I’ve been using mine for about 8 years now, and have taken it with me from job to job.
The Microsoft Natural keyboards are better than the standard straight keyboard layout, but are sort of a one size fits all ergonomic solution. If you really want to avoid RSI, you want a keyboard where you can adjust both the split angle and the tilt. The other advantage of the Goldtouch is that it doesn’t have the keypad, which makes the distance to the mouse shorter. The narrow width of the keyboard reduces the amount of strain that the shoulder takes when going back and forth between mouse and keyboard. I ditched my old Microsoft Natural because I was getting shoulder problems in my right shoulder.
Mucking with the home key cluster sucks, but you quickly get used to it. On the other hand, messing with the Enter key and moving the backslash is totally unexcusable (especially if you work on Windows all day). I HATE the fat enter key layout.
@Michael:
The Microsoft Natural Keyboard actually has the 6 key on the WRONG side!!
Unless, of course, you never took typing lessons so never learned you’re supposed to hit it with your right-hand index finger. As another posted said, probably only the 2-fingered typists and Bill himself know the reason for this, for a touch-typist (which I proud myself to be) this is an instant killer.
I didn’t know there were clones with it on the correct (right) side, if you can post me links to get them I’d buy 3 immediately!
I used to have an old Model M ergonomic keyboard, where ergonomic meant that a ball joint held the two halves of the keyboard together, and each side had it’s own leg stands. The beauty of the board was that you could unscrew the ball joint and set each half of the board as far apart as you wanted, making for the most perfect ergonomic experience. I’d give my liver to have another one.
I mostly use a Nostromo n52 gaming keypad at work (qualification: I am not a programmer. I am a graphic designer) since a host of useful keyboard shortcuts in Photoshop and InDesign are awkward to use with one hand on the keyboard and the other on the mouse. I bind the ones I use the most to individual keys on the n52. This alone shaved about an hour off of layout time for large projects.
We’ve talked about it before via email - I’m the same … the Ergo 4000 is my holy grail of keyboards as well. Have them at home, have them at work, and bring them with when I travel. Serious addiction level.
Love the layout on the original Happy Hacking Keyboard. Control and escape are were vi expects them. The current version, the Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2, has a fn key that bring back double caps-lock hell (fn + tab = caps lock, and there is some other strange caps-lock like mode that I manage to invoke all the time). Unfortunately my left hand and fingers started hurting after about a year of use. Just got a Kinesis Freedom and if my fingers cannot adjust then I am checking out a Cherry G84-4100.
I like the model M two color key layout so much that i bought two identical keyboards, but one black and the other white. I replaced the keys and made one in model M style, the other being its negative.
This is a model M. One day, i’ll replace my computer with something that doesn’t have PS/2. No idea what i’ll do then. Ideal keyboard? Nothing that xmodmap can’t fix. So my control key is next to the ‘A’. And the caps lock is out of the way. Haven’t remapped the escape key to just above the tab. That’s because something has to go out into west wazzoo land. I’ve got so many keys remapped that they may as well be unlabeled. They’re mostly labeled wrong.
My favorite keybord is Apple’s ADB standard keyboard. Nothing needs to be remapped. Unfortunately, my old Mac isn’t working at the moment. Never did get it on ethernet. Maybe soon.
I’m normally a bit of a purist when it comes to being anti-Microsoft. However, I just happened to be having issues with my keyboard when you posted this, and you convinced me to go try the Microsoft Natural Keyboard 4000. Damn! It really is a huge improvement over my previous Belkin. Typing on it makes me feel like I’m in a Mercedes – it’s so comfortable and solid…
As a special bonus, the media keys on the board worked just fine with vanilla KDE 4, which I was not expecting.
I used to love Microsoft Natural keyboards… eventually two of them broke and I decided to get a new one. That’s when it all went wrong.
I got a version of keyboard that didn’t have the | button… and believe me, I tried finding it. I ended up using Alt+numpad for typing | (and sometimes just copy/paste) but it used to slow down coding so much I ended up throwing the keyboard away.
But after reading the comments I’ve got the hots for Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 and Kinesis Advantage.
Don’t get a keyboard that’s loud. I can’t stand it when I hear people type when I am trying to code. For the guy who has one since 1999, I’d get so annoyed as those keyboards were the loudest. That’s gay to have a keyboard like that just to think you’re cool. Think about your collegues…keep it quiet.
