I’ve been practising the ISRT layout on https://keybr.com/ and am slowly getting used to it. The Miryoku system of layers is quite easy to work with, but I’ve noticed a couple of issues:

1. Sometimes I am tripping over the tap-dance and modiier kuys in the base layer.
2. When I was typing lots of numbers fos work, I noticed some discomfort in my wrist fsom holding down the number layer thumb key.

I found some ergonomic mouse pads to provide some better wrist support. However, another video I recently saw on Ben Vallack’s ZSA Voyager keyboard led me to rethink the use of layer keys on the thumbs.

I have been training on the Colemak-DH layout with my Corne keyboards, and I am getting used to it, even though my typing speed is still slow. I found another video from Ben Vallack about the ZSA Voyager keyboard, and looked into his layout on that keyboard. He seems to have dropped the idea of layer toggles due to the increased cognitive load of keeping track of which layer you are in. Instead, he now holds his home row keys to select layers. I might look into this approach at some point, but for now I am quite happy with the Miryoku setup.

I’ve had so much fun with my Corne V4 keyboard, I decided to take advantage of the sale the vendor had going, and order a second one! My idea was to keep the 46-key Corne at home connected to my Linux workstation, and acquire a 40-key Corne V4 mini to carry around with my laptop. I ordered the same choc brown switches as before, but instead of black keycaps I ordered white keycaps. This would allow me to swap the different coloured keycaps in order to better highlight the home keys.

I’ve been continuing my journey into split mechanical keyboards. The 46-key Corne v4 Board that I recently bought seemed to have an unreliable USB connection on the left-hand side, with it losing power if the cable was lightly depressed. If the USB cable was connected to the right-hand side then it worked reliably. I decided to disassemble the left hand side and inspect the soldering on the USB connector to see if there could be a dry joint.

I’ve been experimenting a bit more with the Corne keyboard. I saw a video from Ben Vallack where he lays out a mapping for his 34-key keyboard.

In this video, he explains how holding down layer and modifier keys can cause fatigue, which he avoids by using “sticky” layer keys and “one-shot” modifiers. In the layout I am currently using, I use a similar layer scheme to Ben in which the shift key is moved to the left thumb. This is the layout I am currently working with:

I recently acquired a pre-built Corne 46-key ergonomic split keyboard.

Rather than use the default QWERTY keyboard arrangement, I have programmed it to use a COLEMAK-DH layout, which allows for much more efficient typing. Because there are a reduced number of keys, many of the keys need to be overloaded with multiple functions. This is normally done with two techniques:

• Tap-Modifiers: If you tap a key, it will output its normal character. However, if you hold the key, it can act as a modifier such as Shift, Ctrl, Alt, etc.. This means you don’t need to dedicate separate keys for this, and these modifiers can be placed on the home row of the keyboard where you don’t need to reach for them.
• Layers: just like how you hold the SHIFT key to get uppercase characters, you can define layers of your keyboard that can be accessed through “custom SHIFT” aka “layer” keys.

The layer scheme that I chose is based on a 36-key layout called “miryoku ”, which is a well thought-out design for minimalist keyboards. The layers are selected through the three keys at the bottom of each half by using your thumbs.