Fink Different: Keyboards as counter-culture.
If you watched Star Wars for the first time, without seeing images of the Empire’s perfectly spaced thousands of goose-stepping minions in spotless white-lacquered armor. If you didn’t see the fleets of black and grey tie-fighters, the immaculately designed star cruisers, the evil moon-shaped flagship… you wouldn’t know that the rebels were rebels. After all, rebels don’t look like rebels if they don’t have something to contrast them against. They just look like normal people. That’s probably why when you see Luke Skywalker, Han Solo or Finn (all rebels) dressed in stormtrooper garb, they somehow seem even more rebellious then they were before. It’s not what they’re wearing, it’s how they wear it. Dirty, scuffed, broken. Helmet missing or askew. An out of place, beat up weapon slung diagonally across their body. It’s the simple act of defacing the uniform that identifies them in our mind as counter-cultural. Funnily enough, it works in reverse. To the dismay of...
Oct 6, 2024
I wonder if HHKB users (actually I should use"boards with Ctrl at Capslock position users" instead) want a more detailed bottom row.
Here is what I come up with:
Layout A: this is what I prefer
Layout B: for those who want dedicated arrow keys.
+ why HHKB? some of you may know about the Ctrl at Capslock position (at home row), I tried this and I can't go back. I also found out that if Capslock at position of Ctrl, sometimes I will accidentally press it while pressing Ctrl + Shift (with the pinky finger) though I'm not in favor of the Backspace right on top of Enter, sometimes I press Enter instead of Backspace, maybe I'm not that used to it (I don't have a HHKB)
+ why Home, End, Page Up,... everything is on the left side, are you a lefty? I'm not, though I'm trying to use two hands equally. Also when you're playing game, your right hand will operate the mouse, yeah?
+ there are two arrow clusters? Yes, another thing related to gaming: the cluster on the left is to move/pan the camera, you don't want to move your left hand to the arrows on the right, right? your right hand is with the mouse.
+ your right shift... yes, I feel that the current right shift is not that useful, you will have to move your hand away from the home keys. I do have a prototype board with shift at that position, though it's not as effective as I thought, my right thumb is useless
+ there are numpad keys? yes, I figured that someone would want to use them, for input numbers or use "key strokes" (ex. in Window: Alt + Num 0174 = ®) though I put the numpad 5 at the same position as "J" key, but it's not as effective as I thought, maybe these numpad keys need to be printed :(
+ what is "flip" key? It should "flip" layer of ESC key: - off: ESC, ` ~ (I think you will want dedicated ESC when gaming) - on: ` ~, ESC (for typing, you will want dedicated ` ~, right?)
and Fn + Flip: flip layer of "numpad keys" (this should be Fn + Shift + / on layout B & AB) - off: r t y u i, - + 7 8 9 - on: - + 7 8 9, r t y u i
----
Please tell me what you think.
Thank you for reading.