The Smallest Keyboard Ever | Prime Reacts 

Lol the barefoot shoe thumbnail grossed you out (my vid as well). Thanks for this though - made my day! It’s quite the rabbit hole. I’m using an 18 key version now. Very interesting what you’re saying about the role of whole word patterns in different layouts. With the two alpha layers I find it really becomes a lot about whole word patterns. As a result I hit a speed plateau and now feel that improving my whole word patterns is the way to get over the plateau. It’s still super enjoyable to use but it’s still error prone.

Yes learn soldering, understanding computers even one level lower. Its like the C of real hardware creation.

3:50 As a hardware engineer i can confirm, its not that complicated. Its just new and unfamiliar to you. You can understand that image after an hour or two of tutorials.

I made an iPhone case with a 16-key mechanical keyboard on the back of it. You wrap your fingers around the back, thumbs still on the glass. It uses braille layout; using circuit Python to implement the chordes layout. Using braille collapses everything down into 8 keys; and the other 8 are special chording, like alt/ctrl, etc. What is great about it is that it fully emulates US qwerty, and you don't need to look at your iPhone while you type. You can respond to text messages while looking ahead of you. I created it because I learned computer braille, due to vision issues. The only problem I have with it is that the USBC to lightning cable sticks out. It drains the battery a bit. If I used bluetooth, it would drain it even more. Chorded layouts are a little slower than non-chorded layouts, because you need to take overlapped keys into account.

Building your own keyboard and your own layout feels like the same vibe as deeply customizing your IDE. It's all about having an intimate relationship with your tools.

You mentioned not understanding why Ben did not use a 'hold' function as the layer, the problem was the hold function itself. In other words, Ben's problem was that he was typing faster than his hand could move, his index finger and thumb would work together to hit a letter that was on a layer. But when his intentions were to hit a character that was not on a layer, his fingers would hit the next key before his thumb has responded and lifted from the key. My moving this to a macro, he made it a one shot layer. His intention to hit a key not on a layer would be typed in, even though his thumb was physically pressing down the key and did not lift in time.

Yes ! Absolutely would love to watch you build this / or your own ideal keyboard, it'd be a great learning experience for you and just a great journey to follow along with

So is this the keyboard enthusiast equivalent to a waifu pillow?

the ferris sweep is so good, i made a sweep with nice!nano's last year and for the past year ive been using that for all my coding, just having all my shortcuts, symbols and numbers within reach without moving my hands is so comfortable. I cannot recommend it enough

Fell down the split ergo keyboard rabbithole a few months ago. With no previous soldering experience I built a "Piantor" keyboard. I'm using the Miryoku keymap with Colemak-dh keylayout. I'm currently really slow at typing but it's been a really fun experience, I feel like there is so much potential to be gained if I just keep at it. I was nervous about the soldering (watched a bunch of youtube videos before starting) but everything went great and worked on the first try. Looking forward to building more keyboards

I've been following Ben since he did a ZSA Moonlander review. I've got interested and after some time, bought it and got into customization. After a year I decreased the number of keys down to 18 and was very happy with the layout. I had a take on Engram keyboard layout (I had to change it a bit). In the meantime I realized that Ben also did an 18 key layout, but we had a totally different philosophy. I stopped using the layout ultimately, and actually moved back to a regular keyboard, even though I was very confidently using it day-to-day on both MacOS and Windows. I do recommend trying this out, it's gonna teach you a lot about the keyboard ergonomics. My journey started, because I had a chronic index finger pain. And actually, even though I'm not using this keyboard anymore, the pain went away (fingers crossed forever)

I was inspired by you talking about your split keyboard on stream, found this guys channel and ended up building my own ferris sweep split 34 key keyboard, I love how you can totally customise it to fit your own needs.

Been watching Ben for a while now, his videos are *chefs kiss* and he goes so deep you get pulled in with him. Super fascinating stuff!

Been trying Colemak DH ISO and it has been quite pleasant layout to write English. I recommend checking it out if you're looking for an alternative to QWERTY layout that will reduce finger movements. Colemak has copy & paste functionality close to the original positions for quick access if you don't want to change the keybinds.

If you watch The Mother of All Demos from the 60s, he has a little chorded device he uses to type with his left hand when he's using the mouse, in addition to having a full keyboard

Just made a keyboard like this with minimal soldering experience and although it was a bit stressful, it was a ton of fun.

I think he says directly why he doesn't want to hold for layer. His example as I understood it was he wants to hit a key A in layer1, press the modifier and key B in Layer 2, then hit key C in layer 1 faster than he's able to remove his finger from the modifier key. I'm assuming that the reason for the speed difference is that it's slower to press and lift one finger than press two separate fingers in quick succession.

11:10 You can easily change the settings of PopOS to allow you to switch workspaces via hotkey and also open certain application with hotkeys

I use neo2 as my keyboard layout (even though I haven't typed anything in German in years). The layout starts with XVLC so you still have all of those available for left hand copy/paste. Also it has a 3rd layer that gives all the brackets on index/middle finger and just a well thought out layout for programming (I haven't bothered with anything above layer 3, but things would be useful for productivity if you had a 60% keyboard or even smaller. Admittedly I'm currently only at 100 ish wpm (on a Q8 alice layout), but I definitely see much room for improvement.

Prime the patterns you’re referring to are bigrams and trigrams, they’re the “rolls” which you want to feel good. There are layouts which optimise the most common tri and bigrams, colemak-dh for example!

I started writing on ergo keyboards from ~50 keys on Iris and after 2 years I had so many symbols on my layers that I decided I don’t need as many keys. I finally went down to 36 and I have never felt so comfortable before. That said, I’ve never been very fast (90wpm on simple words) and I don’t think I ever will - not sure how well would it work if I typed >100wpm (especially when using the home row mod). But experimenting with different layers layouts was a lot of fun. Not for everyone probably but I think it is worth trying.

In the context of courtroom proceedings, stenographers or court reporters use a specialized chorded keyboard or typewriter called a steno machine or stenotype machine to transcribe the spoken words into written form in real time . These machines have a limited set of keys, each of which represents a syllable or a group of sounds, allowing stenographers to type much more quickly and accurately than the average typist. The written text produced by these machines is then used to create an official transcript of the proceedings. There are also specialized keyboards and mice designed for courtrooms that are quiet and easy to clean.

I build Ben's 34key ergo board, and it's really a great layout. I highly suggest it. I have an extra pair of PCBs if you want them prime

Big fan of Ben Vallack. I really want someone that is deep into Vim to work through how they'd like their layers on a fewer key keyboard.

On macOS, there's a Dvorak with QWERTY command keyboard layout. Text typing is Dvorak, but as soon as you hold the command (meta) key, it switches to QWERTY. Then, all shortcuts have the layout they were designed for.

This is really cool. But this remind me of the person given 20 years to cut down a tree that spent 19 years, 11 months, 30 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes sharpening their axe.

So what window manager do you use that lets you go back to the browser without alt+tab?

I started with kinesis, then used ferris sweep (like 32 keys) for like 6 mo. I found when I got fast I was hitting wall and it got frustrating because you have to throttle a bit to switch layers. Now i use hillside (52 keys) as perfect compromise. Allows for dedicated layer keys and so no throttling. Give it a try sometime!

I’ve watched all of his videos. I ended up getting a sofle. I have all of the “programmer keys” on the home row on one layer. And then A for @ and S for $. And arrow keys on hjkl on another layer

Ben has awesome tutorials on building those boards! The corne keyboard is my fave

"I hate this idea of thinking" Could be a take from Tom.. He's a genius btw

What window manager do you use?

Hipster keyboards: perfect for when you don’t really care about getting actual work done

Once you have used OSM on qmk, a split keyboard, and i3, your are part of the club. You may try to get out but you will always come back.

would love to see a guy who's "never soldered anything" try to handwire a keyboard lmao

I have seen the exact video and made my own ferris sweep because of it. It was very worth it but getting used to the new layout and learning it, took time. I still recoment it!

old video so I'm shouting into the void but... if you want to get into a non qwerty layout, do it at the same time as moving to a non-standard keyboard, like one a split one with ortholinear keys. Something that you will be able to immediately feel is different as soon as you put your hands on it. Yes at sucks for a while starting from scratch and typing slow BUT, because the keyboard is different, you'll be able to hold onto your qwerty muscle memory any time you sit at a normal keyboard which is very useful. Learning two different layouts on the same style of keyboard is really hard and take a lot of flip flopping and practice. I learned colemak on a split ortho keeb and now I don't even think about it, once my hands touch the keyboard it just auto switches layout based on the feel of the board. Very handy. I eventually replaced Colemak (which is way better than dvorak btw) with Engrammer which is pretty obscure but really great for comfortability and speed as a developer. Engrammer really needs an ortho keyboard though, staggered or not, but it's been really great. Focuses on inward rolls and easy placement of common programming symbols

I use a ferris sweep, and i absolutely love it.

Prime, you are literally already the guy 🫠🤷‍♂️

My solution to copy, paste with one hand on dvorak: holding `-` acts as ctrl, to mirror my esc/ctrl for caps lock. It also makes ctrl-shift combos really nice; hold ctrl-shift with one hand, press the key with the other. I could probably make it a bit nicer with a dedicated layer, but choosing all the hotkeys, mapping them, and remembering them when needed is a lot more work.

One of the larger keys could double as a small trackpad (but only acting like a trackpad if pressing another key, otherwise its just a normal key), a bit like the steam deck ones in form factor. Either that or one of those thinkpad trackpoints in between some keys.

"Hold, what's wrong with hold-for-layer?" When you start to get into these uber-tiny layouts, there's a lot of pressure to start doing key-combos and gestures to increase what your few keys do. I LITERALLY got my 54-key Iris rev7 today, so I don't know who I'll be after a year of this, but I can't see myself using a keyboard that small. The 36-key boards like the Ferris are about as small as I could see myself going.

Yabai is basically i3 for Mac

Bro, this video came at the perfect time. I am obsessed with split ergos. I started with an interest in the Kinesis, thanks to you, and then decided on the low profile 5 Column Corne with 36 keys. But I want the “concavity”! So now I’m about to pull the trigger on either a Charybdis Nano or Skeletyl from Bastard Keyboards. 36 keys seems like the sweet spot, and I really want to try the Miryoku layout.

I use dvorak on a split keyboard (model 100 from keyboardio) - I have a one-handed left hand layer for when my right hand is on the pointing device that I can access for cut/copy/paste, as well as space and enter (both of which are usually on the right side) and arrow keys. (ok also mouse buttons because I was playing with a ploopy nano trackball for a bit and it's just a ball with no buttons, don't ask).

Building and customizing a keyboard is the natural next step for you

The man not only types fast, he speaks fast

would you try colemak instead of dvorak? Just for the sake of knowing three keyboard layouts

Love Ben Vallack's vids. Strongly recommend you get a ferris sweep or a corne for starters though.

Should try building a witless corne, either 36 or 42 key layout, hands down my favourite out of the custom builds I’ve tried

I use the corne keyboard. It has 42 keys total. That is all you ever need because the concept of layers exist. That's 4,398,046,511,104 keys essentially... would you ever need more than that? The corne keyboard is essentially the vim of keyboards. It's a more practical version of the keyboard in this video.

I built one of these following what Ben says. Been using it for a year now. Best keyboard ever. Best keyboard ever. Can't stress it enough. Super comfortable once you get accustomed to it.

6:05 this is why I went back to qwerty. I had moved to another layout and was really enjoying it and gaining speed. However I had to use somebody's keyboard and I just felt like a fool... I immediately gave up and went back to qwerty.

What do you use for switching between windows if not alt tab?

Currently using an 18 key split board right now with a modification of Ben Vallack's layout. Couldn't be happier with it.

I can maintain both colemak-dh and qwerty along side each other quite well. Switching is just a skill that you have to practice. There are quite a few tricks for learning this but currently I can full speed switch between the two, while typing.

"I don't even know who this is... Ben Vallack? Ok Ben Affleck..." Lol!

If you are already a fan of the dactyl style keyboard, but want less keys, the Charybdis Nano from Bastard Keyboards is amazing, even has a trackball built in.

I went back to QWERTY after using Colemak for like 2 years. I loved the feeling of Colemak, but like Prime said I want to be able to type on any computer, and also I didn’t barely use vim in all these years because of it and I missed it.

having already seeing this video this guy is on another level.

I've heard you mention on stream a few times that you don't like to take on new cognative overhead. Don't you think that having like... however many layers you need for this many keys is kind of a lot of overhead? I use a split, and I was going to get one without the number row, but I found that using numbers on a function layer along with all of their shift variants was too much overhead for me while coding and stuff.

I'm using moonlander and corneish-zen in combination with a mbp, with a 3x5 heavily modified miryoku layout and I'm pretty happy with this setup. Moonlander on the work desk when the mbp is connected to a monitor, and Corne-ish Zen everywhere else since it's very easy to transport and setup (no wires and no tenting shenanigans in comparison to the moonlander). Tried the mouse emulation, but felt challenging to click the GUI elements with precision at times. In the end, I just switched to using the Homerow app instead - works like vimium link hints for the OS.

QWERTY "flows" so well because the most used keys are far apart, meaning you can't hit them easily by accident when fast typing. A welcome leftover from mechanical typewriters.

You should take a look at Miryoku layout, for a starter. Ben's layout was too much for me, Miroku was the sweet spot. You can try it on a mechanical keyboard before commiting to a board - removing some keycaps... As for keyboards you can use anything - my suggestios are Ferris Sweep, Draculad or Corne/Helidox. You can buy those as kits for soldering but some vendors will build them for you. As a suggestion if you want to have space for A LOT of features it is better to have a RP2040 microcontroller, but for the basics any Promicro clone will do. Last hint: check if you really need bluetooth - this limits a bunch the microcontroller and firmware choice. QMK (C) and KMK (python) and ZMK (C) are the main players - keyberon is a new player on the block (Rust). To a coder each one has different appeals. Again, not all run on all microcontrollers. I love QMK, but Bluetooth as far as I am aware works only on ZMK. Welcome to the rabbit role.

I've been using a self-made FerrisSweep v2 (32 keys, the one you see at 2:35 ) for like 5 months now (thanks to Ben Vallack's video). I created a custom layout with mod keys on the home row (meaning I have to hold f or j to use "shift" or d/k to "Ctrl") and I switch between my layers holding one (or both) the thumb keys. When I got my hands on it, I think my typing speed was like 20wpm instead of my usual 80 and I thought "Ok, let's just say it was a fun experiment, but there is no way I'll ever be able to write at a decent speed with this thing)"... but I'm quite persistent so ...^^ Since then, I hit 110wpm and working has never been so fun, especially since I use vim so that I can keep my hands on the keyboard 90% of the time. It's not so much about the speed, but rather about how comfortable it is to use once you get used to it (mods keys + symbols on home row changes everything).

Tom doesn't even use his fingers to code

I went with a 40% otholinear - Planck EZ after watching one of Ben's videos. The don't ship them anymore. Quite an aesthetic keyboard, highly customisable. I have a slight hold on C, P & V to get copy cut and paste. It's nice to have macros stored on the board too... Though even after proper lubing the keys still feel scratchy.

The Ferris is a very nice keyboard, very easy to solder if you get the diodeless version

Next level of customization would be around languages you use, an optimzed design for most use keystrokes in lifetime in a particular language.

I tried the kinisis A. 360 and ended up returning it and using a Ferris sweep. Such an amazing keyboard (you can buy them premade)

The inability to type on other PCs is the number one reason I refuse to learn another type layout

Primeagen X Ben Vallack crossover yes babyyy - Prime if you dont want to get into making your own keebs, there are programmable prebuilts (I use a Dygma Raise) which allow you to experiment with the thumb clusters and smaller key layouts, I would say a 36 or 38 layout is a good starting point, Miryoku is a well established 36 key layout.

QWERTY for life. I touch-typed at ludicrous speed as a kid, then relearned it "the right way" in my teens which was frustrating AF, but at 150+ WPM I just don't see the benefit in learning a new layout. Faster typing isn't going to make NPM suck less.

behold for neuralink to install keyboard and window manager directly in your brain.

I designed own version of the layout while impatiently waiting for his video on it, back half a year. Now I work with 22 keys -- that's what I found best - 2 rows of 4 keys, 3 keys on each thumb. I did it all until that point -- qwerty, dvorak, workman, colemak -- started having issues every time I approached 70 wpm; I'm prone to RSI I guess! Small hands. I've put comments in his video about my journey, I think I was at 50wpm in 2 days (able to work), 60wpm in a week, 70wpm in a month, 90wpm in 2 months (current speed). I think because there are no movements and only presses, the issues with learning are limited to forgetting to press the layerswitch for letters, and that is really easy to overcome. The rest is just remembering the very few positions -- it makes it really easy to visualize the layout and keep in your head when you're working with two 4x2 boxes of keys! I cannot recommend it enough, if you don't "need" to do above 120wpm (for programming, I find optimized symbols, macros and editor/OS fluency as way more important anyway). Now I literally -cannot- get RSI issues because there is literally no weird angles whatsoever. Sub-50gram switches for comboing columns and you're golden. And you can pick whatever weird switches you want to when there's just 20 of them -- I'm even considering going no-PCB handwired so I can optimize the key angles (esp. thumbs) more due to how approachable and small my keyboard is!

Built a ferris sweep a few months ago, my only advice is build a wireless as wired felt messy and get a case for the bottom mayve 3d print one

You could become the guy who builds his own keyboard but is still chill about it.

13:59 was that a rob riggle pop?

Do you still use hjkl when typing Dvorak, or have you remapped it to dhtn?

oh man, I started using Dvorak because of you. I guess that half of the Dvorak fanclub has the same source if inspiration :)) After 10 months of using it I reached like 80% performance I had on QWERTY before switching. But hey! the very first thing I did when I moved to this new layout was to remap that f***ing L out from that place. So, I swapped it with D and I'm very happy with my decision since.

"I just hate this idea of, like, thinking"

I'm debating how I want to go forward with keyboards. I really want to do a split ortholinear keyboard, I think. I'm just debating between Colemak or Workman for the layout.

10:47 windows already has these macros, it's windows key + number, and it's related to what's on your windows bar thing.

I have a lily58 and I was surprised at how much further I could have gone without problems probably

I use a Corne daily and only downside is if I need to hit the enter key, I may not have an extra hand available for the layer key if you know what I mean

If you're looking for a board to build look into BastardKB's. They make some nice things! You'd probably like the Dilemma or Charybis Nano (CNano)

Yeah the tab thing is suboptimal, you have to process what you see then switch to the app, we can do exactly the same with Rofi, I even have it mapped to super+tab but I never use this option. Never used the popshell more than few minutes because it was buggy at the time but Gnome isn't even capable of hanfdling independant workspaces per monitor so it's a no go for multi monitor users, maybe the PopTeam would do better with the cosmic DE they;re developping since they won't have to deal with the hassle of being a gnome extension. Otherwise it's cool but don't get why he isn't using a tiling wm if his goal is being more efficient by using his keyboard skills, here it's like building a Ferrari but driving it in the sand.

OK... real talk: if ypu enter the dark realm of self-built QMK keyboards, it never ends. it is simply not possible to _master the concrete_ - every few days you will realise that is would make more sense to shift the arrow keys to layer 5 and also attach some 'tap dance' behaviour to them becasue *WHY NOT* . My first foray was with a keebio Iris 2.5 with a 'stock' controller, no underglow, and no RGB (and *wired* - like a cave-man keyboard)... upgraded the controller to an ElitePi (for 1Mb instead of 32kB); added Bluetooth; added RGB (so I knew what layer was active). I've even retained a *QWERTY* layer - mostly so that I can compare typing speeds (which have never been hot: 70wpm is more than enough). That's *LAYER 12* . Layer 0: *Engram* with {|=~+^&%*} as numrow and 'mod' keys (Ctrl; Alt; Shift, Win) on HOLD of home-row (LH has LShift etc; RH has RShift etc); HOLD of top row activates other layers (some for one keypress; others switch to the layer); tumb keys are SPACE and ENTER. NO DEL or BKSP. Layer 1: RH is numpad; LH is symbols, also some app launchers for mail, web; calculator etc. Layer 2: LH is multimedia controls; RH is arrows/keypad/PgUp/PgDn; top row is F1-F12. ... Layer 12 is QWERTY (alpha-only) with 'mod' keys on strong fingers Layer 13 is an experimental layer, trying to get every vim 'leader' combo to be a single- or double-tap on a single key. Obviously there are layer-nav keys sprinkled about the place - most often on the thumb keys. And the 'mod-keys on hold' applies to every layer where it has any use. Seriously, ThePrimeMegan - once you go there, there is no going back without some sort of cult-deprogramming workshop. I use Artix, dwm, tmux, lf, st, and (usually) *ytfzf* - and vim - btw.

Firmware builders like QMK make this type of thing really really not hard at all, if you wanna start getting into wanting to code your own firmware from scratch too then yeah it’s gonna be hard but just producing a keyboard like that is something prime can do in honestly a day at most.

I'd think the steno keyboard and the steno typing systems might be the most optimized for the typing speed at the expense of the steeper learning curve.

It's absurd. If I want to press P, then I press one specific key, not learn some weird shortcuts in my head and press 2-3 keys together to get a P. Absolutely absurd. But interesting, enjoyable to see new ideas, even those which are dumb.

The callout for dvorak is wholly why I use workman as my layout instead of dvorak.

Colemak is underrated. Although I recommend the following customizations: 1. Instead of replacing Caps Lock with a second Backspace: Just swap Caps Lock & Backspace. 2. Add a secondary mode/profile where top-row numbers & symbols are swapped but can be retrieved during Caps Lock. Once I went Colemak I never went back. Although it does definitely make it awkward to be stuck using other peoples' keyboards, but at the same time keyboards are like smartphones now. Those things are almost never clean, and especially not the ones that people share. For your own hygiene's sake, just use your own keyboard.

5:42 : I think, that is a good Idea. If your keyboard has the posibility to use custom layers, than just put the symbols on one of thouse, and make it aktivate by holding one of your thumbkeys. As for the 16 Key keyboard: By combining even the alphanumerics, you limit yourself, to how fast your keybaord can react between "this key is held" and "this key was tapped". Sure you can tweak those timing values, but your personal timing will also vary over the day. A fast typer as yourself will constantly need to change and tweak thouse timings. My Dygma Raise has the same feature, where I can make any key do something different on hold, and on tap respectively and it just does not work for me. I constantly feel like I'm told by the keyboard, how fast I can go. In addition, without any LEDs to tell what "Mode" the keyboard is in, there is always this uncertainty about if I'm typing at the right speed and I hate that.

C-c-c-combo Breaker!!!

Hardware is hard, but it is also very satisfying . And building something you use every day is even a better thing. Be careful of the rabbit hole though

I'm using a Ferris Sweep for a year it's amazing all the things that I can do with only 34 keys. You should try it.

top crossovers in prime history

To make Mac a bit more bareble to use, there is Yabai or Amathyst for a tiling WM, and hammerspoon for using Lua to program various behaviours, setup global hotkeys etc. I find that the default WM of MacOS is mouse centric with keyboard shortcuts feeling like an afterthought, so to me these type of FOSS apps are essential to make MacOS usable for my workflow. Given the choise I would go for a Linux machine with Hyperland, but that is sadly not allowed in the corporate setting I work at, so gotta settle for MacOS which beats out WSL on a very locked down Windows Machine :P

Someone needs to get you the Work Louder Creator board or their mini micro ..