It’s definitely about comfort, but i’ve also never been faster on any other board. Gotta admit I’m not a fast typist, with around 80wpm.

I’ve been using Zilpzalp basically exclusively for over a year, at this point I don’t think I’ll ever find a more comfortable board :)

started out with an Architeuthis Dux, never regretted it :)

Addendum to 1: While QMK is nice, I personally prefer ZMK and use it even on my wired boards. So just wanna say, “forced to use” sounds a bit harsh. ZMK is a great and very capable firmware, and it does certain things better than QMK.

tbh it sounds like what you need is better firmware configuration if these things are out of reach. a common approach is to make the spacebar a tap-hold key that outputs space on tap and switches to another layer on hold. on that layer you could bind arrow keys on ijkl, for example, and still have shift, alt, ctrl in easy reach.

I wrote a short Introduction to Small Keyboards a while ago for the guys from keeb.supply when they first stocked kits for my Zilpzalp keyboard.

Maybe it’ll help understand some of the appeal of small boards and how to productively use them 😊

So cool! Love the roundings, especially around the trackball 👌👌👌 And also Chicago Steno is such bliss 😌

Ergogen is so good 👌 Writing the firmware is surprisingly easy thanks to zmk / qmk :) Fingers crossed for the future work!

Sure, here you go:

so what you’re saying is… moving your arm outwards to use the mouse is more ergonomic than moving it inwards? 🤔

yeah i understand that :D just saying, combos are harder to activate than single key presses

i’d rather so a+z=q, gotta have them high-frequency letters on base! but qwerty isn’t really a good fit for such reduced layouts at all 😅

Since others already posted the larger variants… I’m partial to the Rommana.

i see :) well CS is definitely my favourite choc profile, so i can see how it would also work uniformly!

oh interesting! why only r3? 👀

Awesome! Can’t wait to try it 😊

it really is very nice 😌

you got the order reversed there, get the board first to be motivated to learn typing on it! :)

I have them on almost all of my MX boards, and Chcago Steno on the choc ones :)
genuinely goated profile

so, ummm…

(obviously not final, just a quick mock-up)