Best keyboards for emacs?

Question

For emacs users out there, what are your recommended keyboards?

Bonus points for keyboards that:

1. Have no capslock key. Instead, a control key in that position.
2. Alt keys that are closer to the center, and easier to use with meta key combos. I find alt keys too far to the left to be a bit awkward to hit with my thumb in some key combos.
3. Help ergonomically with emacs in other ways.

I'm not a huge fan of model M style high and clacky keys. I instead prefer laptop style flat keys; however, I'm not disqualifying either category.

A couple of interesting keyboards I'm curious if people have tried with emacs:

1. Kinesis: http://www.kinesis-ergo.com/contoured.htm
2. Datahand: http://www.datahand.com/

semi-conclussion: I ended up getting an MS natural 4k, which I like a lot overall as the alt keys on both sides are easy to hit with your thumbs. This is useful for ergoemacs-mode. http://xahlee.org/emacs/ergonomic_emacs_keybinding.html

However, one flaw I see with this keyboard is that the number keys are shifted to the left, so that "6" is on the wrong side of the keyboard. Aside from that "0" is left shifted enough that I accidentally hit "-" when I meant to hit "0" with my pinky.

Due to this flaw, I'm leaving this question open in case someone can come up with the perfect emacs keyboard.

Answer 1

I use MS Natural 4K, with some keybindings altered to cope with the different geometry.

In particular, I swapped c-p/n with a-p/n.

My hand and keyboard geometry are such that Alt lies directly under my thumb and I can trivially scroll up and down with thumb of left and and first/third finger of the right hand.

I do not have pinky pain.

Also, I use emacs & MS 4K both at work and at home, and I am pretty much 100% happy with it and plan to continue it.

Answer 2

I have a model M "Das Keyboard" Ultimate - no letters on it, highly ergonomical and very beneficial to my productivity. I used to share your taste for low profile laptop style keyboards, but ever since I got the Das Keyboard I cannot imagine using another keyboard. It's as noisy and heavy as they get, but it's benefits cannot be described by mere words - one has to type on it for himself... Since you can easily remap CAPS to control(which I've done) I don't think that you should consider something like this in a keyboard a particular advantage. Also - if you get attached to using a keyboard with a highly customized key layout you'll be very impaired when you have to do some work from time to time on a regular keyboard...

Answer 3

I use a GoldTouch keyboard at work and home, and it works great to keep my arthritis at bay. I've remapped the Caps Lock to the Ctrl-key which helps quite a bit w/emacs-pinky. The Alt-key is a bit problematic, but I've solved some of this with a simple mapping in my .emacs file:

; Replace M-x with C-x C-m or C-x C-c
(global-set-key "\C-x\C-m" 'execute-extended-command)
(global-set-key "\C-xm"    'execute-extended-command)

Answer 4

Any OS allows you, one way or another, to remap all your keys.

This will improve greatly your speed, as long as you are not one of those who actually have to look at the keyboard while they type.

If you do that, you can then choose the keyboard focusing exclusively on the one which has the best physical keys (just try them).

I use Apple's wide keyboard and it's - for me - the best one I've ever used by far.

Answer 5

I recently got a ThinkPad USB TrackPoint Keyboard at work, and is very pleased with it.

I always remap the Caps Lock to act as an extrac Ctrl. When I do need the mouse, the trackpoint is right there, no need to move your hand away from the keyboard.

The keyboard is very flat and I like the feel of the keys. I have a couple of thinkpad laptops as well, and as this is essentially the same keyboard, the feel is the same whether I at my desk or working directly on the laptop - that's a big plus.

Here's some photos: http://www.thinkpads.com/2009/08/31/finally-photos-of-new-thinkpad-usb-trackpoint-keyboard/

Answer 6

Upvoting MS Natural Pro 4000. It is the only Microsoft product I use on a regular basis and can strongly vouch for it.

Answer 7

I like the Sun Type 6 Keyboard for Emacs - http://www.aquaphoenix.com/graphics/SunKeyboardType6/SunKeyboardType6_front_top-large.jpg

Answer 8

I used the Kinesis keyboard with Emacs for many years and loved it. Having Alt, Ctrl, Del, and Backspace all easily reachable with the thumbs is very, very nice. The location of the arrow keys is also quite convenient.

Answer 9

I use a traditional keyboard, except that I change Caps Lock key to Ctrl and Document key to Caps Lock.

Answer 10

as an avid emacs user and long time rsi sufferer, the best solution i found was kinesis combined with footpedals. i program the pedals for Ctrl, Alt, Meta, and thus can use the notorious emacs combos with only a single finger. especially repeated Ctrl sequences work very well in this configuration. obviously you'll need to reprogram the keyboard a little bit, but those changes will be obvious.