THE VIDEO SHELF · ortholinear vs staggered keyboards
Conventional Keyboards Are STAGGERINGLY STUPID!
Ben Vallack compares finger movement on a staggered keyboard with an ortholinear grid keyboard, using an Anne Pro 2 and a ZSA Planck EZ. He argues the stagger forces awkward finger motion.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN links it in keyboard threads as a short visual demonstration of why staggered layouts force unnatural finger movement.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Ben Vallack
- Topic
- ortholinear vs staggered keyboards
- Format
- demo
- Level
- intro
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 3
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2021–2022
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Where are all the 75% ortholinear split keyboards? All the super-duper ergo boards have very few keys and/or a strange layout (like this Djinn). Currently the best keyboard for my left forearm's RSI has been Mistel Barocco MD770 [1] but I've recently been aware how …
h3mb3 on Hacker News · 2021-11
In Djinn Split KeyboardNote that on normal keyboard all alpha keys are staggered to the left. For both hands. So, this stagger is not helping you to keep your left hand at correct angle. "Grid" ortholinear is not an ultimate solution either, but it is more comfy (from …
Fetiorin on Hacker News · 2022-08
In I spent a year designing a low profile, minimal mechanical keyboard
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.