The Upgrade

A brief reflection and look at how far our community has come since joining. I’ve been in the mechanical keyboard hobby for a very long time. It started as a high school student’s search for a keyboard for writing novels back in the 2008-2009 school year. I thought I wanted to be an author and I felt I needed a keyboard that I could sit down to at my desk and just write. After researching, joining forums, and saving money, I made my first purchase in the hobby, a blank black Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2. I still own this keyboard and while it is heavily modded now, it remains one of my all-time favorites. My HHKB Pro2 with MitchCapped Accents Many people would have stopped there, but keyboards became a hobby. I enjoyed learning about them, and early on, I enjoyed hunting for them in thrift shops. I would dig through bins at Goodwill and Salvation Army while popping keycaps off with paperclips looking for mechanical switches. I searched for a birthday Model M...

The SpaceFN concept - setting up your space key as a layer switch when held - is probably one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby. Let me explain how it works. My SpaceFN article on kbd.news made some rounds recently - quite surprisingly given the age of this concept. This piece you're reading is a condensed version of the full post. If you're left with unanswered questions, you'll most likely find the info you're looking for in the original write-up. On my imaginary top list of the most useful keyboard features, tweaks and hacks, SpaceFN would deserve a podium finish for sure. But what makes it so special? In short: SpaceFN is easy to implement, easy to learn, costs nothing, can be used with any keyboard, and can improve your productivity instantly. I will list its benefits below, but can state right at this point that the SpaceFN concept, setting up your space key as a layer switch when held, is clearly one of the most useful tweaks in the keyboard hobby....