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March 16, 2007
On Keyboards and Cognitive Dissonance
I use Linux on my machine at home - have for years. Windows just doesn't solve any problems that I have, and seems to create more than it's worth. I think it comes down to the fact that I'm a Unix hack at heart, and Windows is just frustratingly opaque and poorly layered to me.
Attached to said machine is an example of the pinnacle of keyboard design and construction - an IBM Model M keyboard I've had since the early 90's. I love it's finger feel, and my typing is far more accurate on it than any other keyboard I've tried. When I used to work remotely for OpenMarket and spent a lot of time on conference calls, I had to be sure to mute the phone if I was going to keep typing. If I forgot, the folks on the other end had no question who was making the call sound like a combat zone.
Work, however, has different on both counts for the past year. We develop on Windows, and I've been using a Microsoft Natural Multimedia keyboard. Aside from being "bent" and slightly squishy, the keyboard was tolerable. I've resisted bringing in a model M 'cause - well - it can sound like machine gun fire when I'm really on a roll, and I've been sharing an office. My most recent office mate, however, has the same keyboard preference, and didn't let the concern about noise stop him from bringing one in.
Fight fire with fire, I always say (ok, well, I don't really, but whatever, let it roll...)
So I bought two more Model M's on ebay ($25 each, a bargain) and brought one in yesterday.
And I had the most frustrating day: I couldn't get my fingers to cooperate at all. My accuracy went to hell, and I couldn't figure out why. Then, yesterday afternoon, it hit me.
I've been trying to use CMD windows like a real shell - but as much as I'd like it to, Ctrl-A doesn't move to the beginning of the line, Ctrl-K doesn't cut text into the kill ring, and Ctrl-Y doesn't bring it back. And no amount of wishing will make Ctrl-D delete characters, or Esc-b skip back one word.
Seems my brain strongly associates this keyboard feel with bash - and trying to tease them apart is going to be interesting.
Oh, and as an aside - one thing I do miss from the MS Keyboard are the Windows and Media keys. I mapped the right Alt key to the Win key (which makes Win-E, Win-R and Win-L require both hands, but it's better than nothing), and I've setup Winamp to use Ctrl-Alt-Insert, Home, and PageUp as Previous Track, Play/Pause, and Next track respectively, but I miss the volume keys. Anyone know of the "windows media" equivalent of a USB 10-key pad?
Might see if work will pick up one of these to see if that solves my problem.
Posted by dberger at March 16, 2007 8:27 AM
Comments
I've known you for what... 15 years now, and this is the first time you mention the Model M? You've been holding back on me, man. :-) I'm a fellow Model M junkie having fallen in love with them back in high school when I was taking Pascal classes with Turbo Pascal on IBM AT machines. (The whole ctrl/capslock switch had me screwed up for months.) I also used a Selectric at the medical billing gig. Ahhhh... keyboards with rhythm.
Unfortunately, the carpal in grad school did my normal keyboard use in. I switched to the "wacky" keyboard and haven't looked back. Of the split keyboards out there, the MSFT one is by far the best. It's comfy and I can maintain good typing speed with it.
The move from Unix to Windows was also painful for me and I still periodically hit <esc><esc> in Outlook to start a :wq. God Bless "Draft Mail". I'm also thankful for Undo after doing <ctrl>-a <ctrl>-k in Word. Some of these problems are starting to crop back up since I started using Linux VMs on my WinXP machine. (Will need to tell you about the goings on sometime soon.)
Here's some fun... Ever use e3? An editor written in assembly with default keybindings for WordStar. But at a 6k executable, it's worth page faulting and swapping in some memories...
Posted by: Steve S. at March 17, 2007 9:36 PM
If you're used to the feel of the Model M in conjunction with bash, why not run bash? Alternatively, get over it and use the home, end and arrow keys. Emacs controls are there because old terminals didn't HAVE arrow keys. Using the emacs keys isn't like being a proponent of manual transmission where you can actually drive better. It just makes you crotchety.
OTOH, I have in my possession a PS2 keyboard with a very responsive feel AND a windows key on both sides of the keyboard. I might be persuaded to part with it, since its sitting in a shed after all.
Finally, regarding your media keys issue. I doubt you'll find anything labeled play / pause / skip track and so on, but you could probably easily find something programmable like this or for the really ostentatious this
Now quit your damn bitching.
Posted by: Brad at March 19, 2007 10:13 AM