I learned something about keyboards

As it turns out, the empty space between the Alt and Ctrl keys seems to be there for a reason:

The side of the hand needs room here.

On a real keyboard, one with real key travel, if you don’t put your hands on some kind of padding, the meaty side of your right hand will fit in this space!

I learned this when, on a whim and with only one usable keyboard left (a sad Model M) I picked up a little 82-key AJazz AK33 board. This board sports the modern world’s unserious attempt at approximating buckling keys – Cherry Blue-esquers. But, hey, it’s small. Or something. And lighted. And has some key roll-over.

Ajazz AK33 with no slot for the right hand to fit in to.

But it didn’t work for me. Turns out, my right hand would push the left arrow key at random – usually when hitting a burst of keys.

Luck was good, though. I got one of my ~30 year old NMB buckling spring boards working again. They aren’t the best keyboard ever made (i.e. an IBM AT board), but they are up there.