MAN AND HIS KEYBOARD
2025.06.22 Krzysztof Krystian Jankowski

I read of many novelists that they were or still are completely obsessed about what typewriter they were using or are using to this day, even in the digital world we all living. It is a romantic idea that I did not understand then but start to understand it now - when I have my perfect setup. I was born with a computer next to me, an IBM clone running MS-DOS. To this day I prefer a simple text editor instead of full blown text processors. In the end a text is a text, and if I really need any formatting, well there is a markdown language to help me with that. You can say that I'm living in the text editor doing all my notes there, code all the games and programs, interact with AI agents, plan things, and keep all the temporary text things I use in the web software. I do not trust anything web related, one refresh of the page and everything's gone.

Over the years I was using mechanical keyboards and VS Code in desktop, nano in terminal, Edit in DOS. I did try Vi and WordStar both excellent in their own niches - the problem is that in the end I get back to simpler things that I could do more than just writing or just coding, preferably one that can be used on any OS. Back to the keyboards, once I got my first mechanical keyboard I was sold, nothing else could come close to those as all the PC and laptop keyboards become cheap, crappy imitations of good old hardware. As I mostly write and not do spreadsheets I only needed the 80 most important keys, thus having those smaller keyboards. Life was good, typing speed fast but as I get older my wrist starts to hurt. First was because of the mouse usage - I changed to trackballs, then I learned about split keyboards and why they were invented in the first place. To my surprise it was not to make them look fancier but to keep your hands in the most natural position, where the wrists are not bended but always in a straight position - as they should. I did not have enough budget to buy mechanical, split keyboard as those have unbelievable pricetags, instead I looked at the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard, it was cheap, has good reviews and in my mind they were doing those ergonomic variants for as long as I remember - so they must know something about them. Those keyboards looks silly with the bended profile like some medical device for handicapped programmers. I bought one for experiment, to test if there's something special or it's just a marketing gimmick that stood the test of time for some reason. The one I'm talking about is new, still in production. Boy, did I know nothing about them.

Once I got one in my hands I was surprised how good quality it was made, also how big it is. 102 buttons plus some special multimedia row and a big wrist resting area in front, made of rubber like material that is nice in touch and actually works for resting. Splitting keyboard in half and making it angled is really working, the hands are placed naturally, but you only understand that once you get back to "normal" keyboards and feel that something is odd and you need to bend the wrists un-naturally. The coolest thing about the keyboard is the actual curved profile of it - making each key closer or further away to the finger that should push it, normalizing that distance. Combine it with the gap in the middle and you got most typist keyboard layout possible. It is so natural to type with "right" fingers instead of abusing the pointer finger for everything just because each proper key is just under the dedicated finger and using it otherwise is just harder. This is hard to explain on paper but as you start typing you immediately discover that all the keys are just in the right position.

Software wise I moved from VS Code to Zed - even lighter and simpler editor that has AI Agents built in. It's similar but lightning fast making the whole experience feel like using a dedicated typewriter. I changed the font to "Royal Quiet Deluxe" that is made from Royal Deluxe classic portable typewriter, favorite of Ernest Hemingway. Going full screen on a ThinkPad with the Ergonomic keyboard placed on top of it make the whole setup feels like a modern recreation of a typewriter but better - way more ergonomic and with all the benefits of digital world. I can sync my files between computers, have them backed up in real time, do corrections easily, and use AI as spellchecking that not only fixes stupid mistakes but can also rewrite portions of my text to any needs I have. As in real typewriter whatever you type stays on the physical paper, here in Zed whatever you type stays in the file buffer even if the software crashes (never happened) or the OS was restarted, once opened everything not saved is still there. It's quite useful for those quick temporary notes I keep on separate tabs that I just need for a moment but don't want to lose them until they're not needed.

People will tell you that AI is pure evil and you should never use it. I'm on the opposite side of this and think it is one of the greatest tools made in the IT world since the internet, but you need to keep in mind it is a tool not a replacement for anything. For writers it is not replacing them but enhance their work in two ways: for knowledge and for fixing mistakes. Back in the days to check some historical information or learn something more about obscure topic one needed to spend long hours in local library, recently doing same thing trying to find reliable source on the internet, ending on shady sites full of ads, but with the bringing of AI agents it's a matter of requesting this and waiting for the notification after the agent do all that boring searching and summarizing work for the writer. Same goes with spellcheckers that only works on individual words. What about punctuation or paraphrasing paragraphs that the author got lost and get to the wall, couldn't figure out why it's bad and how to make it better. Remember whatever AI proposes you do not need to accept and can reject or ask for another try, finally tweaking the given result by hand. It's the best ghostwriter you could get.

Summarizing, I'm using a ThinkPad notebook with a slapped Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard on it with a fullscreen Zed editor that uses Royal font to render the text, and Claude as my ghostwriter/assistant.