special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[Florian Kaufmann]

Hello

Since I moved Ctrl to Caps Lock on my 'US windows' keyboard, I am
wondering how I still could improve accessibility to modifier keys as
ctrl, meta, shift (, hyper, super). I thought it would be great to have
2 of these left and right to the middle below the space bar. With the
left pinkie and the two thumbs the modifiers would be reachable very
easy, and while pressing any of these modifiers you still could reach
easily almost any other key with the other fingers. A similar idea
would also be to make the space bar much shorter, and place the two new
keys at the side of the now shorter space bar. The new keys would be
reachable more easily than alt is now beside the long space bar. Now I
wonder if such keyboards already exist, or if somebody knows how I
could alter an existing keyboard and make the two additional keys
myself. I googled a bit, but didn't found anything. Any ideas?

Greetings

Flo

Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[Malte Spiess]

"Florian Kaufmann" <sensorflo@gmail.com> writes:

> Hello
>
> Since I moved Ctrl to Caps Lock on my 'US windows' keyboard, I am
> wondering how I still could improve accessibility to modifier keys as
> ctrl, meta, shift (, hyper, super). I thought it would be great to have
> 2 of these left and right to the middle below the space bar. With the
> left pinkie and the two thumbs the modifiers would be reachable very
> easy, and while pressing any of these modifiers you still could reach
> easily almost any other key with the other fingers. A similar idea
> would also be to make the space bar much shorter, and place the two new
> keys at the side of the now shorter space bar. The new keys would be
> reachable more easily than alt is now beside the long space bar. Now I
> wonder if such keyboards already exist, or if somebody knows how I
> could alter an existing keyboard and make the two additional keys
> myself. I googled a bit, but didn't found anything. Any ideas?

I use a Contoured keyboard by Kinesis:
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/

> Greetings
>
> Flo

Greetings

Malte

Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[Joe Fineman]

Malte Spiess <i1tnews@arcor.de> writes:

> "Florian Kaufmann" <sensorflo@gmail.com> writes:

>> Since I moved Ctrl to Caps Lock on my 'US windows' keyboard, I am
>> wondering how I still could improve accessibility to modifier keys
>> as ctrl, meta, shift (, hyper, super). I thought it would be great
>> to have 2 of these left and right to the middle below the space
>> bar. With the left pinkie and the two thumbs the modifiers would be
>> reachable very easy, and while pressing any of these modifiers you
>> still could reach easily almost any other key with the other
>> fingers. A similar idea would also be to make the space bar much
>> shorter, and place the two new keys at the side of the now shorter
>> space bar. The new keys would be reachable more easily than alt is
>> now beside the long space bar. Now I wonder if such keyboards
>> already exist, or if somebody knows how I could alter an existing
>> keyboard and make the two additional keys myself. I googled a bit,
>> but didn't found anything. Any ideas?
>
> I use a Contoured keyboard by Kinesis:
> http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/

So do I.  It puts Ctrl & Alt handy to the thumbs, and they are next to
each other, so you can even do Ctrl-Alt with one thumb.  The space key
is no longer a bar, but is where the right thumb lives.

However, it is absurdly expensive -- at a guess, because it is
marketed as a remedy for carpal tunnel syndrome, so it gets paid for
largely out of insurance.
-- 
---  Joe Fineman    joe_f@verizon.net

||:  If you can't get the blues off your mind, get your mind off  :||
||:  the blues.                                                   :||

Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[Malte Spiess]

Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> writes:

> Malte Spiess <i1tnews@arcor.de> writes:
>
>> "Florian Kaufmann" <sensorflo@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>> Since I moved Ctrl to Caps Lock on my 'US windows' keyboard, I am
>>> wondering how I still could improve accessibility to modifier keys
>>> as ctrl, meta, shift (, hyper, super). I thought it would be great
>>> to have 2 of these left and right to the middle below the space
>>> bar. With the left pinkie and the two thumbs the modifiers would be
>>> reachable very easy, and while pressing any of these modifiers you
>>> still could reach easily almost any other key with the other
>>> fingers. A similar idea would also be to make the space bar much
>>> shorter, and place the two new keys at the side of the now shorter
>>> space bar. The new keys would be reachable more easily than alt is
>>> now beside the long space bar. Now I wonder if such keyboards
>>> already exist, or if somebody knows how I could alter an existing
>>> keyboard and make the two additional keys myself. I googled a bit,
>>> but didn't found anything. Any ideas?
>>
>> I use a Contoured keyboard by Kinesis:
>> http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/
>
> So do I.  It puts Ctrl & Alt handy to the thumbs, and they are next to
> each other, so you can even do Ctrl-Alt with one thumb.  The space key
> is no longer a bar, but is where the right thumb lives.
>
> However, it is absurdly expensive -- at a guess, because it is
> marketed as a remedy for carpal tunnel syndrome, so it gets paid for
> largely out of insurance.

Yeah, but if you suffer for years your're really happy for anything to
ease you pain. :-(

An alternative may be this one, looks alike, but it costs way more
(about 2-3 times as expansive):
http://www.maltron.com/maltron-kbd-etype-intro.html

Greetings

Malte

Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[Christopher Kuettner]

Did you hear of the Happy Hacker keyboard?

Re: Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[srjones05]

-- Malte Spiess wrote : 
"Florian Kaufmann" <sensorflo@gmai...> writes:

> Hello
>
> Since I moved Ctrl to Caps Lock on my 'US windows' keyboard, I am
> wondering how I still could improve accessibility to modifier keys as
> ctrl, meta, shift (, hyper, super). I thought it would be great to have
> 2 of these left and right to the middle below the space bar. With the
> left pinkie and the two thumbs the modifiers would be reachable very
> easy, and while pressing any of these modifiers you still could reach
> easily almost any other key with the other fingers. A similar idea
> would also be to make the space bar much shorter, and place the two new
> keys at the side of the now shorter space bar. The new keys would be
> reachable more easily than alt is now beside the long space bar. Now I
> wonder if such keyboards already exist, or if somebody knows how I
> could alter an existing keyboard and make the two additional keys
> myself. I googled a bit, but didn't found anything. Any ideas?

I use a Contoured keyboard by Kinesis:
http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/

> Greetings
>
> Flo

Greetings

Malte
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Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[boskom]

Hi,
Regarding Emacs keyboard, I have encountered two cheap keyboards
(~15euro) that have short space bar, and one has several buttons below
space bar. A4Tech X7 G700 and A4Tech X7 G800 ( http://www.x7.cn/en/product.asp?id=9
) are low end gaming keyboards. Keys "Home" and "End" are put
alongside space bar.

Is it possible to use these two "ordinary" keys as modifier keys (e.g.
Control)?

Re: special keyboard, ctrl below spacebar

[David Hansen]

On Fri, 2 May 2008 17:07:31 -0700 (PDT) boskom wrote:

> Is it possible to use these two "ordinary" keys as modifier keys (e.g.
> Control)?

If X knows about the keys you can do (nearly) everything you want with
xmodmap.

David