Goldtouch keyboards

[Funkstar]

Anyone used one of these infernal contraptions?



I know there is a think at the moment about the swear filter, but these are just bloody ****!!

Home, End, Page Up and Page Down keys squashed in at the side means you keep hitting them by mistake.

Delete is on the very far left!! What idiot decided to put it there??

Really these things are pathetic.

A large American oil company has these as standard on all their PCs, even the common use ones offshore and I am yet to see anyone have them split for "ergonomics". I wouldn't be surprised if they are f benefit when used like that, however the rest of the time they have terrible ergonomics because of the large gap betweeen the two sides. Completely pointless things.

[Fuzzed_out]

Looks terrible in all honestly. It might work for some one that has never used a computer though.

Is it hinged at the back or fixed like that? The MS comfort curve is the most "ergonomic" I would go personally.

[Sputnik]

I've seen soo many of these contraptions over the years and I've never had the slightest interest in buying one.
I really think it would be hard to improve the key layout on a standard qwerty keyboard to be of any benefit.
I've almost always bought Cherry keyboards although my current one is the one with flatter keys and short travel - Sometimes I think I should have just bought another standard one.

I find it hard enough to type in Russian on an English keyboard as it is, Without added complications.

[Funkstar]

Is it hinged at the back or fixed like that? The MS comfort curve is the most "ergonomic" I would go personally.

It has a lever at the pack you pull out to unlock the machanism, it can then be opened flat on the desk (pivoting around the joint at the back) or raised up as you desire.

Ergonomic keyboards do work, I've had a couple of the MS naturals in the past and liked them well enough at the time. I do prefer my basic cheap little Dell keyboard these days though.

I do know of people that cannot use a regular keyboard for any length of time without getting bad RSI/carpel tunnel.

[Pob255]

I used an ms split keyboard like that a few years back, lasted less than a month before I went back to a normal keyboard.

qwerty is actually not the best or most practical key layout, it dates back to mechanical keyboards as the best layout to reduce the chance of keyjams when typing fast.
The only reason we still use qwerty is that it's become such an ingrained standard.
There have been a couple of tries at replacing it with faster more intuative layouts for pc's but they always fail as everyone is taught/learnt on qwerty and retraining yourself to use non-qwerty takes far longer than first learning to type.

I do personally prefer keyboards with more slope on them to this new flat style of layout.

[Sputnik]

There was many types of input methods before the 1874 Sholes & Glidden typewriter which was the pioneer of the Qwerty keyboard.

But, I do agree. It is rather a case of what we are used to using.

[Pob255]

Ture I was just saying that there have been other keyboard layout for computer keyboards, which of course lack the mechanical limitations of a type writer, so you can lay them out in almost any way.

The Dvorak Simplified Keyboard being the most common after qwerty

Although this was originally designed for typewriters back in the 1930's

A good pc example is the Maltron Executive layout designed in the 1970's

[Funkstar]

A good pc example is the Maltron Executive layout designed in the 1970's

I wouldn't mind giving that a try to be honest.

The two letter halfs being seperated by the number keypad can only be a good thing for ergonomics as your wrists are not being bent at an odd angle, your arms would also be straight.