Search for the Ideal Programmer Keyboard

Published 2026-02-24 See other articles

Your keyboard design is likely based on a 150 years old workaround – and I'm not referring to the QWERTY layout. The Sholes and Glidden typewriter (1874) was the first commercially successful typewriter. Its rows of buttons were staggered, so that no two buttons are on the same vertical line, to accommodate the metal arms:

This constraint was removed over 50 years ago with the introduction of electronic typewriters such as the IBM Selectric (1961). It's about time to design keyboards for humans.

TypeMatrix 2030

In 2011, I bought my first keyboard with a non-staggered button layout: the TypeMatrix 2030. It takes a couple of weeks to get used to, but after that it will feel the most natural way to type.

The straight vertical lines of the buttons are good for the finger joints; no sideways finger twisting needed to reach the alphanumeric keys. The Enter key can be pressed with the strong index finger instead of the weak pinky, and the Shift keys are large – vertically – and easy to press with the pinky finger. Unfortunately, the keyboard's small size requires keeping hands close together, which strains wrists.

In the above picture, the keyboard has a protective silicone skin. However, it makes all keys feel mushy and inaccurate, so I always used the keyboard without the skin.

...which leads us to the repairability of the keyboard: I once spilled some tea on the keyboard, making multiple keys nonfunctional. I was able to open it and repair the corroded conductive lines with electric paint. Unfortunately, opening the case required physically breaking multiple plastic clips, so the only way to reassemble it was to use superglue.

The button layout has some issues. Since all the buttons are in a symmetric grid, it is hard to locate the arrow keys without looking at the keyboard. I used all blank keys, which made it even harder to find all the special keys, so I always had a button layout printout nearby. Since then, I've preferred normal printed keys, despite the reduced hacker credibility.

There are lots of media keys, but that's not what a programmer needs. A programmer needs all the keys of a 105-key keyboard, including Insert, Pause, and Print Screen, and they need to be pressable with all combinations of Ctrl/Alt/Shift. This keyboard makes the common sin of placing many of them behind the Fn key, which makes some IDE hotkeys inaccessible. TypeMatrix does not provide a way to remap the buttons to different keys. I was able to remap some of them using a third-party program, but not all.

Truly Ergonomic Model 209

The next ergonomic keyboard I've used is Truly Ergonomic Model 209 (TEK-N-209-US), bought in 2016. Like TypeMatrix, the buttons are vertically aligned, but additionally the button columns are staggered to match the finger lengths. The layout spreads out from the middle, so that the wrists can stay straight, and there are wrist supports. The keys have a good feel (Cherry MX Brown) and the arrow keys are shaped so that you can find them easily with just your touch.

The location of the arrow keys and Home/End/PageUp/PageDown is not ergonomic. Those keys are used all the time when navigating code, but in this keyboard their location is worse than in a traditional keyboard; moving your whole arm up/down is much slower than turning your elbow left/right.

Some special keys are behind the Fn key, but the keyboard supports remapping all keys. I haven't tried it, but one idea would be to replace the Windows key above Del with Insert, and map the blank buttons in the bottom corners to the Windows and Menu keys. Also Alt+Tab is difficult to press – you need to use two hands for it. There is an embedded numpad, which you can toggle with the button on the right side of Fn, but an external numpad would be better.

This keyboard has some quality issues; there were over a dozen keys which would randomly produce zero or double characters with one key press, known as switch bounce/chatter. This is common enough a problem that it's in the manufacturer's FAQ. Eventually I managed to fix the problem by cleaning all the keys: remove the key caps, press a switch down and spray electronic cleaner inside it, hit the key a hundred times, wait for it to dry up, test all the keys with Switch Hitter and repeat for all malfunctioning keys. Some keys I had to clean more than five times until they worked reliably enough.

The search continues

The difficulty of pressing some hotkeys has for now moved me to traditional keyboard layouts. Currently, I'm primarily coding on an Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and numpad. The ability to unlock 1Password with a fingerprint is a massive convenience.

I've shortly tried out the Kinesis Advantage, but its keys were slightly too small and cramped for me. That's a shame, because I was hopeful about it.

At Codefreeze 2024, we had a session about custom keyboards. I learned about DIY keyboard communities where people design their own keyboard layouts using tools like Ergogen. Somebody had brought a collection of 72 switches, so that you could feel them out and find our favorite. I liked Kailh Box Navy and Kailh Speed Bronze the most. I haven't yet investigated how deep the rabbit hole of DIY keyboards goes, but it's tempting...

Speaking of key switches, I've had bad experiences with mechanical switches. My Truly Ergonomic had issues with keypresses registering twice, and my Logitech G910 Orion Spectrum (bought in 2018) has started having same issues. (Also in other respects, it's best to avoid Logitech. That keyboard's left Ctrl keycap broke, and I'm not the only one. The keycaps are held in place by thin plastic strips. They break easily, and you can't buy replacements for individual keys. I ended up swapping the left and right Ctrl keycaps, and glued the broken one in place with superglue.)

I've been happy with the optical switches on Razer DeathStalker V2 Pro Tenkeyless (bought in 2025). I use it on my gaming PC. I play from a couch, using a TV as the monitor, so wirelessness is required. (I also have a Logitech K830, bought in 2015, which I use nowadays only in VR flight sims. It's wireless and has a touchpad. Those were its only good points.)

The DeathStalker uses quite much battery also in sleep mode, so I turn it off completely when I don't use it. Otherwise, it would run out of battery in a few days. (Hall effect switches use even more power than optical switches, which is why all Hall effect keyboards are wired.) That's the only negative I can find. The keys feel good, register with 100% reliability, and the keycaps are sturdy and easily replaceable. Even its switches should be hot-swappable with other optical switches. Props to Razer for repairability.

In the future, I plan to buy only Hall effect or optical switches. They've been popular in gaming keyboards since Wooting pioneered them in 2019. Though the switches' speed doesn't matter when programming, their reliability is totally worth it.

This is a revised version of the article published in the Nitor blog in 2018.