Hacker Timesnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The inverted-T has never made any sense to me. It makes it easy to keep your fingers on left and right, but you can only easily have a single finger on either up or down.

The only time I use an inverted-T is when playing games that use wasd and it really doesn't make sense there, to the extent that when I used to be really into Q3A I started using asdf. (asdf, unlike hjlk, has unfortunately not stayed in my muscle memory.)

The importance of any sort of t-shape is only clear to me if the user cannot type.



Back in the really old days.. I used to map the left ctrl-shift, and z-x as down,up,left,right respectively... it was pretty comfortable, and the muscle memory made it really effective... the position on ctrl, vs shift was physically up/down, but let my hand still be in a natural shape. After around Q3A though, I just got used to wasd, and got tired of remapping all my games around, since it usually messed up other keys, and the inverted T is very common.


I was having some trouble trying to figure out how ctrl/shift/z/x was comfortable at all, but then I realized the idiotic ctrl/fn positioning on this thinkpad was my issue. Seems like a layout with some potential.


You can probably swap Ctrl/Fn in the BIOS settings on your ThinkPad -- I have, it's much more sane.


> The inverted-T has never made any sense to me. It makes it easy to keep your fingers on left and right, but you can only easily have a single finger on either up or down.

Contracting fingers to slide between up and down keys is a lot easier than sliding them sideways.


Just adopt a "never retreat" policy in FPS. (I suck at FPS, BTW.)


There is no sliding when I use hjkl.


Do you find yourself frequently pressing j and k simultaneously?


Simultaneously? No. No more often than any other keys which my fingers are both on.




Consider applying for YC's Summer 2026 batch! Applications are open till May 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: