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Issue #1, April 2005

Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2

UNIX keyboards done the right way

Author: Daniel de Kok

Introduction

Every UNIX user who has ever touched more than Kate or gedit knows that standard PC keyboards are plain wrong. First, of all the ESC and CTRL keys are wrongly placed. Besides that the average keyboard is like a dinosaur when you only need a few letters for navigation. One common technique to solve the first problem is to remap Caps lock to CTRL, and the backtick key to ESC. But PFU Limited (a Fujitsu company) has made a series of keyboards designed to solve both problems, the Happy Hacking Keyboard.

Since I am an avid elvis/vim/nvi user I have been watching development around the Happy Hacking Keyboard (HHKB) for quite some time. Recently I purchased a HHKB Lite 2 white USB for $59.95 from Linux Central. I chose for the Lite 2 version for two reasons: the other models are to expensive for a student budget, and it has inverted T arrow keys. Both the normal and Pro versions do not have inverted T arrows, but I think it is certainly possible to manage to survive without.

Keyboard characteristics

The keyboard arrived in a somewhat cheap looking blue box, that contains has a short and handy overview of the keyboard and keyboard settings on the back. It was only until I opened the box that I realized how small the keyboard actually is (quite cute). The footprint of the HHKB is compared to other keyboards on the website, but when you actually see the keyboard, the cut-off seems really radical. It really cleans up my desk.

A pic of the HHKB

Blowfish is guarding the keyboard

The keyboard has some really nice features, like two upstream USB ports (of course, only the USB version), that are very handy when you carry around USB mass storage alot. Besides that there are some dip switches hidden behind a small plate that you can pop off. The table listed below gives a short overview of the dip switches.

Table 1. Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 dip switches

Dip switch Description
1 Enable/disable upstream USB ports
2 Not used
3 Delete is delete/Delete is backspace
4 Swapping of ALT and diamond keys

These dip switches are well-documented in the Japanese/English leaflet that is included in the box. At first the switches looked a bit easily breakable to me, but I managed to use them without breaking anything, and I am probably only going to set the switches once.

Configuring the keyboard

Configuring the keyboard involves two steps: setting the dip switches, and setting up the software. I turned switch 3 to let the delete key act as backspace, since I use backspace quite a lot when I am editing.

As I expected the software configuration turned out to be a no-brainer: hotplugging + kernel USB magic automatically detected the keyboard:

input: USB HID v1.00 Keyboard [Chicony  PFU-65 USB Keyboard] on usb-0000:00:10.0-2.1
    

How it feels

Immediately after plugging in the keyboard and typing some shell commands it occured to me that the HHKB feels very natural in my hands. It feels like the keyboard is well thought-out, and that even normal letter keys feel better than an average keyboard. Having the CTRL and ESC keys at another place did not involve much of a relearning curve. I never used CTRL or ESC remappings, but automatically started to use the CTRL and ESC correctly on the HHKB.

The HHKB Lite 2 keys use a membrane switch that is depressed by a rubber cap. This gives a minor click, but not as much as old IBM keyboards. I personally severy dislike keyboards without a click, because it gives good feedback when I type. My fingers have got used to that over years. The click on this keyboard is just about right. The key pressure of the Lite 2 keyboard is about 55g, which feels pretty normal.

My primary critique about the HHKB is that the backtick key is at an awkward place. Is use it quite a lot when I am editing shell scripts. This can be worked around by remapping the diamond key.

Conclusion

Although keyboards are a matter of personal preference, I wholeheartedly recommend the Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 to anyone who uses Slackware Linux in a UNIXy way. If you are not used to work wth UNIX editors like vi, it may be a bit hard to get used to the HHKB, since some keys are not directly available (like the function keys). But if you are, this keyboard just feels perfect, with everything you need available without much hand movement. If you are still using a lot of garbage keys this is a good opportunity to learn to het rid of them.

After using the HHKB for a short while you will see how used you get to it when you use another keyboard. You will be hitting the Caps lock key all the time. But there really is no excuse not to cary a USB HHKB with you with its current size. I would love to get my hands on a normal or Pro version of the keyboard, but with the price tags of the other versions, I guess nobody has a spare for me ;).



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