so, originally, the hammer hit the ribbon and the paper with sufficient force. Machine over comfort.

Sounds like you're a flat-wrist resting typist, instead of a floating-arm piano-style typist. When I'm using my laptop (also an X220 like the OP), I rest my wrists and type with my fingers, sliding from key to key. On a beamspring with its sphericals or even a buckling spring (perhaps because of the comparitively heavy force compared to a scissor switch), I float and type as much with my arms as anything else; there's no sliding between rows, or lifting, and I rarely catch an edge. In this situation I find the feedback of the sphericals quite helpful, as it lets me know the position of my hands across the board and whether they're moving up too high or whatever.

I'm a software developer and spend large portions of my day typing; the `floating arms' style leaves me much less fatigued than the `finger typing/arms resting' style I use on a `flat' scissor switch keyboard.

Same here. I guess we're "scratching the window" type typists, according to webwit.

Ditto for me. My best typing is standing up, with a keyboard right on the edge of a desk, and either sphericals or those deep dished Topre / NMB cylindricals I mentioned. I don't ever slide my fingers around on the keys, until I'm slumped on a couch with a MacBook on my lap. My typing speed is halved then, too.

Edge of the desk and floating on sphericals here.
Some time ago I was using OEM and a wood wrist rest, but after experimenting a lot, "piano style" is much better for me.
As a bonus, today I managed to put the correct SA profiles in the alpha area and it feels even better than all row 3 alphas.
I think the added mass of the SA caps also helps a lot in the typing experience.

Exactly! Heavy caps have a swing to them. Weight is just as big a difference as the sph/cyl debate.

I’m convinced we could do better than standard profiles (which in my opinion have insufficient vertical step between the home row and rows further back) with a bit of mixing and matching:


(This can alternately be achieved via Maltron-style sculptured case and direct wiring, but that makes a keyboard much more expensive to mass produce.)

I still really like the single high profile of IBM model F and model M buckling spring keyboards with their curved plates. I also like the appearance of the spherical keycaps on the IBM Selectric typewriter and beam spring keyboards, but I have yet to try them in actual work situations.

I wish we could find someone who was a professional typist through the transition from mechanical to electric typewriters and then to computers. Old mechanical typewriters had quite a bit of height separation between rows. I suspect that this wasn’t always quite ideal, but especially for rows on the far side of the home row has big advantages in making keys easy to reach, I think.

Electric typewriters and early computer keyboards tried to ape this property through the use of profiled keycaps or keycaps with slanted tops (intended to be used on a keyboard with a large positive slope of the PCB/plate). The problem is that the axis of the key is now pointed away from the body, whereas the direction of strongest finger movement is straight down or even slightly toward the body.

I think the ideal solution to this problem is to have a sculpted keyboard (as I said, Maltron-style), but this requires a dramatically more expensive process for mass-production. (And I don’t think the Kinesis curved PCB method really cuts it either for cost-efficiency or for comfort.) Since that’s too hard to mass produce cheaply, I think we could still do better with more height stagger between the home row and the rows further away via different keycap heights. If we had full control over the keycap shape we could probably do better than the ones I’ve suggested above, but I think they’d still be pretty good.

The IBM Model M/F model with a curved plate is one way to approach this, but I think it (a) has smaller height steps than desirable between the home row and further away rows, (b) results in the keypress angle pointing away from the body for further keys, and (c) is pretty hard to use in making custom keyboard layouts or keyboards with other types of switches, or anything remotely portable or quiet.

@ jacobolus: your "mix and match" keyprofile rows are interesting. But why are they better than, say, a standard SA profile?

The hybrid profile is better because there is an increased vertical step between the home row and each row further back, as I explained above. Here’s a diagram showing a bit better.



The idea is, as you unbend your finger (extend the two distal joints) to reach further-away rows, the fingertip naturally travels in a direction upward and outward. Therefore, having the further keys be at the same height as the home row keys requires you to reach down by either moving your hand or flexing your first finger joint, the former of which is slow especially if you need to type keys on different rows with the same hand and the latter of which reduces the strength available for pressing the key and I suspect increases fatigue for keys with long travel. (It would be nice to actually have some proper scientific evidence here, unfortunately all the studies I’ve seen on related subjects are pretty crappy.)

Anyway, by raising the height of the further away keys, you make them easier to reach. The closer rows, by contrast, are reached by flexing mainly the second finger joint, and I don’t think they benefit much from being lower. (Though again it would be nice to see some comprehensive empirical testing.)