|
I still do not get the whole blank key thing... it's it mainly just an ePeen thing, or what? The argument that it stops you from looking at the keys frankly doesn't hold much water to me, since my desk is arranged such that my keyboard is under my desk, on a drawer when I type. Just seems like another way to be obnoxious and make it difficult for someone to use your computer.
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 15:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 04:42 |
|
|
Fuzz posted:Just seems like another way to be obnoxious and make it difficult for someone to use your computer. Sounds like a valid reason to me. Personally, I just like the minimal look. Makes the desk look cleaner.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 15:49
|
|
|
Fuzz posted:I still do not get the whole blank key thing... it's it mainly just an ePeen thing, or what? The argument that it stops you from looking at the keys frankly doesn't hold much water to me, since my desk is arranged such that my keyboard is under my desk, on a drawer when I type. Just seems like another way to be obnoxious and make it difficult for someone to use your computer. 2. It prevents most people from using your computer (a good or bad thing depending). 3. As a person from a non-English country, I don't have to get a separate keyboard, if I get work in another country, since I can just change the language settings in my OS. The same applies to other people using my keyboard, assuming they know where the keys are. 4. It looks fantastic, especially if you have a black set-up. (And you don't have to worry about ugly typefaces.) ufarn fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jan 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 15:51
|
|
|
ufarn posted:1. You learn to type without looking. You forgot to mention that you don't have to worry about the keys fading over time as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 15:56
|
|
|
akadajet posted:You forgot to mention that you don't have to worry about the keys fading over time as well.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 16:07
|
|
|
Does anyone have experience with the WASD white and off-white keycaps? I'm customizing a new keyboard and I can't decide which keycaps will give me what I'm going for -- this is what the designer looks like with the off-white caps: I think the white caps are too white and since the grey is extremely dark compared to something like IBM Model M grey, it will look strange.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 16:12
|
|
|
Fuzz posted:I still do not get the whole blank key thing... it's it mainly just an ePeen thing, or what? The argument that it stops you from looking at the keys frankly doesn't hold much water to me, since my desk is arranged such that my keyboard is under my desk, on a drawer when I type. Just seems like another way to be obnoxious and make it difficult for someone to use your computer. The same reason I don't have note-names engraved onto the keys of my piano incase a non-pianist wants to try to play jinglebells on it. So yes, to answer your question, it's ePeen (and aesthetics).
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 17:48
|
|
|
ufarn posted:1. You learn to type without looking. 1. Uhh. You can learn to type without looking by just...not looking. Not that hard. Anyway, no hunt and peckers are going to be enough of a nerd to buy a blank keyboard. 2. Fine, but not what I would really call a benefit. 3. This is so stupid. You think having letters printed on your keycaps stops you from changing the language settings? Learning to touch-type Finnish is going to be just as hard on a regular keyboard as a blank one, possibly harder because at least some of the keys will be the same as the US layout. 4. This is the only one I can accept as being a real benefit. The whole thing comes down to ego and aesthetics. edit: I have a question of my own, actually: I know this thread has become almost 100% about mechanical keyboards, but I'd love to find a cheap keyboard with a crisp feel, media buttons, and full 6KRO for gaming. Anyone have any ideas? Magic Underwear fucked around with this message at 23:32 on Jan 8, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 23:20
|
|
|
Magic Underwear posted:The whole thing comes down to ego and aesthetics. So?
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 23:32
|
|
|
The Devil Tesla posted:So? I didn't mean to sound so negative. Nothing wrong with getting blank keycaps if you like them, but they don't offer any real benefits and they can be a annoying when you can't remember which number key to press to get &.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 23:41
|
|
|
Magic Underwear posted:I didn't mean to sound so negative. Nothing wrong with getting blank keycaps if you like them, but they don't offer any real benefits and they can be a annoying when you can't remember which number key to press to get &. If the person memorised it, what's the problem? I'd know what that is. I don't have blank keycaps but I do type Dvorak all the time and all my keyboards are currently QWERTY (until I get a WASD!). I guess some people have over-estimated their ability to use a blank keyboard, and for them, it's clearly pointless. Eh. It's a fun option.
|
|
#
?
Jan 8, 2012 23:48
|
|
|
I like blank for the sleek look, I only run into problems with getting () in the right order. We had a lot of fun at work when my blank WASD came in, I had all of my coworkers in a line to try a typing test on it. The scores went from 100+ WPM all the way down to a guy who gave up in frustration after failing to complete the first three words.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 01:04
|
|
|
Protokoll posted:Does anyone have experience with the WASD white and off-white keycaps? I'm customizing a new keyboard and I can't decide which keycaps will give me what I'm going for -- this is what the designer looks like with the off-white caps: White is super white. Off white is what IBM would call pearl white; think of the original IBM model M cream color. Here's a pretty accurate picture:  I'd go with IBM style off-white and the lighter grey like this though, because 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 01:47
|
|
|
jwoven posted:I'd go with IBM style off-white and the lighter grey like this though, because Yeah this looks pretty good! I'd buy that.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 01:50
|
|
|
Fuzz posted:The argument that it stops you from looking at the keys frankly doesn't hold much water to me, since my desk is arranged such that my keyboard is under my desk, on a drawer when I type. Perhaps most of us do not have keyboard trays that are comfortable to use under the desk, or at all? That's kind of an unusual set up, and doesn't nullify the argument for most people.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 02:39
|
|
|
There is no keyboard tray in the world that could hold the weighty, bulky might of the Model M without experiencing some kind of catastrophic mechanical failure. On a more serious note, I tend to not like those keyboard trays in general, they are usually too low, wiggle and wobble and eventually break, and increase the distance between the keyboard and the mouse, so they don't uaually have my recommendation.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 03:06
|
|
|
To be honest, I'm not sure how blank keys help train you to not look at your keyboard and increase your WPM, at least for normal everyday typing (like the stuff in this post). I mean, if I look down right now, with my hands on the keyboard, the only keys that are visible are the number row and rtyughvbn\. Even if I was subconsciously glancing down, most of the keys are covered by my hands, and the keyboard's pretty far out of my field of view anyway so I'd think I'd notice. I had a blank Das Keyboard for five or six years, and either I wouldn't notice, or I'd try to type out a # or something and then end up doing ! backspace % backspace $ backspace #, because I rarely used (use) those keys and never had to learn them.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 03:19
|
|
|
ufarn posted:I wondered about that, but I don't know if that's the case with mechanical keyboards, being as used to only crappy keyboards as I am. The keys on my ThinkPad T500 look as great as when I got them four-ish years ago, although the coarse surface has been worn down to a smooth sheen. I think it depends, a lot of keyboards just have the characters silk screened while some have the characters actually molded into the plastic keycaps, specifically to prevent this from happening. A lot of higher-end keyboards also do this iirc. Decades old IBM Model Ms do not have the issue of characters wearing off, even the newer Unicomps don't. I kinda have a similar issue to you though with coarse surfaces wearing smooth over time, there is a noticable spot that occupies the right third of every space key on every keyboard I own where I press it. It's most noticable on my netbook because sometimes my greasy fingers slip on it and I type m or n instead of space. E: As for blank keys, I can do with or without them, if Unicomp offered blank keycaps I might give them a try but I don't look at my keyboard anyways and can type with my eyes closed. I wouldn't give up on my Model M over whether or not it has blank keys. Fermented Tinal fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Jan 9, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 03:40
|
|
|
zachol posted:To be honest, I'm not sure how blank keys help train you to not look at your keyboard and increase your WPM, at least for normal everyday typing (like the stuff in this post). I mean, if I look down right now, with my hands on the keyboard, the only keys that are visible are the number row and rtyughvbn\. Even if I was subconsciously glancing down, most of the keys are covered by my hands, and the keyboard's pretty far out of my field of view anyway so I'd think I'd notice. Because you are liable to cheat when you don't know where a key is and you're in a hurry. If the key is blank you're forced to use your memory of where the key is 100% of the time. It's the same reason that if you learn colemak / dvorak people recommend that you don't actually switch / relabel your keys because you can slow down your learning by giving yourself the crutch of being able to check visually where they key is. As a programmer I can't count the number of people I've seen who can "touch-type", but always need to look at the keyboard when typing numbers or symbols, which is actually pretty bad because that's the most important time to be watching the screen and seeing what autocomplete is doing i.e. adding closing braces in the wrong place and making sure they didn't accidentally type only one | instead of two. If these people have been typing for 20 years and still haven't learned where the ampersand key is, then maybe they'd benefit from having their key caps sandblasted. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 07:45
|
|
|
Well the thing is I never use those keys. I use the & (and just now I had to fumble at # and % before looking down and seeing "oh it's on the 7") about once every couple of months. What do I use it for? Saying something like "M&Ms," maybe. I've become familiar with { and } and where the \ and the / are because I do use them, but even when I used a blank keyboard for years and years I never learned which is which for #$%^&* because it doesn't come up, not even often enough to actually learn. Obviously, this is because I don't program, or do anything else where those come up. For things I do use (like { or | or >) I learned them anyway. Like now that I've switched over to a printed keyboard, my process has literally gone from "# no % no * no & there we go" to "# no % okay I'll just look oh & done."
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 08:32
|
|
|
RobattoJesus posted:If these people have been typing for 20 years and still haven't learned where the ampersand key is, then maybe they'd benefit from having their key caps sandblasted. Or learn a language that doesn't bog the programmer down with pointers and references. 
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 13:19
|
|
|
Anybody have a source of POM keycaps? I'm looking to spice up my Filco at work. Blank keycap debate: I have a Leopold with blank keycaps because I bought it off of a goon cheap; I really don't care either way for it because I never, ever look down at the keyboard. My girlfriend on the other hand is pretty hateful about it because she does some HTML stuff on the side and she doesn't know where all of the @#$$%^&* and <>/[] is at.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 14:41
|
|
|
akadajet posted:Or learn a language that doesn't bog the programmer down with pointers and references. Or &&, ||, *, fart(), @sqlVar, #comments, <html>, {json}, etc. Also hope you never write ^regex$.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 14:49
|
|
|
glompix posted:Or &&, ||, *, fart(), @sqlVar, #comments, <html>, {json}, etc. Also hope you never write ^regex$.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 14:55
|
|
|
I upgraded my white filco with a red esc key and added a 3-star leather wrist rest from https://www.elitekeyboards.com The wrist rest is fantastic! I wish I would have purchased one sooner.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 16:40
|
|
|
Phone posted:Anybody have a source of POM keycaps? I'm looking to spice up my Filco at work. I've looked before and found nothing - the only people who seem to have the are the ones harvesting them from Cherry/Noppoo keyboards
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 17:10
|
|
|
I ordered a tenkeyless from elitekeyboards and they sent me a full size keyboard. The model number doesn't match. It has the same switches at least. The leopold build quality (except stabilizer for space) is much better than the ducky as well. Now I don't know what to do. Full size with reds for $100 shipped is kind of neat, but I ordered tenkeyless due to size not price.  edit: Nevermind, they sent me the wrong keyboard and its controller (actually probably the micro usb port) is defective. And my windows/application drive died. Sigh. edit2: EKB support is pretty awesome. They are shipping me a new keyboard right away with a paid return label. Khorne fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jan 10, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 17:46
|
|
|
spaceship posted:I upgraded my white filco with a red esc key and added a 3-star leather wrist rest from https://www.elitekeyboards.com I'd love to get one for my Filco, but I don't think it will work well when it can't be fastened to the keyboard.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 19:01
|
|
|
ufarn posted:Doesn't it get annoying when you move the keyboard around automatically? It's really heavy - it doesn't need to be fastened to the keyboard
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 19:26
|
|
|
For people having issues with elitekeyboards, just email the guy. I think it's a 1 or 2 man operation, but he's quick to email you back with any inquiries; I emailed him about the availability of the tenkeyless shields when they were out of stock, and he found a few in storage and sent one off.
|
|
#
?
Jan 9, 2012 19:30
|
|
|
glompix posted:Or &&, ||, *, fart(), @sqlVar, #comments, <html>, {json}, etc. Also hope you never write ^regex$. Time for me to repeat my request for someone to make a keyboard with about 4 extra horizontal keys on the main QWERTY section. No more left-shift pinky stress! 
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 04:42
|
|
|
Phone posted:For people having issues with elitekeyboards, just email the guy. I think it's a 1 or 2 man operation, but he's quick to email you back with any inquiries; I emailed him about the availability of the tenkeyless shields when they were out of stock, and he found a few in storage and sent one off. Yeah, it was no hassle to cancel my Leopold order with them... turnaround was like 13 hours or so. On the topic of my keyboard, I absolutely love my K90. I dunno how I put up with my lovely Logitech before, because it's a joy to type on this thing. The macro keys are also great because you can program them for Windows functions and there's 3 hardware profiles togglable with a button press, (and an infinite number of software ones you can toggle in the software) so I have one entire profile for all my most used programs and simple stuff like automatically typing out my name and title for use on the fly. Pretty drat handy to have dedicated keys for that. Great keyboard, for those interested.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 13:32
|
|
|
~Coxy posted:Space cadet keyboard for a modern generation. I kind of like it, actually.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 16:26
|
|
|
~Coxy posted:Time for me to repeat my request for someone to make a keyboard with about 4 extra horizontal keys on the main QWERTY section. No more left-shift pinky stress! I would like a keyboard where the number row is just the symbols, I automatically use the num pad for any numbers anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 16:30
|
|
|
spaceship posted:I upgraded my white filco with a red esc key and added a 3-star leather wrist rest from https://www.elitekeyboards.com drat, I kind of want a tenkeyless wrist rest now. While I love my full-size one, it's like a caricature against a smaller keyboard. Apparently WASD has a wrist rest now too, and it clips onto the keyboard. I really didn't like the look of the elongated, rounded front lip, but the wrist rest makes it look really slick.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 16:47
|
|
|
pienipple posted:I would like a keyboard where the number row is just the symbols, I automatically use the num pad for any numbers anyway. You could edit your keyboard layout to do this easily enough. Add in some custom keycaps from WASD, and done.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 17:34
|
|
|
Hey glompix how was coding on the Choc Mini? I'm a little concerned about the right shift being offset by the up arrow...
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 17:47
|
|
|
polpotpotpotpotpot posted:Hey glompix how was coding on the Choc Mini? I'm a little concerned about the right shift being offset by the up arrow... After some key switching in AutoHotKey, pretty loving good. I'll always want a full-sized keyboard for work, but it definitely does the trick. Takes some time to get used to the arrow/home/end placement, but after a day I was used to it. Only complaints would be no numpad and if you switch your pgup/pgdn keys to home/end, paging through intellisense suggestions is a little awkward. I hit F1 a few times by accident instead of Esc, too, but I should have that button disabled anyway.
|
|
#
?
Jan 10, 2012 18:29
|
|
|
pienipple posted:I would like a keyboard where the number row is just the symbols, I automatically use the num pad for any numbers anyway. That's a great idea. I still want the extra dedicated keys for common things like < > ? " but maybe that could reduce the horizontal requirements a little. MK II:  Dropped two key widths, added ( ) to the new heightened numpad, new tab key provides more reason for the lonely right-shift key, and have a few more spare keys on the main matrix. ~Coxy fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jan 11, 2012 |
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2012 03:07
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 04:42 |
|
|
~Coxy posted:That's a great idea. I still want the extra dedicated keys for common things like < > ? " but maybe that could reduce the horizontal requirements a little. Maybe it's because I'm not a programmer, and as such, don't use punctuation keys that much, but I'd absolutely loathe that layout. I wouldn't be able to stand having the enter key so far away from the actual letters. It's bad enough when my pinky has to stretch over the apostrophe and back slash on keyboards with the stupid vertical enter key, but that has so much more distance to cover. I get that it's just an idea, but that's my $2/100.
|
|
#
?
Jan 11, 2012 04:51
|
|
