hbar alpha, an ergonomic keyboard testbed

[Muirium]

@ħ: Arcing isn't the problem. Stability is. Bare wires like that are very likely to touch at times, as the keyboard flexes with typing, or indeed with construction and closure. Perhaps that sounds a bit far fetched, but I found it very problematic with my stainless steel 60% in a tight, conductive, enclosure. Usually it would work fine, but often enough I'd have entire rows ghosting at once and other showstopping nonsense. So I recently rewired it, double insulated, like this:

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I used standard, insulated wires and melted the insulation wherever I wanted to join to a switch.

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Okay, so it looks messy under the macro lens! I need to redo some of it anyway. That's late night soldering work for you.

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But where are the diodes? Well, I had an idea…

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The matrix does work, but there's some dodgy joints. And I still need to house the Teensy and USB port properly. But this definitely saves a lot of space inside.

As for your situation: I'd slide some little pieces of electrical tape in the nodes where the bare wires cross. That should do the trick with the space I think you have.

[hbar]

Arcing was meant as a joke... Nevertheless, my feeling is that my short and rather stiff wires will not cause any trouble, but this is a prototype, and we'll find out sooner or later.

You must have decent ventilation if you voluntarily melted that PVC insulation!

BTW, is there any other kind of soldering apart from late-night soldering?

[hbar]

OK, pictures:

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No shorts so far. The controller is next.

[vvp]

I doubt you will ever get any shorts if you do not press the wires intentionally.
I used Ø 0.25 mm bare wire for matrix. The space between rows and columns was about 2 mm too. The keyboard did not develop any shorts. I say this technique is safe.

[hbar]

BTW, is there any other kind of soldering apart from late-night soldering?

There is indeed: it's drunk late-night soldering:

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Sorry for the slow progress, but I think I'll get there eventually.

ħ

[hbar]

Bump: I haven't gone missing, it's just that life has had other plans with me recently. The keyboard is now complete, everything but the trackpoint works, I'm starting to get acquainted with it. The only thing really missing is a reliable way of supporting it in the tented position.

[hbar]

Another update: the controller board glued to the underside of the right half is a dead-end. That micro-USB has already broken off once, so I'm going to replace the cabling altogether soon.

The good news is that I started training with klavaro, which is AdNW-agnostic, just typing random English words. It's amazing just how rarely my fingers leave the home row at all. The new position of the "A" key is especially welcome, I'm starting to get used to the idea of not using my left pinky for it...

[hbar]

Update with the latest wiring, the nice parts...

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and the not-so-nice parts of it:

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This is so much better and cleaner, and now the micro-USB socket doesn't get exposed to any stress, thus is much less likely to break off.

The trackpoint miraculously started working as well once I enabled it in the firmware

ħ

[pcaro]

I really like this project a lot!

[hbar]

Here is a photo of the trackpoint extension:

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This is, in fact, a sawn-off 1.8mm HSS drill bit. As it turns out, the trackpoint has a square hole in it that the bit press-fits into, no further assembly required.

[hbar]

Learning to type AdNW on this split matrix keyboard is like nothing I've encountered before. It's amazing that from the start, I've had very little tendency of making moves that were/are typical on a QWERTY keyboard, one possible exception being the quick "c-d-Return" cycle that I use a lot, apparently. I can fully confirm what I heard from a few people before, that combining a new layout with a new geometry is easier to master than just one of those novelties on its own.

I haven't yet used the keyboard in anger for more than a couple of lines of text, simply because my brain doesn't yet cope with the new layout AND finding the words to type at the same time. Typing random pre-selected words on Klavaro works fine, though.

I'm typing this post on QWERTY right now, and so far I haven't noticed any penalty switching back and forth.

[hbar]

Progress report: training is slow and sometimes stressful, patience is essential. I'm following the advice of trying to type error-free rather than fast, and I'm currently at around 13wpm with an accuracy in the 96%-98% range. This is after a month or so of on-off training, 10 minutes maximum a day, not having had the chance to type more than about every other day, which I hope to change. It's great fun nevertheless.

What I'm still looking for is a neat way of holding the keyboard. I'm currently using makeshift stands (such as a roll of gaffer tape) for tenting, and I've replaced two of the M3 bolts on each half with the longest ones I could find, but that's not quite optimal yet.

[hbar]

For those who wonder how I get on with the keyboard: getting used to it is painstakingly slow. After practicing on-and-off for a while, I recently decided to give it a try as my main keyboard at work. Here it is, sitting there for size comparison alongside the CM Novatouch TKL and an old Keytronic rubber dome (neither of which is connected):

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It's worth mentioning that, of the three, my custom one is the only one with an integrated pointing device.

Typing on it, I tend to be a lot slower than on QWERTY, but I also make fewer mistakes than with QWERTY. Given that the Novatouch keeps sitting on my desk just in case, I sometimes have a very hard time resisting the urge to connect it for some quick typing. Luckily, I don't currently do too much volume typing at work, so I've been able to keep the Novatouch disconnected altogether so far. Fingers crossed, but this keyboard really looks like it's been worth the effort already. It's a shame that wiring it was so much work or I'd be building another one for home use.

Strangely, none of the other people in my office seem to take any notice of it. Yet.

ħ

[hbar]

Booooom. It's taken exactly one week for someone to notice ("Oh, you've got a new keyboard? Hmmm. There are some keys missing, aren't there?" That was it.). The fact that I didn't get death threats within an hour (as I did with the Model M) is testament to the quietness of those vintage black MX switches. I still don't like MX keys, but with the compact layout, I believe the characteristics of the keys become less important. I certainly wouldn't ever like typing on a QWERTY with black MX switches, but here it's quite OK.

Just to document my progress: learning the AdNW layout is frustrating at times, but it can also be very satisfying once you have that damn sentence typed in. What's most confusing to me is that, when I make a mistake (it's particularly easy to mix up those dual-function modifiers), I tend to start hunting for that bl**dy key that undoes what I just did wrong. Given that the key hit at random on such occasions is usually either Space, Backspace, or Return, it can mess up a nicely formatted piece of source code in no time. This and the fact that all the key combinations I'm used to (mostly those for Emacs) are now completely different makes me switch back to QWERTY occasionally. When I do, however, I realize what made me try AdNW in the first place and this makes me switch back quite quickly: it's really awkward and unnatural to move your fingers all over the place just to reach those modifiers and other non-alpha keys on QWERTY.

As to the physical layout, it appears that I hit a very nice spot, the vertical stagger is exactly right for my hands. What's not quite optimal is the position of the bottom modifiers (four each side), which I'd consider moving half a key spacing towards the centre if I were to revise the design. The slight curvature is perfect, but I'd also get rid of the outermost modifier on either side, they are just too awkward to reach. (I use them at the moment, but I'm planning to change the layout so that they become obsolete.) The extra red keys in the top outer corners are also quite useless, the only use I have for one of them is to lock the Windows screen (RGUI+L). Maybe I should program Ctrl+Alt on the other one, just to make it less awkward to get to the password prompt when the screen is locked...

ħ

[Ray]

Coming from the same inspiration I am not surprised I know some of your experiences too well
Especially the space-backspace-enter-random modifiers on thumbkeys is messing with the brain way more than AdNW was. If you hit a wrong key you just hit backspace and are good again. If you hit backspace instead of space or a mod and hit backspace to undo it instantly zaps my brain a bit, which leads random presses with the thumbs
Since then I switched back to an often used key, a seldomly used key and a rarely used key/navigation layer mod per thumb with no dual functions. I feel like that's the top I can handle with my thumbs on that layout. Yet way more than just space and alt for two thumbs.
I wish you more skills in adjusting to more thumb-buttons, since it made me use an outer column with my pinky (that you don't have) quite a lot again.

I never tried Emacs, that's why I have Esc on my thumb

I also dislike MX-black because of the weight. If I would go for MX-switches again, it would be reds (blue are annoying, and brown are worse than rubber domes imho). I am surprised your impression is that on the small layout it doesn't matter much. Is it because you don't use the pinky that much and the other fingers are stronger anyways?

I eventually dropped AdNW after about a month when I realized it will take me ages more to get to the speed of my mediocre qwertz typing. Don't get me wrong here: AdNW is certainly superior to qwertz(y). It is faster to learn (like Dvorak aimed and claimed for with his layout) and more comfortable to type as well. The week I spent re-learning qwertz had notacibly more stress in my fingers.
So why did I fall back to qwertz? Because I noticed that if I spent the time learning AdNW instead on learning Plover, that would be an even better improvement. Since I didn't want to spend time on Plover after spending a month on AdNW, I am back to qwertz.

I also switched Shift back to the pinky, so I don't have a hard time to switch between regular keyboards and my custom.

How do you like the trackpoint? I have a love-hate relationship with mine. It sucks quite badly. And it is the first thing I miss when I use a regular desktop with keyboard mouse kombo.

[hbar]

Hi Ray,

Thanks for your write-up, I actually just succeeded "fixing" the layout once again, this time I made a big leap towards a useable one. As to the "random backspace/return/etc." syndrome, I observe it a lot more when I'm tired, so as long as my mind can keep up with my fingers moving, I'm fine. I keep practicing, maybe one day I can type just as fast as I can on QWERTY.

Initially, I used Suka's layout (and his firmware, in fact) with one rather major difference: I put space on right (not left) thumb, and thus the modifier for the cursor keys moved to my left thumb. This way, I could move around a website while using my right hand for other things (take notes, etc.), which you can't do with Suka's (you need both hands on the keyboard). So this was my first shot at the modifiers (red keys on the bottom, "1" = centre, "4" = outermost):

• left 4: Accent
  left 3: Alt
  left 2: Ctrl/Tab
  left 1: NumCursor/Esc
  
  right 1: Space
  right 2: Shift/Backspace
  right 3: Symbol/Return
  right 4: Accent

"Accent" means accented characters and "ß", which I use quite a bit. Now those keys turned out to be really hard to reach, so today I did away with them altogether (those keys now do nothing). Instead, I set up chords: the right-hand pinky keys (f, s, z) have "tap-hold" function, so they send their own character when tapped but various accents when held while tapping other keys. For example, holding "s" and pressing "a" gets you an "ä", pressing "d" while holding "s" gets you a "ß". I integrated the F keys into this as well, so "s" plus the keys normally used for the "numpad" gives you "F1" through "F9" (I could add more but I don't see the need). For instance, when "NumCursor"+"g" results in "1", "s"+"g" results in "F1". So far, I like it this way, and while I used to switch keyboard layouts quite often on QWERTY, I can do everything I need without it on this keyboard.

The trackpoint is so-so. It's fantastic for quick movements of the cursor in a point-to-focus environment (typical old-school UNIX, which I prefer to anything else), but clearly useless for any precision pointing and movement. That's why I have a trackball as well for all serious pointer work. I have to add that I use a tiling window manager (xmonad), which requires even less use of the mouse than even an old-fashioned FVWM.

What annoyed me in the layout used until this morning was that the cursor keys (when NumCursor is pressed) overlapped with the mouse buttons (when the trackpoint is moved, actually h-i-e), preventing any reasonable use of trackpoint and cursor keys at the same time. Therefore I moved the trackpoint's buttons to the right hand (l-m-f), which resolved the issue and also lets me use the trackpoint single-handed.

As to the black MX, my pinkies probably aren't any stronger than yours, but they only have three keys to press, and without any sideways movement on top of that. So far, I'm fine with the resistance, time will tell.

Now that you mention plover, I'd have to look up on that, it sounds interesting...

ħ

[Ray]

funny that you mention fvwm, as that's the wm I am using. I prefer floating windows with good window placement in most cases.

Since you have Ctrl/Tab one one key, allow me one question: what browser are you using?

I have some dual-role alphas as well and like them. ä/shift and -/Fn, y/Fn. So three keys that are used very infrequently. "sa" and "so" are quite frequent in german language; do you get unwanted "ä" and "ö"? At least these aren't rolls in AdNW...

[hbar]

My typing isn't fast enough yet for "sa" and "so" to interfere with it, but if it does, there are plenty of other keys I can move these to.

Ctrl-Tab hasn't been an issue for me yet, I use Firefox. Back in my FVWM days, I used to have Ctrl+Tab for popping up a new xterm, and Ctrl+Shift+Tab for running an xterm with pine in it, but those days are long gone (I changed to xmonad, the only window manager -- and I tried quite a few -- that I stuck with rather than changing back to FVWM, and I use rxvt now. And pine? What the hell is pine? ).

I just read up a little on Plover, I think it's just too specialized for my needs (I code about as much as I write prose), so I'll stick with AdNW and QWERTY/Z for the time being (switching back and forth several times a day because I can't avoid QWERTZ altogether, but that also gives me a welcome break from AdNW every now and then, relaxing my neurons and sustaining that certain daily allowance of RSI).

ħ

[vvp]

I use 8 thumb keys for each thumb and I rarely mistype them. But when I do it takes a few seconds to realize why the hell the thumb key did not work as expected

But I could not use rolls like "sa"/"so" for "ä"/"ö". I would mistype them too often. I see it when I record macros that I often press the next key before the previous one is released. So all my rolls must be through shift keys (Fn?) which do not do anything by itself.

[hbar]

Having used the keyboard in real life for some time now, I'm starting to believe that the black switches are, in fact, a little stiff. I almost ordered some Korean springs from originativeco.com, but I figured that I haven't got a clue what strength I need. I guess I want something between MX black and red, but what bottoming-out force would that be?

Thanks for any help.

ħ

[davkol]

I highly recommend 78g springs, that are the same as MX Clear springs, except lighter. Compared to stock MX Black springs, they're a tad bit easier to actuate, but relatively harder to bottom out. Otherwise, I'd look at something like 65g or 67g springs.

[scottc]

I like 62 and 65g springs for MX blacks: they're just about in-between MX blacks and reds, I find.

[hbar]

As it turns out, the question resolved itself when I tried to place the order: the only type in stock was 55g.

Having converted an otherwise totally useless item I found in the office into a magical tool for MX-switch surgery, I quickly replaced the original "black" springs with those 55g splings (flom Kolea, alen't they?) in all alpha keys, leaving the modifiers unchanged for the time being. They feel noticeably lighter now, I wonder what I think of them after using the board for a while.

ħ

[hbar]

It didn't take long for me to understand that converting the thumb keys to lower spring constants is even more important than the rest. After just 10 minutes of typing, I also swapped the rest. The spring force feels quite light now, but it's a pleasure to type on the board, reminds me of the lightness of the 45g Novatouch TKL.