Pressing E with the thumb‽

[giscus[bot]]

Pressing E with the thumb‽

Exploring the history and reasoning behind a radical ergonomic keyboard layout and trying it out for myself.

https://precondition.github.io/pressing-e-with-the-thumb

[RacingMat]

great article! thanks
I'm definitely putting E on my scylla thumb cluster!

[mikeinliters]

This posts puts the "e" in "epic".

[mikeinliters]

*post

[sachamasry]

About a decade ago, the pain from typing became too frequent, so I started looking for revolutionary solutions. This led me to the Maltron keyboard, which seemed to be better in some layout areas (though not build quality) than the Kinesis of the time. As I was already changing to an alien keyboard, I opted for the layout change to Malt, having read their paper, with the 'E' key on the left thumb cluster.

The keyboard itself has been problematic, and is retired. However, I bought an Ergodox EZ, programming it to the Malt layout as best as possible, which I have now used at home for many years, successfully. For portable use, I have an Atreus, whose layout I have similarly ported over, again with the 'E' under the left thumb.

I have never been a particularly fast typist (maximum of ~75wpm), but I have found the 'E' key to be comfortable (and in a productive location) under the left thumb, and have never had recurring pain from either of the keyboards, despite them being flat and not caved like the Maltron or Kinesis. Even though I still have to use QWERTY keyboards (customers, laptop with no room for setting up the Atreus), I find the change to be instant and not a showstopper, but still much prefer the Malt layout overall, and attribute it mainly to the 'E' key.

Thanks for the well-researched article!