I kept seeing people singing praises to ortholinear keyboards; I kept seeing people singing praises to split keyboards; I wondered if I, being firmly in the IBM buckling springs faction, would ever get to try out these concepts without switching switches. Well, I could!
- The SOLBUS keyboard(s) in action.
- SOLBUS1.jpg (463.8 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
- IBM Model M 50-keys keypad, P/N 1392560.
- SOLBUS2.jpg (293.45 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
- IBM Model M 50-keys keypad, P/N 1393915.
- SOLBUS3.jpg (308.35 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
Using two of orihalcon's SDL to USB Soarer Converters, I would remap both keypads to the computer and use them at the same time, so that they would behave like a single, ortholinear, split keyboard. This would be the SOLBUS keyboard — keyboard cluster, more precisely.
After collecting all the hardware I needed, I designed the layout for both sides of the SOLBUS. It wasn't too difficult, except that the presence of a 2U Enter key on one implied some restrictions on what I could do (opening that keypad to install the missing flipper wasn't really an option within the scope of this experiment, so I had to make do with what I had).
- The SOLBUS layout (.sc files available upon request).
- SOLBUS4.png (26.58 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
- The general layout imitates a normal alphanumeric block as much as possible.
- The function keys and the PrtSrc/Scroll Lock/Pause keys are moved off to the leftmost cluster.
- The "center" four clusters get almost all the alphanum block, including mods.
- The rightmost cluster is pretty much a modified, 65%-like nav area. My initial intention was to have the Home/PgUp/PgDn/End keys in the rightmost column, but I couldn't do that because of the 2U Enter key; I shifted them one place to the left.
- The above change stopped me from having the 2U ISO-like Enter key to the right of #~ and ]} — The tiny 1U Enter key in the middle wasn't too bad, as at I still had a secondary 2U Enter key at the lower right corner.
- I reserved one key on each side for Fn keys. Their usefulness, however, is limited, as both can used be only in combination with keys on their respective keypad. In the end, I didn't bother programming them to do anything.
- The SOLBUS keyboard cluster, ready for business.
- SOLBUS5.jpg (687.85 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
- The SOLBUS keyboard cluster, with the XXK keyboard above it.
- SOLBUS6.jpg (482.08 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
- The SOLBUS keyboard(s) in action.
- SOLBUS1.jpg (463.8 KiB) Viewed 3194 times
After a few days, this is what I found:
- I was somewhat worried that the mods wouldn't work as expected (e.g.: a pressed Shift key on the SOLBUS-R not being heeded when, say, pressing the 1 key on the SOLBUS-L with the intention of getting a '!' character). My doubts were unfounded, as this was not an issue.
- Each keypad is 2KRO; the SOLBUS isn't really 4KRO, but rather (2+2)KRO. Yay.
- 1U mods and 1U space bars were a bit uncomfortable; horizontal 2U keys (like the numpad 0) would be quite an improvement in this regard... this something that could be fixed — buy those keys from Unicomp, open the keypad, take out a few select flippers, put everything back, done! In a keyboard with MX switches, however, this is not an easy proposition. Kudos to IBM for their rod stabilizers!
- The F keys, grouped in horizontal groups of three were... weird. Neither good or bad, but quite different from everything else in this regard that I've ever used or seen. F5 was the weirdest of the lot, as it's in the center of the cluster, instead of having any edge; F8 and F11 were subject to the same issue, but both of them together got nowhere nearly as much usage as F5. I now wonder whether setting the F keys in vertical groups of four would have been better (at least F5 would have been the top key in the center column).
God, I am slow at this thing! This undoubtedly is because I had never used a split keyboard before and had never used an ortholinear keyboard before, either; my self-developed typing technique for regular keyboards is quite inappropriate for a non-staggered layout. To make things worse (here comes the part that I did fully expect), the inner separators on both keypads screw things further, making it even more difficult to type properly, good technique or not — it took me quite a lot to stop mistyping the S key for the A.
I found myself avoiding typing as much as I could and doing navigation with the mouse instead of the nav cluster all the time. Whenever I did have to write something, I'd start by putting my fingertips on the "proper" home positions, start hitting keys, yet quickly devolving to a sort of floating technique where my hands would move all over the place (something that split keyboards are supposed to inhibit), even more so than when I write on a regular keyboard. Whenever I had to press the uncomfortably small 1U Backspace key, which was quite frequent, my right hand would lose its position and I'd have to restart. I also noticed that I used a lot the space key below B with my left thumb (I normally only hit space bar with my right thumb, right below the area between N and M), something that seems to be a natural evolution from the fact that my left hand, not having to move away from the alphanum keys nearly as much, tended to lose its home position quite less.
For maximum embarrassment, let's see a typing demo.
I suppose I could, with better/proper training, learn how to touch type properly on a split ortholinear keyboard, but... the inner separations of the keypads make it more difficult. Learning to do it on the SOLBUS isn't a good idea, really, because I'd risk getting into my muscle memory the "vice" of the separations that won't exist on proper ortholinear keyboards, something that I'd then have to unlearn.
Another problem of having forced these keypads into a split ortholinear keyboard is that the 3,3,4 clusters are less than ideal — on the SOLBUS-L it wasn't that bad (in the home position, my four fingers were on the right cluster, then the pinky had to travel a bit more to get to the 1QAZ column), but the SOLBUS-R would have been more bearable with a mirrored 4,3,3 disposition (as it was, in the home position, my index and middle fingers rested on the left cluster, while the ring and pinky fingers had to rest on the middle cluster). Then again, no cluster dividers at all would have been best — just two 10×5 grids (or, even better, 9×6?).
An unexpected tidbit from this experiment is that now I understand better why proponents of ortholinear keyboards insist so much on keeping their fingers not far away from the home row — a nav cluster screws with that.
The experiment has ended. I am typing again on the XXK; the SOLBUS-L is back to being my son's macropad, and the SOLBUS-R has been stored, waiting for its next assignment. As I write this, the layouting circuits in my brain are firing up ideas as to how implement another split ortholinear keyboard (to be made from scratch) that would overcome the problems I noticed with the SOLBUS and the layout I used on it.
All in all, a fun experience.
