Best Emacs Keyboard? Take n! (2012)

By Xah Lee. Date: .

best emacs keyboard? Take n!

i think this is the best keyboard for emacs: μTRON Keyboard.

last i checked, it's USD$550, and you have to buy it in Japan.

you may find this keyboard weird. But the point of this keyboard is the physical layout, that's the important part. Key layout one can remap thru software, it's the physical layout, key physical positions, that is fixed, and your fingers have to live with.

The good thing about this keyboard is that it fixes many traditional PC keyboard key problems. See: Computer Keyboard Design Flaws

much of the problems is due to history, much like QWERTY layout is.

In traditional PC keyboard, the Enter, Backspace, are placed in bad positions, hit by pinky. Keys are unnaturally jagged. And many other flaws.

ergonomic keyboards, such as

all fixed these problems (with MS 4000 being the least radical)

From my 2 decades of keyboard geeking, especially in the past 3 years, i discovered that, habituation is the number one enemy to progress. People are resistant to change. This applies to keyboard layout (e.g. QWERTY), as well as physical layout (e.g. PC straight keyboard), and also applies to keyboard shortcut/keybinding (e.g. emacs, vi), and many others such as bash syntax, C language syntax, etc.

In the past 3 years, i spent about few hours per week, tweaking, thinking, about emacs keybinding, and keyboard shortcuts several other apps i use (browsers, Second Life, OS keys), and across OSes, and log my keystrokes, typing habit, RSI, analysis of keybinding ergonomics…. I tweak my emacs keys about every week. Usually, by logical analysis, i felt xyz way is better, so i change it in my emacs init. But often, i find it a pain, until after few months, then i find it much better. So, even to myself, habituation is progress killer. Of the common vi, emacs, dogma you see on the net, about their key efficiency, is pure bullshit. Both vi, and emacs's keys, are FAR from being efficient. If you are serious, you can simply analyze it yourself, think about different keybinding systems. However, due to much habituation and perpetual myth, this is a religious issue. Before you can even start, people will tell you to swap capslock, or such, or tell you that that “emacs shouldn't become Notepad”. 〔see Emacs Cult Problem: Emacs vs Windows Notepad (2011)〕

There are those programers who don't touch-type, yet, they INSIST that hunt'n'peck is perfectly sufficient for programing work. There are programers who touch type QWERTY but INSIST that Dvorak's efficiency is a myth. (not going to cite names, but some of these are my friends, or celebrity coders) Then, there's vi or emacs cultists who never invested time into study alternate keybinding systems, will insist, that everyone should learn the “proper” way.

These religious views, you can never expel, unless, you start something that's successful. I'm glad that i started ErgoEmacs keybinding, which now have a number of users. Another example is the Colemak layout 〔see Ergonomic Keyboard Layouts〕, of which the author aggressively market it (e.g. created a dedicated website, forum, and lobbied to have it included in all major Linux distros). Similarly is the success story of JSON format (over XML). Basically, it's about marketing, politics, than true quality. Nobody will listen to your impeccable argument. But once you are successful, in marketing, everybody will claim they agree with it all along — “I told you so!”.

See also: Xah Keyboard Guide.