Re: What is a keybinds Richard Stallman uses?

[Thorsten Jolitz]

chad <address@hidden> writes:

> On 30 Jun 2014, at 11:44, J. David Boyd <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:

>>> I have caps-lock treated as ctrl at the system level.
>> 
>> Me too.  That always has seemed like a great idea.
>
> I did this for years, and then recently discovered an alternative
> suggestion that I'm trying now: remapping caps-lock into a second
> delete key. 

I vaguely remember that I once saw a picture of the original keyboard
RMS used back in the old times when figuring out Emacs keybindings, and
that keyboard had Ctrl and Meta keys at both sides of the Space
key. Maybe that picture inspired me to try another approach that works
quite well for me:

 1. Use a small compact USB keyboard with a really (!) short space key
    (spanning from 'v' to 'm' at most), here in Germany e.g. KeySonic
    Minikeyboard or Hama Slimline keyboard.

 2. remap backspace to menu and caps-lock to backspace

 3. remap (and somehow rearrange physical keys) of the bottom row like
    this (with k being 'other key'):
    
| AltGr | k | k | k | Alt | Ctrl | SPACE | Ctrl | Alt | AltGr | k |

 4. Use right and left thumb for SPACE and for right and left Ctrl/Alt
    respectively (and even for right AltGr), use left pinky for left
    AltGr and Backspace (ex CapsLock)

This is only possible due to the very short SPACE key, but I would say
it is still more than long enough (why do we need a SPACE key that is >
4cm wide anyway if we are able to hit other more remote keys that are
just 0.5cm wide?).

The typing is quite different with this system, Ctrl-d means
e.g. [right-thumb & 2nd-finger-left-hand], Alt-o means [left-thumb &
3nd-finger-right-hand] etc. The hand barely moves, using Ctrl, Alt and
AltGr is symmetrical just like using Shift (-> use right
Ctrl/Alt/AltGr/Shift when typing on the left half of the keyboard, use
left Ctrl/Alt/AltGr/Shift when typing on the right half of the
keyboard).

I cannot say anyhing about avoiding RSI with this system because I had
that problem already before I started using Emacs and learned touch
typing, and as a late starter I'm no typing wizard anyway.

But it feels quite efficient and easy on the hands. 

-- 
cheers,
Thorsten