arundelo comments on Spend Money on Ergonomics - Less Wrong

43 Post author: Kevin 23 December 2011 06:40AM

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Comment author: arundelo 27 December 2011 02:38:36AM *  0 points [-]

Presumably mine has the same switches lincolnquirk's does; I have (at least roughly) the same model and his description matches my experience. I also keep the electronically generated click turned on. It's not very loud, but that's good, because one of the main downsides of model M keyboards is the worry about bothering fellow cubicle dwellers with the clackity-clack.

My mods:

  • Remapped (via the Kinesis's programmable firmware) <Caps Lock> to <Esc>. The built-in <Esc> key is too tiny, wobbly, and close to the <F1> key for a user of a vi-style editor.
  • Swapped the mappings and keycaps of the up- and down-arrow keys, so that each is in the same column as the corresponding vi movement key.
  • Remapped the extra <\> key (below <X>) to <Insert>. (This key is already <Insert>, but only if you switch keypad modes. I use this mainly for pasting into PuTTY with <Shift>+<Insert>.)
  • Remapped some of the thumb keys (and used the included extra keycaps) so that I have a <Ctrl> and an <Alt> for each hand (and no Windows key or Menu key). (A nice side-effect of this is that I have two <Alt>s and not an <Alt> and an <AltGr>. I know it's possible to do this in Linux, but I haven't gotten around to figuring out how yet, which means when I use rdesktop to access my work computer from my home computer I have to remember to use only the left <Alt> key on my Unicomp.)