It's struck me too: I never seem to use the left thumb. I don't feel tired in the right thumb though.

It's a shame that such a nice strong finger sees no use. I'm thinking what to do about it. Tomlu's use of dual AltGr keys could be of interest, or another modifier altogether. I wish I could split my space bar!

Hmmm... I wonder whether a keyboard like the Siemens KBPC-E could be hacked to send different scan codes for the two halves of the split space bar? That'd be interesting!

Dreymar: I am as you may know from other threads evaluating a Kinesis Freestyle, which is almost the same keyboard as that Siemens. I too have been thinking really hard about a way to remap the left space bar. The scan codes that come from the keyboard are unsurprisingly indistinguishable between the left and right keys, so I don't think you can do it in software.

I emailed Kinesis about any way to do it in hardware but am yet to receive a reply. I can't think of anything save reprogram the keyboard rom, which would almost be feasible, but I am not sure how one would find the one byte to replace in the rom image since it will hardly be unique (the scan code is 29 hex).

If you can think of anything or know anyone that might be of help I would be grateful.

Was this a deliberate decision? How long have you been typing and what is your speed? Cheers.

I'm going to have a try at using the left thumb exclusively for a few days. My speed has dropped from 55-60wpm to about 35! If I can build a bit of speed, this might prove useful for laptop use.

The guy from Kinesis tech support emailed back, and check this out: They offered to replace the firmware for a modest charge. I would have to send it in which will prove expensive as it would have to make a return trip across the Atlantic. I'll see if they are willing to just send me a few reprogrammed eeproms.

No, it wasn't a deliberate decision. By the time I realized it wasn't normal, I'd been doing it that was for years, and I tried switching but it wasn't comfortable.

I've been typing for about 12 years, probably. I currently type QWERTY at about 85-90 WPM, and Colemak between 90 and 100. In the past, I typed Dvorak at 90-100 and Arensito around 75, but I've now dropped those in favor of Colemak at home and work, and QWERTY anywhere that I really have to use it.

As you say webwit, it does get easier, even after just a few days there is much less of a thinking delay, but I'm not sure if it will ever feel completely natural. I am going to continue practice using the left thumb for a few minutes each day though.

Has anyone heard from Shai lately? It'd be nice to have his thoughts on the subject...

Update on the experiment:

It has been one and a half weeks since I started experimenting using my left thumb to hit the spacebar. To be honest, I have spent very little time practising; probably an hour or two at most. The surprising thing for me is that it already feels a lot more natural. There is still a slightly longer pause than using my right thumb, but my brain and hands have adapted very well.

At first it felt really alien. It still does a little, but I'm sure with practice it would become less and less so. Every day or two I would think, "Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be using the other thumb as well." I'd practice for a couple of minutes and then go back to normal. It's nice to know that if I ever feel strain, I can just switch thumbs.

As the spacebar is approximately used 18% of the time, it's probably beneficial to give your dominant thumb a break, every once in a while.

As a Dvorak typist, as soon as I learned that with this layout the right hand does more work, I started hitting the space bar with my left thumb. That is: it was a reasoned switch. It required a couple of days to feel natural. Now I find that way comfortable.

For those who are curious about trying a Japanese keyboard, here is one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?VI … 0373646656

Yes, seller is USA based, but I don't think that worldwide shipping would be much, since membrane keyboards are not that heavy. I'm not interested in membrane keyboard, otherwise I would have grabbed it.

Directly from Japan:

http://74.125.43.132/translate_c?hl=de& … 8Z1yHrnn4A

http://74.125.43.132/translate_c?hl=de& … AezfN1BQ4Q

I was thinking about this as it relates to the Dvorak keyboard, and how it may offset the right hand; but does it actually balance the workload in practice?

I have a lot of trouble with right arm / hand pain due to years of mouse use and I exclusively use my left hand for the space bar to balance things out.

I've tried this.  But I used to have a keyboard which had the spacebar split into space and backspace.  So it was hard for me to get into!

If you think about it though, it might not actually help.

If your word ends with a vowel (Dvorak that means the left hand), you might think  hitting with the right thumb is then a good idea, but it's quite likely that you'll then have a new word start with a consonant.  Which is probably going to be on the right hand (under Dvorak).  So I don't really see many gains to be had by alternating the space.

You'll need to do text analysis for your layout to see if it's worth it.

If however you find it more comfortable using one over the other, when you are pre-empting the next motion, there could be gains there.

I'd suggest trying exclusive left, and exclusive right, then you might start to find afterwards that you'll naturally reach for what feels more comfortable, depending on what you are typing.

I miss my backspace on the left thumb...  On my Thinkpad it gets the left click (above the touchpad).

I guess there are worse ways to use an apple key.  In general, however, keys that can ought to be mapped to modifiers; that way they add 8 new home row keys and up to 20 others rather than just that one.

This would allow you to put symbols, for example, as RightApple+[home row or easily reachable], while keeping all the extend mappings as they are.

I regret that I have only one altgr and reserve my caps for ctrl.