rsbseb wrote: You seem to have come to some of the same conclusions as I have about the bottom alpha row. I'm curious as to the angle of the face on that row in particular.
Basically, I think the bottom alpha row on a typewriter, or on IBM/Honeywell/etc. sculpted profiles is the worst profiled row on those keyboards. Because it is a step down from the home row, it requires moving the hand toward the body to comfortably press those keys, whereas on a flat keyboard (e.g. a laptop chiclet board), those bottom row keys can be reached pretty easily by just flexing the finger’s middle joint a bit. I find it an improvement to raise that keycap up a bit, and aggressively tilt its top, to make it as easy as possible for a fingertip to land on without needing to flex the joint at the base of the finger.
SL89 wrote: No flippy spacebars please. I quite like steeply angled space bars like in DCS. Idk why but i use the edge of mine not the main landing zone.
Neither a standard spacebar nor a flipped version is very good in my opinion, though the standard version is usually especially bad.
I want a spacebar to be extra tall and extra wide. Using SA spacebars on a DCS keyboard is actually quite good IMO, or I like those new 1.5u wide spacebars from Matias. Using a flipped 2u backspace key (number row profile) as a spacebar is a decent compromise where you need to use standard keycap shapes. 2u is a pretty reasonable spacebar length IMO.
Eszett wrote: @jacobolus And out of the wide-spread available profiles, which approximates most to an historically and ergonomically proper profile, in your opinion?
I like the original Honeywell/IBM/etc. sculpted spherical profiles pretty well, out of easily available options. Or similar lower keycaps like the Canon typewriter Alps caps pictured in my previous message are pretty fun. I think DCS and Cherry profiles are both fine, and among cylindrical keycaps the shape of Hi-Tek “space invader” caps stand out as quite nice.
Most of them are roughly comparable to each-other, though I tend to prefer the more aggressively stepped ones.
As I mentioned in my previous message, I think these can be improved by skipping the home row caps and shifting other rows down, though it’s critical in that case to include an extra-tall row on the numbers, e.g. DCS row 5, Cherry row F (or was it A?), or similar.
I am not much of a fan of DSA/SA, Topre HiPro, or other relatively flat profiles. I’m sad that signature plastics no longer makes DSS or SS profiles, both of which seem pretty good.
I kinda like it. A bit rattling maybe but it has a wonderful Japanese charme