ANYWAY time for some happy hijinks - like this tweet and I’ll tell you what keyboard you are.

Uh, don’t all rush now.

I’ll have you know this also functions as a wish list if anyone has a uh, spare 400 dollars.

@JubalBarca a radical keyboard for a radical person; I haven’t used one yet, and I’m not too sold on the quality of the pre-built ones, and the difficulty of making one is high - but the form factor and curve looks very comfortable.

Though, the way it’s positioned in that photo (with your wrists bending *outwards*) would hurt after like 10 mins.

@mpharrisonHarry of course, it’s the Moonlander! Out of the 5 mechanical keyboards I own, it’s currently my favourite and the one I take to work. I wish it had an additional leg under the thumb cluster so I could rent it and still have the “piano” keys easily reachable.

@Helen_Something I’m not sure how to word this without being *incredibly* insensitive - but here goes; so this is the http://keyboard.io  Atreus, a keyboard I ordered in January I think, shipping soon. Basically, counting down the days.

Just as I know it’ll come soon, I know yourself and Greg will be together for good. This may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever wrote, so apologies for that. Also, their first keyboard is incredibly lovely, like the pair of you two.

@crustybumbler now this is the ZSA Planck EZ - this is a very special keyboard to me as my ma bought for it me when I was completely stressing out over Covid and having a bit of a ‘mare. Compared to practically every other keyboard I’ve mentioned, it’s incredibly simple,

stripped down and well, really fun to use as a result - it’s also the one I primarily learnt on, and plays music.

@Steve_Olley this is the Cooler Master MasterKeys Pro S, because Number Pads are a god awful idea. It was the first mechanical keyboard I ever bought, and kicked off this rather expensive hobby. I struggle to use it nowadays due to the staggered keys, but I love it

, I have plenty of really good memories of using it, and I’ve written some of the best and most complicated software in my career using it. It’s also by far the loudest keyboard I own, waking my ma up several times.

@bchadwickfrance a classy keyboard for one of the classiest people I know - this was my first ZSA keyboard, and boy, did I struggle with it. I wasn’t keen on the switches I got with it - I replaced them however and for a long time this was my favourite. I’ve spent

many hours configuring it, trying new switches, programming it - it sounds like the clickiest thing ever, like a storm of people clicking ball point pens.

@A_C_McGregor the Microsoft Sculpt. This was my first ever ergonomic keyboard, and yes I’ve moved on to fancier ones, but dear god, the amount of pain this has saved me over the years is unbelievable. I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone - once you’re past the rather large

learning curve, you will never look back. I keep meaning to buy one for old times sake as I still hazard it’s one of the better keyboards I’ve used.

@Hawlucha137 holy shit, I did not realise you were 16 - in honour of this, this is one of the first major ergonomic keyboards and basically the progenitor of them all, the Kinesis Advantage 2. It’s incredibly expensive - probably the most expensive on this list.

I’m not to sold on well, the size or that you’re essentially forced to rest your arms on the board (pressure = pain, at least at my decrepit age) but that keywell would be super comfy - your hands naturally go limp and curve inwards ever so slightly.

@achinton now this one is interesting - it’s basically a Planck, but split! It looks completely alien, a split keyboard, but the main benefits are it actually helps you to breathe and sit much more naturally. I do feel remarkably cramped using the original Planck

Unfortunately, they aren’t sold pre-made, but come in kit form - it’s on my list to buy one as they’re relatively simple to build. https://mechboards.co.uk/shop/kits/lets-split-kit/#pcb

@Addyboombatty I’ve told this story quite a few times, but a few years ago I almost lost my left hand - as a computer person, this was terrifying - surely my career would be over etc. etc.

It didn’t happen, but I now know that if it did, a chap called Dvorak had my back.

Basically, he invented several different layouts to improve comfort and efficiency as opposed to QWERTY (which is the industry standard by accident), including one for disabled people.

I think this keyboard would be perfect for this, and one day

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_hand_typing

I wouldn’t mind learning.

@Bouri_D I have quite small hands and really low dexterity - most, if not all of the keyboards I’ve mentioned are American, at the very least Western. This one is interesting because it’s a Japanese keyboard, based on the average hand / finger size of Japanese people.

Which, on average is slightly smaller than most Americans at least. Apart from the layout looking really comfortable, the design is just super snazzy and comes with that inbuilt tent which is essential.

@SakuraNoSeirei I fucking love this keyboard - I’ve wanted one for years, but it’s staggered which probably won’t agree with me nowadays. It’s just so cute, and the name - Happy Hacking Keyboard is just lovely. This one comes in quite a few variations, again one specifically

for the Japanese market with a smaller space bar and an actual underscore key - which goes some way to explain the prevalence of underscores in Ruby, a Japanese programming language. The best part is there is no CAPS lock, just Ctrl in its place, which is essential if

you use vim, as all happy hackers do.

@AaminahSaleem2 now this was the second mechanical keyboard I ever purchased. I was finding the “tactile” feel of the Cooler Master too hard - I didn’t quite realise the point wasn’t to “bottom out” on mechanical keyboards, so I yearned for a flat, low profile keyboard.

Despite it’s relative low cost - it’s one of the best made keyboards I own, solid aluminium and really vivid beautiful lights AND Bluetooth, which is an absolute rarity for mechanical keyboards. The switches are special Gateron low profile things, and they have a real nice crunch

@0ldoini I don’t know the brand of this keyboard, except I saw someone type a complete Fibonacci sequence on it in literally 5 seconds which is mind blowing. It’s a stenographer keyboard, which is something that I really, really want to try - the various keyboards I use all

support it, but it’s a hell of an undertaking! Would be super super cool though. Basically, you hit keys to form words from what they sound like. People manage incredible speeds and accuracy on them.

@drwhofan_194 ugh, it feels like such a cop out to reuse a keyboard, especially on the last person who liked the tweet, but it has to be the ZSA Moonlander.

I get very precious about tooling and set up and all that jazz - it’s ultimately an expression of that person and how

they work. I’m one of those people who believes despite the dryness of the work involved, programming is ultimately a creative pursuit. My personal idea of hell is being prohibited from using what I want, how I want - and essentially this is why I spend a ridiculous amount of

money and time on these things. Also because I want to not be in pain and be quick at work with as less friction between me and the computer as possible.

This is all a long way of saying that tools, keyboards, guitars, drills, paints, whatever are all friends that you’d be lost

without.

That is even a longer about way to say you’re a very good friend, and I really, really appreciate you.

@_traceymason this, this Tracey is the uhm, Gherkin keyboard. I chose the one with mixed key caps specifically because just well look at the thing! It’s so much fun and hilarious. Typically with keyboards of this size, one or two or perhaps more keys function as basically

shift keys - either toggling or activating another layer as they key itself is held down. All of these keyboards have a tiny controller on them, which essentially maps any input to the actual device they’re plugged into. This also means they’re all programmable.

There’s a very pretty Gherkin as well.