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Hardware Hacking Input Devices

Poor Man's Kinesis Keyboard: The K'nexis Keyboard 246

Posted by CmdrTaco from the because-you-can dept.
Jon_Aquino writes "For programmers like me with wrist pain (the dreaded Emacs Pinky syndrome), I have made a simple keyboard modification that lets you press the Ctrl, Alt, and Shift keys with your thumbs. Just like those expensive $240 Kinesis keyboards, but made using a $30 K'nex building toy. (K'nex is like Lego but uses rods instead of bricks)."
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Poor Man's Kinesis Keyboard: The K'nexis Keyboard More

Poor Man's Kinesis Keyboard: The K'nexis Keyboard

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  • You take a block from the bottom (Score:4, Funny)

    by conteXXt ( 249905 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:02PM (#12678185)
    and put it on top.

    You take a block from the middle and put it on top.

    ooops. Soory. wrong permanently embedded jingle.

  • I can press all three keys with 1 hand, so why do I need some device to do it?
    • you don't because you can use your pinkie to do it.
      but others can't and they need this.
      as you would know if you had rtfa :)
    • because your hands apparently hurt unless you press them with your thumb..

      though.. why not just remap some buttons? and why use a solution that needs you to keep your hands in the air all the time you're using it?

      • Your hands SHOULD be in the air whenever you're typing.

        If you're keeping your palms on your desk (or wrist rest in front of your keyboard) you're asking for problems.

        Whether it's as severe as this is, I dunno... hard to say from the pics.

        • Re:erm (Score:2, Informative)

          by idonthack ( 883680 )
          If you're keeping your palms on your desk (or wrist rest in front of your keyboard) you're asking for problems.

          Actually, the wrist rest is there so you don't have to exert any effort to keep your hands in the air. (If you don't have one, you have to support the weight of your entire arm. You're not just holding up your wrists.)

          The lowered-wrist position is what is bad for your hands, not the fact that they rest on something... if your wrists are slightly elevated, it doesn't matter if they're touching an

  • Such a sad choice of editor... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:04PM (#12678195)
    If he had simply used vi, none of this would have been necessary.
    • lol you can still get pinky syndrome from having to hit : or -[ or all the time too... Although not as bad as alt.
      • Individual keys are not that hard on you pinky. It's when you have to hit three or four keys as a single chord that you start getting stress injuries.

        Not that Bill Joy is more ergonomically aware than Richard Stallman. It's just that when he invented Vi, he had to support the cheapo terminals at UC Berkely, which didn't have screen buffers, programmability, or fancy modifier keys. So he simplified the editing model, and forced the user to maintain state information in wetware. Which make vi rather less so

        • I've got commonly used 3+ key chords rebound to Super+(a single key). Super is the left windows key on my setup. This'll allow me to keep the use of my hands for a few extra years, I hope.
          • That's one approach. Another is to upgrade to a modern editor.

            Of course, that's easier said than done. I've been telling myself for years that Vi (or rather Vim, which has pretty much displaced its prototype) is totally obsolete, since its most important design constraints (must work on a time-sharing system over a 300 bps line connected to a primitive dumb terminal [franken.de]) no longer apply. But all the various editors I've tried seem to not be worth the trouble. Though that might have been an excuse...

            Lately,

            • The problem is that old emacs and Vim users have climbed up a steep learning curve, and aren't going to be eager to do that again for a text editor. I can't speak for Vim, but emacs is in many ways obsolete - it's written in a dialect of Lisp that should have gone out with disco, and it lacks the ability to do a lot of GUI eye-candy stuff that can actually display useful information. But it's got tons of stuff written for it, and for those of us who know it, the keybindings are hard-coded into our motor n
              • I agree with you on every point. Unfortunately, EMACS and Vi zealots mostly refuse to acknowledge these issues. Which mostly doesn't matter, except that many of them are also OSS zealots, and their efforts to free us all from the Microsoft Monoculture are badly hampered by their inability to grasp the concept of lockin.
    • Yeah, but he's lost for the geek community anyway :
      He's using windows and need that modification just to do ctrl-alt-del, it's written black on white in TFA !

      Posting a story on Slashdot acknowledging to use windows ! What a lame guy ! Hopefully for him not everyone is going to read TFA.

      *** Yeah so there are only seven letters and that I isn't an I, it's just random bars that happen to form a bogus I ***
    • It does seem weird to continue to use an editor that causes you so much pain that you need to modify a keyboard to use it. There are plenty of decent editors which don't require the pain in the ass zillion key strokes of emacs for regular tasks.

      I find JEdit to be a very good editor - graphical, but with plenty of complexity and functionality if you need it. I only know a handful of keystrokes and use the menus for other stuff. Then you've got Eclipse, or GEdit, and whatever the KDE equivalent of GEdit is

      • Yes, you can remap your keybindings, and you can map keys to emulate the "missing" modifier keys (the machines emacs originally ran on had keyboards with Hyper, Alt (not the same as your "alt" key), and Super keys, and you can make something useless like the windows key do their job), and map the overly complex 80's guitar god chords to something simpler using these. I've done so, and probably with a lot less hassle than hooking up an Erector set to my keyboard.
      • It does seem weird to continue to use an editor that causes you so much pain that you need to modify a keyboard to use it.

        It seems weird to me that he bothered modifying his keyboard at all... my solution for emacs was to swap right alt and right control keys. that way I had alt to the left of the spacebar and control to the right, both easily accessible by my thumbs. It saved me a lot of pain with all the Ctrl+Alt shortcuts...

  • Just use vi (Score:3, Insightful)

    by m50d ( 797211 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:04PM (#12678199) Homepage Journal
    Seriously, if your tool gives you that serious problems it's time to use another one.

    • Re:Just use vi (Score:3, Interesting)

      by timmyd ( 108567 )
      If he wanted emacs to act like vi, there's nothing stopping him from customizing it that way or using something like viper-mode.

      On the other hand, he's losing some of the greatest benefits of a kinesis keyboard: the keys line up vertically, the right thumb can easily hit the space bar(it's over it) and the enter key, and the left thumb is right over the backspace. For people that enter numbers a lot, there is a foot pedal available that turns the right half of the keyboard into a numeric pad so you can typ
      • I really don't like how it assumes that one hits the space bar with the right hand. I'm left-handed, and I use the left thumb 99% of the time to hit the space bar. It seems like a nice idea, but it makes too many assumptions.
        • I'm a lefty as well, but I learned to use my right thumb which, as far as I know, is the classic method of typing anyway. How hard is is to smack a huge bar with your right thumb? Not like it requires any kind of precision control.
          • my keyboard is worn enough to show dimples in most of the keys, and ive worn all the way through the plastic where my fingernails touch A and S (and damn near W and D as well). also, my space bar is cut in half because the keyboard folds up. the right half shows most of the wear, but the left is not in great shape either. id say 20/80 for me, and im a righty who doesnt use 'normal' home row touch typing

      • Re:Just use vi (Score:2, Interesting)

        by TeXMaster ( 593524 )
        >If he wanted emacs to act like vi, there's nothing stopping him from customizing it that way or using something like viper-mode.

        Only an Emacs user who never actually used vim can think that the viper-mode for Emacs comes anywhere close to something usable.

        I had to learn vim because I'm using a laptop, and thus nonalpha keys are clumsy to reach at best. Then I got so used to it I started having hjkldddxxcta things everywhere in other programs :)

        Emacs has an enormous appeal for me (for TeX editing

    • Sorry, when someone goes to this great lengths to continue using his favorite editor, it's got to be because it's more to him than just a mere editor.

      If an app gave me a wrist pain, I'd switch in the blink of an eye to another - unless it is so good that I'd go to any lengths to minimize the pain than stop using it.

      So, using another editor is not really an option, finding a way of easing the pain is. Besides, today it's Emacs hurting the pinky, tomorrow it could be vi hurting the fore-finger because of al
    • Seriously, if your tool gives you that serious problems it's time to use another one.

      Yes, clearly by the age of 19 or so, it's far too late to start using a tool like emacs. The body has already developed relatively naturally, whereas deeply unnatural tools like emacs and the violin demand more.

      We should therefore start emacs training at age two.
  • I think you could probably build the same contraption with lego using the rods, etc. Might be easier to get...I have never heard of K'nex.
  • Knex is more like the old Erector Set toys, not like Legos.
    • I would say more like Tinker Toys...a lot more.
    • For all those Brits, Erector is the American (and more boringly/dirtily named) version of Meccano [erector-sets.com], an very cool nuts-and-bolts version of K'nex, which could make some very cool products.

      My Uncle passed me down an actual steam engine, with a mounted boiler with working pistons and all, which could drive the action of a Meccano toy. The smell of meths still reminds me of that.

  • Pinky on the ctrl? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mrjb ( 547783 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:08PM (#12678216)
    I use the the 'ball' at the base of my pinky to press the ctrl-key. Leaves the pinky free for all the keys it was intended for: the q, a and z as well as capslock,tab and shift.

  • Kinesis Rocks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by healy ( 234314 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:11PM (#12678238) Homepage
    As a long time (5+ years) user of a Kinesis Keyboard I can tell you that it's the best keyboard I have ever used. It took me about a week to get used to the new layout (I stayed away from root shells) but once I did, I've never looked back. It's the most comfortable keyboard I've ever tried. I own one for home & one for work. Combined with the Evoluent mouse, my hands are much, much happier now.

    • Is there a USB version? Bluetooth? How is it with the Dvorak keyboard layout? I'm interested.

      • Answers!! (Score:2, Informative)

        by Eunuch ( 844280 ) *
        Yes, there is a USB version. The only bluetooth prototype fell in the toilet so it will be awhile before that is available. Dvorak is integrated on all of them.
      • I bought the Dvorak one (It's actually a QWERTY with Dvorak in subscript), and I've found it difficult to learn Dvorak, but that's probably just me as opposed to the keyboard.
        AFAIK, there is no Bluetooth, but I have it in USB. It has two extra usb ports on the back so I found it quite easy to just plug my mouse into the keyboard.

        I recommend the purchase, and if you're still learning dvorak, buy the dvorak (subscripted one). However, if you want to switch to Kinesis+Dvorak at the same time, it's gonna take

    • Sure Sign of a Fanatic (Score:2, Interesting)

      by scotch ( 102596 )
      Beware of endorsements from people who say "I've never looked back." There is no surer sign of fanatical devotion to a particular technology than that phrase. You will usually find "I've never looked back" after an anecdote justifying said fanatics use of the technology and especially their decisions to purchase fringe technology for relatively high prices. Ironically, "I've never looked back" is offered to endorse the fanatics chosen poster gadget, yet the phrase, if evaluated honestly, clearly says mor
      • The poster noted that he has tried the alternatives, including "natural keyboards".

        There is nothing wrong with "not looking back". I haven't looked back one moment since my elective castration.
      • "I started using an electronic can opener, and I've never looked back!"

        "I've switch from a 286 to a Xeon, and I've never looked back!"

        "I upgraded to a 19" monitor, and I've never looked back!".

        The "I've never backed phrase" indicates that the new way is better than the old way, and there are no-second thoughts about the decision. How is that fanaticism?

        It doesn't mean that I'm going to use a Xeon forever, or never investigate other options. It just means that the Xeon is better for my needs and I have n
    • unfortunately i also have a kinesis and it rocks and i'll never look back.
    • I had a Kinesis for several years. It's great for word processing, emails, etc...i.e. any situation where you're just typing regular text. As soon as you get into coding, gaming, etc where unorthodox key combinations are necessary, you start realizing that it's a 101-key QWERTY world. Don't even try to use Emacs productively with the Kinesis. All those CTRL-ALT combos just don't work as effectively.

  • Errrr (Score:3, Interesting)

    by amulder ( 257708 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:12PM (#12678240)
    I looked at the article, and saw the photo's, but it hardly looks comfortable. Seems to me that you'd get in trouble every time you let your wrists down.

    Seriously... how many of us have good piano skills and always keep our wrists up? Not me, thats what wrist rests are for...
  • No, I'm not going to give you a lecture on why Vi is better. But one editor rules them all.

    Ed: your Lord and Master [gnu.org]
  • Finally a Google image search (with safe search off) link that does not bring up any porn in the results!! Work Safe! YIPPEE!!!

  • HA! (Score:3, Funny)

    by zappepcs ( 820751 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:14PM (#12678249) Journal
    A real geek would have built a mechanical keyboard with voice input to eliminate all that nasty keystroking altogether....

    Points for effort, but come on, go all the way, the Rube Goldberg keyboard is the one that I want!!
  • I thought you took care of ALT with your thumb already?
    and where is the windows Key solution '/me ducks' I can't believe he removed it for his shift key :-}
    my solution was even simplier, I just taped my 'pinky' finger to the one next to it (2nd from index) , that way, it puts less stress/stretch on your tendons in your wrists

  • Personally... (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarthVain ( 724186 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:16PM (#12678263)
    The cheaper it is, and fewer options the better.

    I would rather a 10 buck clickity clack than a 100$ wireless, usb, internet, media, programmable, glow in the dark, led indicators, blue tooth, ergonomic, natural, quiet, windows, etc...

    So long as it interpretes typing. I am so sick of the varients. Wireless might be ok in some applications (media center for example), but is half this stuff ever needed or used.

    The last two stupid ones I bought (they were the cheapest I coudl find in a pinch), were a media one and an Internet one.

    They both sucked, half the time you would inadvertantly hit a button while doing something else. Let me tell you hitting the "internet" or "Media Player" button while playing a FPS online will make you curse.

    It is also all the more screwy buttons my cat can walk over and activate. So the next morning I can see several dozen apps started, or the computer put into standby or shutdown.

    Another positive with the cheapo keyboard is the ability to just toss it if you accidently spill crap on it.

    I am really just writing this to see if I get first post... :)
    • Uhm... so you've been buying the quality equivalent of $10 keyboards with $90 addons, and you are complain that they arn't better? A product stuffed full of useless features is *not* a sign of quality.
    • try an old clicky keyboard, or a new one from PCKEYBOARD.COM [pckeyboard.com] if my old Dell keyboard i scored dumpster diving (not in a dumpster, a drop off area for trash equipment) ever dies i am getting the black and white customizer.

  • It's obvious (Score:4, Funny)

    by fiori ( 45848 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:17PM (#12678270) Homepage
    Keyboard manufacturers are VI users...

  • nice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ate50eggs ( 647594 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:21PM (#12678294) Homepage
    I just wish pages for complicated mods had such detailed instructions with so many pictures. This one I think could have been described in a sentence or two.

  • Your hands are your career (Score:5, Insightful)

    by maynard ( 3337 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:22PM (#12678302) Journal
    I bought a Kinesis split bowl keyboard five years ago and haven't looked back since. It's still in use, and as sturdy as ever. While the article in question may offer a cheaper alternative, frankly I consider the ~$300 I spent on that keyboard worth every penny. It saved me from countless hours of finger and wrist pain while keeping me on the job when I might have been further injured. $300 is chump change compared to a career. I'd still gladly recommend the Kinesis, especially if you're beginning to feel keyboarding pain after a days work. --M
    • I would say it is probably worth it, but I would expect direct USB compatibility out of any keyboard costing more than $15. I am plenty happy with my Microsoft Natural Elite though, and it does have USB compatibility.
    • What do you do about the mouse? It seems like the travel from keyboard to mouse would be even longer with that keyboard.

  • Once again: Bind CAPSLOCK to Control (Score:4, Informative)

    by tezza ( 539307 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:24PM (#12678319)
    1. Use Sharpkeys [randyrants.com]
    2. Put a mapping from Caps Lock to Left Control
    3. Use new capslock instead
    4. No more Emacs wanky or whatever you said.

    You won't remember life before this change. And no having to use vi ;)

  • emacs or xemacs? (Score:5, Funny)

    by porky_pig_jr ( 129948 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:27PM (#12678336)
    hey, he says 'emacs, emacs, emacs is the greatest editor', and then he shows up the display with --- God forbid --- XEmacs.

    Bloody hypocrite.

  • Thanks Captain Obvious... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Monday May 30, 2005 @04:34PM (#12678366)
    "This eliminates the physical pain, but it does add financial pain: $240 US -- double that if you need one for home and one for work."
  • This reminds me of Marathon Pinky--the game used control as the run modifier. It never made my wrist hurt, but it made it hard to bend my pinky halfway.
  • ...as to why the author doesn't just swap caps and control like every Emacs power user does. It's no pinky strain at all to hit the caps lock key. This is just part of being a geek - you have to learn how to optimize your keyboard layout, or your hands are doomed.

    For the various vi acolytes who suggested he switch to vi, I would like to point out that switching to vi would be a better option if only the escape key on most modern keyboards weren't so far off the home row that you have to pick up and mov
    • It's only the vi noobs that use esc - anyone who's used vi for long has at least heard of using ^[ instead. And if, as you said, you've remapped capslock and control, it's not a reach at all.
    • I've been using vim for years, but I've always thought it was a little weird to use your pinky to hit the escape key. You've got to move almost your entire hand to do that anyway, why not just move it all? I use the middle finger of my left hand to hit the escape key and then just move my hand back to the home row. My hands know the position well enough to find it quickly, and the nubs on the F and J keys make it even easier. Similar with backspace; I use the ring finger of my right hand, not my pinky.
    • You can hit Ctrl-C for the same effect as ESC. This may be the best kept vi secret ever... it doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere. I used Vim for several years and became quite proficient at it before I discovered this.

  • More painful? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by NekoXP ( 67564 )

    I can't see how this is ergonomically better than his current keyboard or up
    to par with the $230 one.

    Probably he will end up crippled all for the want of being a cheap-ass. Such is
    the hippy FLOSS way, right?

  • one of the problems a lot of people have with key combo's is the control key... that is if you're using a pc keyboard as opposed to a unix keyboard where the control key is located with the caps lock button is..

    I've use pckeyboards everywhere, so i'm stuck with the control key at the bottom left and right hand sides... it's sooo bloody awkward to press alt-cntrl-key .... but with the capslock acting as cntrl it's much easier and damned easy.. and all those bloody emacs key combos make sense now..

    Shoul
  • Lemme guess: The K'nexis Made For Windows (TM) has delete instead of shift?
  • CPS will arrise from not moving your hands during repetitive motions. Making it all accessible now without moving is a dumb idea that'll save a few minutes a week but only cause more discomfort in the long run.
  • It's ugly, it's stupid, and it's not practical. You hit the trifecta.

  • GOD FIXING THIS IS SO EASY (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I DONT KNOW WHAT YOU GUYS HAVE SO MUCH TROUBLE WITH I JUST LEAVE CAPS LOCK ON ALL THE TIME AND IT WORKS FINE FOR ME I ALSO DONT USE PUNCTUATION ANYMORE

    GOD I DO HATE THIS FUCKING FILTER THOUGH IT GIVES ME PROBLEMS SOMETIMES

    Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumvention. Obnoxious filter circumv
  • I don't know what it is called, but my boss has this keyboard with two "leaves" that fold up vertically - so the keys are on two vertical planes, one for each hand, and your hands are held with the palms vertical, facing one another. You can't see the keyboard, so it takes some getting use to.

    The physiological rationale for this wierd keyboard is that your palms must be vertical; otherwise, the two bones in your forearm are twisted, and this twisting, which occurs with any flat or flatish keyboard, is wha
  • A much easier (software) modification I've made is to remap capslock to control.
  • I used to do something like this with xmodmap. I shifted the keyboard up a row (numbers and punctuation above numbers was accessed by modeshift), used the space bar for control, c for modeshift, v for backspace/delete, b for alt, n for space and m for shift. I basically stopped because I had a dual-boot setup with windows and couldn't do the same remapping. Although I'm a touch-typist, the misplaced letters threw me off. I know this option isn't available for the author of the article, being a windows user,
  • I don't think I stretch my pinkies much for hitting ctrl. I mean, I use them a little in Firefox (ctrl+tab, ctrl+shift+tab, ctrl+w, ctrl+t), but for my own key mappings for Fluxbox, and even for word-processing things like ctrl+a, I end up moving my whole hand and using my middle and ring fingers.

    As a side note (which everyone else is saying), Vi uses the : for much of what Emacs uses ctrl for. : is immediately to the right of the right pinky, just slightly easier to hit than enter.

    One more thing: I do

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