Xah Lee, Typing Experience and Repetitive Strain Injury

I have several rounds of Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) experience over the past 15 years. Hand or arm or wrist tingling, soreness, and mild numbness and vague pain.

Chronological Summary of My Repetitive Strain Injury

• 1988. Learned touch typing on a electric typewriter.
• 1992. Worked as a data entry clerk and secretary. (on Macintosh Classic (1992), and typewriter)
• 1994. Learned Dvorak layout. Dvorak Keyboard Layout
• 1998. Started using emacs, and live in it by 1999. 〔see My Experience of GNU Emacs vs XEmacs (2007)〕
• 1998 to 2005: Use xemacs in text terminal only, all default keys. (started to use GUI emacs, in 2006, and switched to GNU emacs from xemacs.)

Up to 2005, never had any typing/RSI problem. Am using standard keyboards. Most of these years using whatever the keyboard that comes with Mac.

• 2005. First time Repetitive Strain Injury.
• Caused by always using a laptop (Mac iBook) for a year since 2004.
• I wrote about it here: How to Avoid Emacs Pinky.
• Solution: bought the Microsoft Natural ergonomic keyboard.
• This is my first time using a split keyboard.
• Never liked split keyboard before, but now, i NEVER want to type on non-split keyboard.

• 2007. Started to create and use ErgoEmacs mode
• ErgoEmacs Mode: a Ergonomic Keyboard Shortcut System

• 2009. Switched keyboard from Microsoft Wireless Natural Multimedia keyboard (2004) to Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000

• 2010. Second time with Repetitive Strain Injury.
• My left hand wrist started to tingle.
• Eventually found the problem to be a bad habit of pressing the 1 and 2 keys on the number row, by turning my left hand wrist to the left side and using index finger to press the 1.
• This habit is induced by the Microsoft 4000 keyboard.
• Documented at Programer Hand Pain. vim Escape Key Syndrome (2010)

• 2012. Third time having Repetitive Strain Injury.
• Eventually found the reason to be pressing the x key too much on a bad rubber-dome key-switch keyboard.
• The keyboard is Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 (2005)
• Documented at The Roadmap to Completely Replace Emacs Key System, Part 1 (2012)

• 2013. Started to use Truly Ergonomic Keyboard. Love it.

• 2013. Started to use a emacs keybinding system that is all single key press sequence, except for about 10 commands that make sense when held down (e.g. forward-word) in ErgoEmacs mode. A preliminary report at The Roadmap to Completely Replace Emacs Key System, Part 2 (2013).

• 2013. Started to create and use a modal keybinding mode similar to vim, but key choice based on command frequency statistics. 〔see Emacs: Xah Fly Keys 📦〕

• 2016.
• 4th time having Repetitive Strain Injury.
• Feeling discomfort. Wrist pronation problem. Due to hands on the flat Truly Ergonomic Keyboard for about 12 hours per day.
• The keyboard is flat, no tenting.

(from ~2009 to ~2015, i write tons of stuff. The average number of hours i sit in front of computer per day, is perhaps 12. Put another way, if we rank people in the world who sit in front of computer longest hours in period of few years, as if measured by statistics with a device on the seat, i'd say i rank within top 500.)

• Truly Ergonomic Keyboard
• Keyboard Tenting (Wrist Pronation)

• 2016-08. Started to use Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard as my main keyboard. 〔see Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard Review〕

In 2017, some more mild discomfort. In the past, it's always just left hand. But now, right hand also felt discomfort. I can't pin down exactly what's the “cause”. Possibly am getting old, and haven't exercised as much before.

• 2018 to 2020-05-29 and on going.
• Pain, in left forearm area, middle of forearm but more near the elbow.
• Start as mild discomfort, but by 2020 it's vague pain.
• Been very hard to trace the cause of this discomfort.
• But i think it's due to too much pressing the key 3 (above key e on qwerty) by middle finger on the kinesis disadvantage.

• The key 3 in Xah Fly Keys is for delete-other-windows
• (it removes all split panes), and is frequently used.
• according to my key log, it's used 0.37% of all command calls (including self insert commands)

• Detail at Computer Keyboard Hand Pain, Year 2020 (Left Forearm Hurts)

• 2021-01, realized keyboard key resistance is a major problem for people with computer keyboard hand pain. Bought a Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard with linear red switch. (was using brown switch) This helped with the Computer Keyboard Hand Pain, Year 2020 (Left Forearm Hurts) issue a lot.

• 2022-02, realized 45g activation force is not light enough. Started to use Glove80 Keyboard, now with a 35g activation force linear switch. This solved the Computer Keyboard Hand Pain, Year 2020 (Left Forearm Hurts) problem.