Thanks for creating bucklespring!

[aerosayan]

Hi,

I have carpal tunnel pain from my first software engineering job out of college.

Even now, I code 8 hours daily on a humble Logitech K120 membrane keyboard that provides no tactical feedback. Due to this combination, my carpal tunnel pain flared up horribly in the last year. I don't blame the Logitech keyboard. It's a good keyboard, as I will state later. But, basically, without any tactical feedback, I was exerting more pressure and further damaging my hands.

After I started using bucklespring, just because I found it to be nostalgic and cool, I observed that something was different. My keyboard was actually quite good, and a 2-3 mm press was enough to trigger the keys. Previously I was pressing the keys completely to their bottom position 1cm in, due to not having tactical feedback. I didn't need to.

I now code with headphones on, and with bucklespring activated, and can almost glide through writing 200 lines of code, without feeling any pain, and further damaging my arms.

Thanks for creating bucklespring.

I can't explain in words how much helpful it's for me!

~Sayan

[zevv]

Dude, that is one excellent and totally unintended side effect of what is basically just and escalated joke!

But this really tells how important and underrated a good keyboard is; people gladly spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on big and fast hardware, but often do not spend a second thought on the keyboard they will be pounding on for 8 or more hours every day.

If Bucklespring is sufficient to help you out with your CTS, good for you! - but you still might want to consider finding yourself a different keyboard with a lot of travel in the keys and a nice "bump" at the end for real tactile feedback.

You only have one pair of hands, better take good care of them!

[aerosayan]

Would it be possible for you to add sounds for other types of keyboards too?

The sound samples could be submitted by other users.

[alexmyczko]

@aerosayan I'm trying to add http://sid.ethz.ch/debian/bucklespring-typewriter/

[jason-mehmel]

@alexmyczko This is out of the blue but I'd be happy to help test on a Debian system! I'm running BunsenLabs right now.

I've also got a couple of great mechanical typewriters so I could do some sound recordings of both the 'down' and 'release' effects, or do some tweaking of audio clips I've found online!

[HenrikBengtsson]

I'd like to add another scenario where this tool is very valuable. When a mute person uses text-to-speech (TTS) to communicate with others, for instance when sitting in the same room but also over the phone, the latency from starting to write a word until the word is completed and spoken makes the flow of the communication awkward and out of sync. By adding sounds to each key pressed, the listener can hear each key press they know the person is responding and in what tempo. This makes it much easier on the listener, removes the "suspense", and overall tremendously improves the flow of communication. (This is based on personal experience helping a person with speech issues who already used TTS)

[zevv]

Brilliant, I'm very happy to hear that what started out as a silly toy is actually making people's lives better!