I finally did it! I went ahead and got myself an ergonomical keyboard. Now I didn’t get it based on any discomfort while using my previous keyboard or anything, I was just in the market for a new keyboard and I figured that it would be interesting to try out something new. There are obviously tons and tons of options out there, after doing a far amount of browsing and research, I thought that it would be interesting to go with something relatively minimalistic with (almost) the least amount of keys that one would get on a keyboard. So, I settled on the 36-key Corne. I could have gotten the version with 42-keys where you would have three extra keys on the far left and right columns of the keyboard, but I really wanted to go all the way.

As for the layout, I’m currently using Miryoku. This is basically the firmware for the board, one would have to flash it on their board by using something like QMK. Knowing that I’d be able to customise my keyboard to my heart’s content is truly a feeling of joy. I use my keyboard so much on a daily basis that this would definitely be such a huge plus in the long run. I’m pretty happy with the default Miryoku layout for the moment, the only tweaks that I’ve done so far is use vi-style navigation. I also decided that it would be too overwhelming to also learn a new keyboard layout at the same time, hence I’ve decided to stick with QWERTY, at least for the timebeing. In the future I’d totally be willing to experiment with something different such as Colemak DH.

It is no shame for me to admit that I spent the better part of the last week practising on www.keybr.com. I did not expect a column stagger to be THAT different from a ‘normal’ row-staggered keyboard. Though I’m glad that I switched, I’m now touch-typing for real by using all the appropriate fingers to hit the right keys, this just highlights how traditional keyboards encourage us to pick up bad habits. I am not quite back up to my normal typing speed, currently I’m averaging 60-70wpm as opposed to my usual 100-110. Typing symbols, numbers and all that jazz is even more difficult, my productivity has definitely taken a hit during the last week. However, if I want to master this keyboard, this is a bullet that I have to bite. Initially, I thought that I could use a different keyboard depending on whether I’m in the office or at home, but I quickly realised that I should be exclusively using the Corne to master it as soon as possible. I’ll come back you to folks in a month or two with more updates ;)