34 Keys Is All You Need: An Ergonomic Keyboard Journey

Watch a 34-minute conference talk from EclipseCon 2022 exploring the evolution and modernization of keyboard design. Discover how the open source community has revolutionized keyboard technology through physical layout improvements, advanced firmware features, and alternative typing layouts. Learn about columnar stagger, split keyboards, thumb clusters, and splay as hardware innovations that address the limitations of 19th-century keyboard design. Explore modern firmware capabilities including layers, mod-taps, caps word, and combos. Understand why QWERTY was intentionally designed to slow typing and examine contemporary alternatives like Dvorak, Colemak-DHm, and Miryoku. Follow speaker Mattia Dal Ben from Eurotech as he demonstrates these concepts through his daily driver: a 34-key bluetooth split keyboard utilizing ZMK open source firmware and the Miryoku layout.